The Goliards, beloved of English writers such as Samuel Butler and Jonathan Swift-both of whom borrowed their strategies of satirical verse-were, in effect, a literary and spoken-word protest movement. Among them were the Goliards, clerical students from France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England who protested the contradictions of the Church, from the Crusades to its financial abuses, expressing themselves through lewd performance, song, and satiric poetry. Control of the voice and of text slipped away from the Church and toward those wandering singers, those poets on the loose who sang in the marketplace. New compositions relied on secular and vernacular texts in order to employ new vocal devices. A papal bull-a charter written by the Pope, in this instance Pope John XXII-issued in 1324 listed the offences of this new music as: “doing violence to words … they intoxicate the ear without satisfying it, they dramatize the text with gestures and, instead of promoting devotion they prevent it by creating a sensuous and innocent atmosphere.” It was musical innovation, the pursuit of vocal polyphony and counterpoint, that threatened the Church and its steadfast plainsong and vocal chant.
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