The Archpoet (12th century)

‘The Archpoet’ is the name given to a writer of a handful of Latin lyrics of which this ‘Confession’ is the most famous. Almost nothing is known about his identity or the details of his life.

Imagine a priest or monk, accused of a string of vices. The ‘Confession’ confronts the accusations and gleefully admits to them all.

There’s a debate about whether it’s genuinely autobiographical or a rhetorical exercise, and that is unlikely to be answered. But the poem was popular in its own time: the attraction of saying, yes, I am all the things you say I am and why should I not be, may have been as powerful then as it is now, especially amongst people who do none of the things they’d like to admit to having done.

The translation is by Helen Waddell and taken from ‘The Wandering scholars’ which is one of the great books about the middle ages. Waddell claimed this poem ‘is something more than the arch-type of a generation of vagabond scholars, or the greatest drinking song in the world: it is the first defiance by the artist of that society which it is his thankless business to amuse: the first cry from the House of the Potter, "Why hast thou made me thus?". (P.265)

Enjoy.