Published in Music in Antiquity, Middle Ages & Renaissance

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The purpose of this article is to present reminiscences of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy in three goliard poems by Carmina Burana. To demonstrate the identity of rhetorical and philosophical style: consolatio, between the poems of Book I-II of the Consolation of Philosophy and the selected Goliard poems. From which we will glimpse their potential to awaken consolatory and therapeutic philosophical reflection. All this in an almost abysmal leap between the 5th century AD and the 13th century AD. The survival of the consolatio, not only as a rhetorical-poetic style but also as a spiritual exercise that continues to be present in monastic and clerical life, will be substantiated. To do this, first, we will justify in general the importance of the Consolation of Philosophy in courtly and monastic life, that is, its reception in the Latin Middle Ages. Then we will elaborate on the philosophical practice and the exercises that emerge around the speeches and consoling verses, which although they lack argumentation, in their entire poetic splendour, awaken the philosophical reflection of the present towards past goods, the loss of virtue and the deceptive nature of Fortune. Everything is resolved in four movements: aegritudo or perturbatio, lethargum, avocatio mentis, revocatio mentis that make up the consolation or recovery of what makes the soul and reason “sick”. To culminate our journey on such a therapeuo, we propose the key content that all the work signifies, a comparative analysis between the Boecian verses and the Burano verses.