During one class, we listened to a recording of Carl Orff's setting of Carmina Burana, a collection of poetry and song, thought to have been written by some of these wandering scholars and compiled sometime in the 13th century.   

Other than Carl Orff's settings, I don't suppose anyone had tackled the Benediktbeuren ms. (AKA Codex Branus / Carmina Burana) originals back in the 1950s, though the first of the two volume of Thomas Binkley & Studio der Fruhen Musik's Carmina Burana was recorded in the early 1960s. However so charming, the Binkley recordings sound very dated to our ears today as back in 1963 the modern performance of medieval music (vocal techniques, instrument reconstruction and technical practice) was still very much in its infancy. Happily Binkley himself would do much to remedy this in the coming years, but scroll on a mere decade to the mid 1970s and you have a landmark recording in the five volumes made by The Clemencic Consort for Harmonia Mundi in France.

Subsequently issued on CD, lost, overlooked, edited, anthologised, deleted, (and latterly re-recorded!) there's a dark authenticity & theatricality about the Clemencic Consort's Carmina Burana : Version Originale & Integrale that captivates and bewilders by turns with its heady mix of scholarship, virtuosity and ribald audacity. I've long pitied the casual listener who might chance upon these volumes under the assumption the music has something to do with Carl Orff...

These days you can listen to it all on YouTube, but here's a wee taste in the form of one of the lyrics Orff used in his setting, heard here as it might have sounded 800 years ago, but 40 seems long enough to me. Contrast & compare!

Clemencic Consort : In Taberna Quando Summus (CB196)