The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England / Including the Rural and Domestic Recreations, May Games, Mummeries, Shows, Processions, Pageants, and Pompous Spectacles from the Earliest Period to the Present Time

CHAPTER III.

The Britons were passionately fond of vocal and instrumental music: for this reason, the bards, who exhibited in one person the musician and the poet, were held in the highest estimation among them. "These bards," says an early historian, "celebrated the noble actions of illustrious persons in heroic poems which they sang to the sweet sounds of the lyre;" [574] and to this testimony we may add another of equal authority; "The British bards are excellent and melodious poets, and sing their poems, in which they praise some, and censure others, to the music of an instrument resembling a lyre." [575] Their songs and their music are said, by the same writer, to have been so exceedingly affecting, that "sometimes when two armies are standing in order of battle, with their swords drawn, and their lances extended upon the point of engaging in a most furious conflict, the poets have stepped in between them, and by their soft and fascinating songs calmed the fury of the warriors, and prevented the bloodshed. Thus, even among barbarians," adds the author, "rage gave way to wisdom, and Mars submitted to the Muses."

II.—THE NORTHERN SCALDS.

The scalds [576] were the poets and the musicians of the ancient northern nations; they resembled the bards of the Britons, and were held in equal veneration by their countrymen. The scalds were considered as necessary appendages to royalty, and even the inferior chieftains had their poets to record their actions and indulge their vanity.

III.—THE ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMEN.

Upon the establishment of the Saxons in Britain, these poetical musicians were their chief favourites; the courts of the kings, and the residences of the opulent afforded them a constant asylum; their persons were protected, and admission granted to them without the least restraint. In the Anglo-Saxon language they were distinguished by two appellations; the one equivalent to the modern term of gleemen or merry-makers, and the other harpers, derived from the harp, an instrument they usually played upon. Glıƿ or Gliᵹman; hence Gliᵹᵹamen, glee-games, are properly explained in Somner's Lexicon, by merry tricks, jests, sports, and gambols, which were expressive of their new acquirements: Heaꞃpeꞃe, the appellation of harper, was long-retained by the English rhymists. The gleemen added mimicry, and other means of promoting mirth to their profession, as well as dancing and tumbling, with sleights of hand, and variety of deceptions to amuse the spectators; it was therefore necessary for them to associate themselves into companies, by which means they were enabled to diversify their performances, and render many of them more surprising through the assistance of their confederates. In Edgar's oration to Dunstan, the mimi, or minstrels, are said to sing and dance; and, in the Saxon canons made in that king's reign, A.D. 960, (Can. 58.) it is ordered that no priest shall be a poet, ꞅceop, or exercise the mimical or histrionical art, in any degree, public or private. [577] Lye renders the words "ne ænıᵹe Ƿıꞅan ᵹlıƿıᵹe," nec ullo modo scurram agat. Upon this subject we shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter.

IV.—NATURE OF THE PERFORMANCES BY THE GLEEMEN.

Representations of some of these pastimes are met with occasionally in the early Latin and Saxon manuscripts; and where they do occur, we uniformly find that the illuminators, being totally ignorant of ancient customs and the habits of foreign nations, have not paid the least regard to propriety in the depicting of either, but substituted those of their own time, and by this means they have, without design on their part, become the communicators of much valuable information. The following observations upon two very early paintings will, I doubt not, in great measure confirm the truth of this assertion.

We here see a man throwing three balls and three knives alternately into the air, and catching them one by one as they fall, but returning them again in a regular rotation. To give the greater appearance of difficulty to this feat, it is accompanied with the music of an instrument resembling the modern violin. It is necessary to add, that these two figures, as well as those dancing, previously exhibited, form a part only of two larger paintings, which, in their original state, are placed as frontispieces to the Psalms of David; and in both, the artists have represented that monarch seated upon his throne in the act of playing upon the harp or the lyre, and surrounded by the masters of sacred music. In each the king is depicted considerably larger than the other performers, a compliment usually paid to saints and dignified persons; which absurdity has been frequently practised by the more modern painters. The inferior figures form a sort of border to the sides and bottom of the royal portrait. In addition to the four figures upon the engraving, No. 49, and exclusive of the king, there are four more, all of them instrumental performers; one playing upon the horn, another upon the trumpet, and the other two upon a kind of tabor or drum, which, however, is beaten with a single drum-stick: the manuscript in which this illumination is preserved, was written as early as the eighth century, and is in the Cotton Collection at the British Museum. [578] The engraving, No. 50, is from a painting on another manuscript in the same collection, [579] more modern than the former by full two centuries, which contains four figures besides the royal psalmist; the two not engraved are musicians: the one is blowing a long trumpet supported by a staff he holds in his left hand, and the other is winding a crooked horn. In a short prologue, immediately preceding the psalms, we read as follows: "David, filius Jesse, in regno suo quatuor elegit qui psalmos fecerunt, id est Asaph, Æman, Æthan, et Idithun;" which may be thus translated literally, "David, the son of Jesse, in his reign elected four persons who composed psalms, that is to say, Asaph, Æman, Æthan, and Idithun." In the painting these four names are separately appropriated, one to each of the four persons there represented; the player upon the violin is called Idithun, and Æthan is tossing up the knives and the balls.

I have been thus particular in describing these curious delineations, because I think they throw much light upon the profession of the Anglo-Saxon gleeman, and prove that his exhibitions were diversified at a very early period; for the reader, I doubt not, will readily agree with me, that dancing and sleights of hand were better calculated for secular pastimes, than for accompaniments to the solemn performances of sacred psalmody. The honest illuminators having no ideas, as I before observed, of foreign or ancient manners, saw not the absurdity of making the Jewish monarch a president over a company of Saxon gleemen; they had heard, no doubt, that these persons, whose names they found recorded in the book of Psalms, were poets and musicians; and therefore naturally concluded that they were gleemen, because they knew no others who performed in that double capacity but the gleemen: they knew also, that these facetious artists were greatly venerated by persons of the highest rank, and their company requested by kings and princes, who richly rewarded them for the exercise of their talents, and for this reason, conceived that they were proper companions for the royal psalmist.

V.—A ROYAL PLAYER WITH THREE DARTS.

The sleight of casting up a certain number of sharp instruments into the air, and catching them alternately in their fall, though part of the gleeman's profession, was not entirely confined to this practice. It is said of Olaf Fryggeson, one of the ancient kings of Norway, that he could play with three darts at once, tossing them in the air, and always kept two up while the third was down in his hand. [580] Our Saxon joculator, however, has the advantage of the monarch by adding the three balls, which of course must have made the trick more difficult to be performed.

VI.—BRAVERY OF A MINSTREL IN THE CONQUEROR'S ARMY.

The celebrated minstrel Taillefer, who came into England with William the Norman, was a warrior as well as a musician. He was present at the battle of Hastings, and appeared at the head of the conqueror's army, singing the songs of Charlemagne and of Roland; but previous to the commencement of the action, he advanced on horseback towards the army of the English, and, casting his spear three times into the air, he caught it as often by the iron head; and the fourth time he threw it among his enemies, one of whom he wounded in the body: he then drew his sword, which he also tossed into the air as many times as he had done his spear, and caught it with such dexterity, that those who saw him attributed his manœuvres to the power of enchantment.

After he had performed these feats he galloped among the English soldiers, thereby giving the Normans the signal of battle; and in the action it appears he lost his life.

VII.—OTHER PERFORMANCES BY GLEEMEN.

One part of the gleeman's profession, as early as the tenth century, was, teaching animals to dance, to tumble, and to put themselves into variety of attitudes, at the command of their masters.

Here we see a youth playing upon a harp with only four strings, and apparently singing at the same time, while an elderly man is performing the part of a buffoon or posture master, holding up one of his legs, and hopping upon the other to the music. Both these drawings occur in a MS. psalter in the Harleian Collection, [582] written in Latin, and apparently about the middle of the tenth century. It contains many drawings, all of them exceedingly rude, and most of them merely outlines. We shall have occasion farther on to speak more largely concerning all these kinds of diversions.

VIII.—THE HARP USED BY THE SAXONS.

The bards and the scalds most assuredly used the harp to accompany their songs and modulate their voices. The Saxon gleemen and joculators followed their example, and are frequently called harpers for that reason; but, at the same time, it is equally certain, that they were well acquainted with several other instruments of music, as the violin, or something very similar to it; pipes or flutes of various kinds; horns and trumpets; to which may be added the tabor, or drum. The harp, indeed, was the most popular, and frequently exercised by persons who did not follow the profession of gleemen. We learn from Bede, an unquestionable authority, that, as early as the seventh century, it was customary at convivial meetings to hand a harp from one person to another, and every one who partook of the festivity played upon it in his turn, singing a song to the music for merriment sake. [583] Bede says, Omnes per ordinem cantare debent; and king Alfred translates the word cantare be heaꞃpan ꞅınᵹan, sing to the harp. The historian adds, that Caedmon, not being acquainted with such sort of songs, gat up when he saw the harp, cytharam, brought near him, and went home; the king adds the reason, ðonne aꞃaꞅ he ꝼoꞃ ꞅceome, then arose he for shame, not being able to comply with the general practice. Probably this was not the practice when the professional harper was present, whose province it was to amuse the company.

IX.—THE NORMAN MINSTRELS.

Soon after the Conquest, these musicians lost the ancient Saxon appellation of gleemen, and were called ministraulx, in English minstrels, a term well known in Normandy some time before. They were, however, called harpers by the English rhymists; but the Norman name minstrel was much more commonly used. As the minstrel's art consisted of several branches, the professors were distinguished by different denominations, as, "rimours, chanterres, conteours, jougleours or jongleurs, jestours, lecours, and troubadours or trouvers;" in modern language, rhymers, singers, story-tellers, jugglers, relaters of heroic actions, buffoons, and poets; but all of them were included under the general name of minstrel. In the Latin, ministerellus, or ministrallus, is also called mimus, mimicus, histrio, joculator, versificator, cantor, and scurra. An eminent French antiquary says of the minstrels, that some of them themselves composed the subjects they sang or related, as the trouvers and the conteurs; and some of them used the compositions of others, as the jogleours and the chanteurs. He farther remarks, that the trouvers may be said to have embellished their productions with rhyme, while the contours related their histories in prose; the jugleours, who in the middle ages were famous for playing upon the vielle, accompanied the songs of the trouvers. The vielle was a stringed instrument, sounded by the turning of a wheel within it, resembling that which we frequently see about the streets played by the Savoyards, vulgarly called a hurdy-gurdy. These jugleours were also assisted by the chanteurs: and this union of talents rendered the compositions more harmonious and more pleasing to the auditory, and increased their rewards, so that they readily joined each other, and travelled together in large parties. [584] It is, however, very certain, that the poet, the songster, and the musician, were frequently united in the same person.

X.—TROUBADOURS.

The Norman rhymers appear to have been the genuine descendants of the ancient Scandinavian scalds; they were well known in the northern part of France long before the appearance of the provincial poets called troubadours, and trouvers, that is, finders, probably from the fertility of their invention. The troubadours brought with them into the north a new species of language called the Roman language, which in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was commonly used in the southern provinces of France, and there esteemed as the most perfect of any in Europe. It evidently originated from the Latin, and was the parent of the French tongue; and in this language their songs and their poems were composed. [585] These poets were much admired and courted, being, as a very judicious modern writer [586] says, the delight of the brave and the favourites of the fair; because they celebrated the achievements of the one and the beauties of the other. Even princes became troubadours, and wrote poems in the provincial dialect; among others, a monarch of our own country certainly composed verses of this kind. The reader will, I doubt not, readily recollect the common story of Richard I., who, being closely confined in a castle belonging to the duke of Austria, was discovered by his favourite minstrel Blondel, a celebrated troubadour, through the means of a poem composed by the poet, in conjunction with his royal master. The story is thus related in a very ancient French author, quoted by Claude Fauchet: Blondel, seeing that his lord did not return, though it was reported that he had passed the sea from Syria, thought that he was taken by his enemies, and probably very evilly entreated; he therefore determined to find him, and for this purpose travelled through many countries without success: at last he came to a small town, near which was a castle belonging to the duke of Austria; and, having learned from his host that there was a prisoner in the castle who had been confined for upwards of a year, he went thither, and cultivated an acquaintance with the keepers; for a minstrel, says the author, can easily make acquaintance. However, he could not obtain a sight of the prisoner, nor learn his quality; he therefore placed himself near to a window belonging to the tower wherein he was shut up, and sang a few verses of a song which had been composed conjointly by him and his patron. The king, hearing the first part of the song, repeated the second; which convinced the poet, that the prisoner was no other than Richard himself. Hastening therefore into England, he acquainted the barons with his adventure, and they, by means of a large sum of money, procured the liberty of the monarch. [587]

XI.—JESTOURS.

The conteurs and the jestours, who are also called dissours, and seggers, or sayers, and, in the Latin of that time, fabulatores, and naratores, were literally, in English, tale-tellers, who recited either their own compositions or those of others, consisting of popular tales and romances, for the entertainment of public companies, on occasions of joy and festivity. Gower, a writer contemporary with Chaucer, describing the coronation of a Roman emperor, says,

In a manuscript collection of Old Stories, in the Harleian Library, we read of a king who kept a tale-teller on purpose to lull him to sleep every night; but some untoward accident having prevented him from taking his repose so readily as usual, he desired the fabulator to tell him longer stories; who obeyed, and began one upon a more extensive scale, and fell asleep himself in the midst of it.

XII.—TALES AND MANNERS OF THE JESTOURS.

The jestours, or, as the word is often written in the old English dialect, gesters, were the relaters of the gestes, that is, the actions of famous persons, whether fabulous or real; and these stories were of two kinds, the one to excite pity, and the other to move laughter, as we learn from Chaucer: [589]

The tales of game, as the poet expresses himself, were short jocular stories calculated to promote merriment, in which the reciters paid little respect to the claims of propriety, or even of common decency. The tales of game, however, were much more popular than those of weeping, and probably for the very reason that ought to have operated the most powerfully for their suppression. The gestours, whose powers were chiefly employed in the hours of conviviality, finding by experience that lessons of instruction were much less seasonable at such times, than idle tales productive of mirth and laughter, accommodated their narrations to the general taste of the times, regardless of the mischiefs they occasioned by vitiating the morals of their hearers; hence it is, that the author of the Vision of Pierce the Ploughman calls them contemptibly "japers, and juglers, and janglers of gests." [590] He describes them also as haunters of taverns and common alehouses, amusing the lower classes of the people with "myrth of minstrelsy and losels tales," loose vulgar tales, and calls them tale-tellers and "tutelers in ydell," tutors of idleness, occasioning their auditory, "for love of tales, in tavernes to drink," where they learned from them to jangle and to jape, instead of attending to their more serious duties, he therefore makes one to say,

He then blames the opulent for rewarding these "devils dissours," as he calls them, and adds,

The japers, I apprehend, were the same as the bourdours, or rybauders, an inferior class of minstrels, and properly called jesters in the modern acceptation of the word; whose wit, like that of the merry-andrews of the present day, consisted in low obscenity, accompanied with ludicrous gesticulation. They sometimes, however, found admission into the houses of the opulent. Knighton indeed mentions one of these japers who was a favourite in the English court, and could obtain any grant from the king "a burdando," that is, by jesting. They are well described by the poet:

It was a very common and a very favourite amusement, so late as the sixteenth century, to hear the recital of verses and moral speeches, learned for that purpose, by a set of men who obtained their livelihood thereby, and who, without ceremony, intruded themselves, not only into taverns and other places of public resort, but also into the houses of the nobility.

XIII.—FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF THEIR PRACTICES.

The different talents of the minstrels are sarcastically described by an ancient French poet; [594] who, supposing a company of them assembled in the hall of an opulent nobleman, says, the count caused it to be made known to them, that he would give his best new scarlet robe to the minstrel who should occasion the most merriment, either by ridiculous words or by actions, la meillor truffe—dire ne faire. This proposal occasioned them to strive with each other; some of them imitated the imbecility of drunkards, others the actions of fools, some sang, others piped, li autre note, which properly signifies the pricking, or writing of musical notes, but it is also applied to the playing upon pipes and other musical instruments by note; some talked nonsense, and some made scurrilous jests; those who understood the juggler's art played upon the vielle, cil qui sevent la jouglerie vielant; and here it may be noted, that the vielle seems to have been an instrument of music chiefly used by the jugglers; others of them depended on the narration of quaint fables, which were productive of much laughter. So far the poet; and, if his statement be not very distant from the truth, we shall not wonder at the outcry of our moral and religious writers against such a mean and mercenary set of men, who were ready at command to prostitute their abilities to the worst of purposes, and encourage the growth of immorality and dissipation; the charge indeed is heavy, but I fear it will be found to stand upon a strong and permanent foundation.

XIV.—PATRONAGE, PRIVILEGES, AND EXCESSES OF THE MINSTRELS.

There is great reason to conclude that the professors of music were more generally encouraged, and of course more numerous in this country, subsequent to the Norman conquest, than they had been under the government of the Saxons. We are told, that the courts of princes swarmed with poets and minstrels. The earls also and great barons, who in their castles emulated the pomp and state of royalty, had their poets and minstrels: they formed part of their household establishment; and, exclusive of their wages, were provided with board, lodging, and clothing by their patrons, and frequently travelled with them when they went from home.

These minstrels, as well as those belonging to the court, were permitted to perform in the rich monasteries, and in the mansions of the nobility, which they frequently visited in large parties, and especially upon occasions of festivity. They entered the castles without the least ceremony, rarely waiting for any previous invitation, and there exhibited their performances for the entertainment of the lord of the mansion and his guests. They were, it seems, admitted without any difficulty, and handsomely rewarded for the exertion of their talents.

It was no uncommon thing with the itinerant minstrels to find admission into the houses of the opulent. The Saxon and the Danish gleemen followed the armies in the time of war, and had access to both the camps without the least molestation. The popular story of king Alfred, recorded by William of Malmsbury and other writers, may be mentioned in proof of this assertion. He, it is said, assumed the character of a gleeman, sub specie mimi—ut joculatoriæ professor artis, [595] and entered the Danish camp, where he made such observations as were of infinite service. To this we may add the authority of Ingulphus, whose words are, singens se joculatorem, assumpta cithara, &c. [596] This stratagem was afterwards repeated by Anlaff, or Aulaff, the Dane, who was equally successful. He assumed, says the historian, professionem mimi, the profession of the mimic, "who by this species of art makes a daily gain;" and then adds, "being commanded to depart, he took with him the reward for his song." [597]

The extensive privileges enjoyed by the minstrels, and the long continuance of the public favour, inflated their pride and made them insolent; they even went so far as to claim their reward by a prescriptive right, and settled its amount according to the estimation they had formed of their own abilities, and the opulence of the noblemen into whose houses they thought proper to intrude. The large gratuities collected by these artists not only occasioned great numbers to join their fraternity, but also induced many idle and dissipated persons to assume the characters of minstrels, to the disgrace of the profession. These evils became at last so notorious, that in the reign of king Edward II. it was thought necessary to restrain them by a public edict, which sufficiently explains the nature of the grievance. It states, that many indolent persons, under the colour of minstrelsy, intruded themselves into the residences of the wealthy, where they had both meat and drink, but were not contented without the addition of large gifts from the householder. To restrain this abuse, the mandate ordains, that no person should resort to the houses of prelates, earls, or barons, to eat, or to drink, who was not a professed minstrel; nor more than three or four minstrels of honour at most in one day, meaning, I presume, the king's minstrels and those retained by the nobility, except they came by invitation from the lord of the house.

Thus we read in the old romance of Launfel,

The edict also prohibits a professed minstrel from going to the house of any person below the dignity of a baron, unless invited by the master; and, in that case, it commands him to be contented with meat and drink, and such reward as the housekeeper willingly offered, without presuming to ask for any thing. For the first offence the minstrel lost his minstrelsy, and for the second he was obliged to forswear his profession, and was never to appear again as a minstrel. [598] This edict is dated from Langley, 6, an. 9 Edward II. A.D. 1315.

XV.—A GUILD OF MINSTRELS.

In little more than a century afterwards, the same grievances became again the subject of complaint; and in the ninth year of Edward IV. it was stated, that certain rude husbandmen and artificers of various trades had assumed the title and livery of the king's minstrels, and, under that colour and pretence, had collected money in divers parts of the kingdom, and committed other disorders; the king therefore granted to Walter Haliday, marshal, and to seven others, his own minstrels, named by him, a charter, by which he created, or rather restored, a fraternity, or perpetual guild, such as the king understood the brothers and sisters of the fraternity of minstrels to have possessed in former time; and we shall see, a little further on, that the minstrel's art, or part of it at least, was practised by females in the time of the Saxons. This fraternity was to be governed by a marshal appointed for life, the same office as that anciently possessed by the king of the minstrels, [599] and two wardens, who were empowered to admit members into the guild, and to regulate and govern, and to punish, when necessary, all such as exercised the profession of minstrels throughout the kingdom. The minstrels of Chester, who had by charter several peculiar privileges, are excepted in this act.

XVI.—ABUSES AND DECLINE OF MINSTRELSY.

It does not appear that much good was effected by the foregoing institution; it neither corrected the abuses practised by the fraternity, nor retrieved their reputation, which declined apace from this period. Under queen Elizabeth, the minstrels had lost the protection of the opulent; and their credit was sunk so low in the public estimation, that, by a statute in the thirty-ninth year of her reign against vagrants, they were included among the rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and subjected to the like punishments. This edict also affected all fencers, bearwards, common players of interludes (with the exception of such players as belonged to great personages, and were authorised to play under the hand and seal of their patrons), as well as minstrels wandering abroad, jugglers, tinkers, and pedlars; and seems to have given the death's wound to the profession of the minstrels, who had so long enjoyed the public favour, and basked in the sunshine of prosperity. The name, however, remained, and was applied to itinerant fiddlers and other musicians, whose miserable state is thus described by Putenham, in his Arte of English Poësie, printed in 1589: [600] "Ballads and small popular musickes sung by these cantabanqui upon benches and barrels heads, where they have none other audience than boyes or countrye fellowes that passe by them in the streete, or else by blind harpers, or such like taverne minstrels that give a fit of mirth for a groat; and their matters being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of sir Topas, Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhimes, made purposely for the recreation of the common people at Christmas dinners and bride ales, and in tavernes and alehouses, and such other places of base resort." Bishop Hall, the satirist, adverts to the low estate of the minstrels at this time, in the two last lines of the following couplet:

It is necessary, however, to observe, that public and private bands of musicians were called minstrels for a considerable time after this period, and without the least indication of disgrace; but then the appellation seems to have been confined to the instrumental performers, and such of them as were placed upon a regular establishment: the musicians of the city of London, for instance, were called indifferently waits and minstrels. [602] In the reign of Henry VII. there were musicians belonging to the royal household, called stryng minstrels.

We hear of the itinerant musicians again in an ordinance from Oliver Cromwell, dated 1656, during his protectorship, which prohibits "all persons commonly called fidlers, or minstrells," from "playing, fidling, and making music, in any inn, alehouse, or tavern;" and also from "proffering themselves, or desireing, or intreating any one to hear them play, or make music in the places aforesaid." The only vestige of these musical vagrants now remaining, is to be found in the blind fiddlers wandering about the country, and the ballad singers, who frequently accompany their ditties with instrumental music, especially the fiddle, vulgarly called a crowd, and the guitar. And here we may observe, that the name of fiddlers was applied to the minstrels as early at least as the fourteenth century: it occurs in the Vision of Pierce the Ploughman, [603] where we read, "not to fare as a fydeler, or a frier, to seke feastes." It is also used, but not sarcastically, in the poem of Launfel. [604]

XVII.—MINSTRELS WERE SATIRISTS AND FLATTERERS.

The British bards employed their musical talents in the praise of heroic virtue, or in the censure of vice, apparently without any great expectation of reward on the one hand, or fear of punishment on the other. The Scandinavian scalds celebrated the valiant actions of their countrymen in appropriate verses; and sometimes accompanied the warriors to the field of battle, that they might behold their exploits and describe them with more accuracy. The gleemen of the Saxons imitated their predecessors, and attached themselves to the persons of princes and chieftains, and retained their favour by continual adulation. The minstrels of the Normans trod in the same steps, but seem to have been more venal, and ready at all times to flatter or to satirize, as best suited their interest, without paying much regard to justice on either side.

XVIII.—ANECDOTES OF OFFENDING MINSTRELS.

It is said of William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, chancellor and justiciary of England, who was also the Pope's legate, and a great favourite of Richard I., that he kept a number of poets in his pay, to make songs and poems in his praise; and also, that with great gifts he allured many of the best singers and minstrels from the continent, to sing those songs in the public streets of the principal cities in England. [605]

It was, on the other hand, a very dangerous employment to censure the characters of great personages, or hold their actions up to ridicule; for, though the satirist might be secure at the moment, he was uncertain that fortune would not one day or another put him into the power of his adversary, which was the case with Luke de Barra, a celebrated Norman minstrel; who, in his songs having made very free with the character of Henry I. of England, by some untoward accident fell into the hands of the irritated monarch. He condemned him to have his eyes pulled out: and, when the earl of Flanders, who was present, pleaded warmly in his favour, the king replied: "This man, being a wit, a poet, and a minstrel, composed many indecent songs against me, and sung them openly to the great entertainment of mine enemies; and, since it has pleased God to deliver him into my hands, I will punish him, to deter others from the like petulance." The cruel sentence was executed, and the miserable satirist died soon after with the wounds he had received in struggling with the executioner. [606] The gratification of a mean revenge is a strong mark of a little mind; and this inhumanity reflects great discredit upon the king: it would have been noble in him to have pardoned the unfortunate culprit.

Again, in the reign of king Edward II., at the solemnization of the feast of Pentecost in the great hall at Westminster, when that prince was seated at dinner in royal state, and attended by the peers of the realm, a woman habited like a minstrel, riding upon a great horse trapped in the minstrel fashion, entered the hall, and, going round the several tables, imitated the gestures of a mimic, [607] and at length mounted the steps to the royal table, upon which she deposited a letter; and, having so done, she turned her horse, and saluting all the company, retired. The letter was found to contain some very severe reflections upon the conduct of the monarch, which greatly angered him; and the actress, being arrested by his command, discovered the author of the letter, who acknowledged the offence and was pardoned; but the door-keeper, being reprimanded on account of her admission, excused himself, by declaring it had never been customary to prevent the entry of minstrels and persons in disguisements, upon the supposition that they came for the entertainment of his majesty. [608] This woman had probably assumed the habit of a man, and a female was chosen on this occasion, according to the opinion of an eminent modern author, Dr. Percy, bishop of Dromore, [609] because, upon detection, her sex might plead for her, and disarm the king's resentment. It is, however, certain that at this time, and long before it, there were women who practised the minstrel's art, or at least some branches of it. We read of the glee-maidens, or female minstrels, from ᵹılƿ-meꝺen and ᵹlẏƿıenꝺe-maꝺen, in the Saxon records; and I believe, that their province in general was to dance and to tumble, whence they acquired the name of tomblesteres, from the Saxon ꞇumbıan, to dance or tumble, and saylours, from salio, to leap or dance, in the time of Chaucer, who uses both these denominations. [610]

XIX.—THE DRESS OF THE MINSTRELS.

It is very clear, that the minstrels wore a peculiar kind of dress by which they might readily be distinguished: the woman above mentioned is expressly said to have been habited like a mimic or a minstrel, and by that means obtained admission without the least difficulty to the royal presence. I remember also a story recorded in a manuscript, written about the reign of Edward III., of a young man of family, who came to a feast, where many of the nobility were present, in a vesture called a coat bardy, cut short in the German fashion, and resembling the dress of a minstrel. The oddity of his habit attracted the notice of the company, and especially of an elderly knight, to whom he was well known, who thus addressed him: "Where, my friend, is your fiddle, your ribible, or such-like instrument belonging to a minstrel?" "Sir," replied the young man, "I have no crafte nor science in using such instruments." "Then," returned the knight, "you are much to blame; for, if you choose to debase yourself and your family by appearing in the garb of a minstrel, it is fitting you should be able to perform his duty." [611] On a column in Saint Mary's church at Beverley in Yorkshire is the following inscription: "This pillar made the mynstrylls;" its capital is decorated with five men in short coats, and one of them holds an instrument like a lute. [612] The minstrels retained in noblemen's families wore their lords' livery; and those appertaining to the royal household did the same. The edict of Edward IV. against the pretended minstrels, mentioned above, expressly says, that they assumed the name, and the livery or dress, of the king's own minstrels. [613] The queen had also minstrels in her service, who probably wore a livery different from those of the king for distinction-sake. In a computus of expences, an. 11 Edw. III. in the Cotton Library, is this entry: "Johanni de Mees de Lorem. et Petro de Wurgund. ministrallis dominæ reginæ, facientibus ministralsias suas coram domino rege apud Eboracum;" for which they received from the king's own hand six shillings and eight pence each. [614] The following lines, which are somewhat to the purpose, occur in an old historical poem, in the Harleian Collection: they relate to sir Edward Stanley, who is highly praised by the author for his great skill in playing upon all kinds of instruments: