[104] Vita S. Willelmi (Acta SS. Maii, vi. 801) ‘qui chori iuvenum, qui conventus populorum, praecipue militum ac nobilium virorum, quae vigiliae sanctorum dulce non resonant, et modulatis vocibus decantant qualis et quantus fuerit’; cf. Gautier, i. 66. The merest fragments of such folk-song heroic cantilenae are left. A German one, the Ludwigslied, on the battle of Saucourt (881) is in Müllenhoff und Scherer, Denkmäler deutscher Poesie und Prosa (1892), No. xi; cf. Kögel, i. 2. 86; Gautier, i. 62. And a few lines of a (probably) French one on an event in the reign of Clotaire (†620) are translated into Latin in Helgarius (†853-76), Vita S. Faronis (Historiens de France, iii. 505; Mabillon, Acta SS. Benedictinorum, ii. 610). Helgarius calls the song a ‘carmen rusticum’ and says ‘ex qua victoria carmen publicum iuxta rusticitatem per omnium pene volitabat ora ita canentium, feminaeque choros inde plaudendo componebant.’ The Vita S. Faronis in Acta SS. lx. 612, which is possibly an abridgement of Helgarius, says ‘carmine rustico ... suavi cantilena decantabatur’; cf. Gautier, i. 47; Gröber, ii. 1. 446.
[105] Ten Brink, i. 148, quotes from Hist. Ely, ii. 27 (†1166), a fragment of a song on Canute, ‘quae usque hodie in choris publice cantantur,’ and mentions another instance from Wm. of Malmesbury. Cf. de Gestis Herewardi Saxonis (Michel, Chron. Anglo-Norm. ii. 6) ‘mulieres et puellae de eo in choris canebant,’ and for Scotland the song on Bannockburn (1314) which, says Fabyan, Chronicle (ed. Ellis), 420, ‘was after many days sungyn in dances, in carolles of ye maydens and mynstrellys of Scotlande’; cf. also Gummere, B. P. 265.
[106] It is important to recognize that the cantilenae of the folk and those of the professional singers existed side by side. Both are, I think, implied in the account of the St. William songs quoted above: the folk sung them in choruses and on wake-days, the professional singers in the assemblies of warriors. At any rate, in the next (twelfth) cent. Ordericus Vitalis, vi. 3 (ed. Soc. de l’Hist. de France, iii. 5), says of the same Willelmus, ‘Vulgo canitur a ioculatoribus de illo cantilena.’ M. Gautier (ii. 6) will not admit the filiation of the ioculatores to the scôpas, and therefore he is led to suppose (i. 78) that the cantilenae and vulgaria carmina were all folk-song up to the end of the tenth cent. and that then the ioculatores got hold of them and lengthened them into chansons de gestes. But, as we shall see (p. 34), the Franks certainly had their professional singers as early as Clovis, and these cannot well have sung anything but heroic lays. Therefore the cantilenae and vulgaria carmina of the Merovingian and Carolingian periods may have been either folk-song, or scôp-song, or, more probably, both (Gröber, ii. 1. 449). Cantilena really means no more than ‘chant’ of any kind; it includes ecclesiastical chant. So Alcuin uses it (e. g. Ep. civ. in Dümmler, ii. 169); and what Gautier, ii. 65, prints as a folk-song cantilena of S. Eulalia is treated by Gröber, ii. 1. 442, as a sequence.
[107] Gummere, G. O. 260.
[108] Grein, i. 1.
[109] Grein, i. 278.
[110] Beowulf, 89, 499, 869, 1064, 1162, 2106, 2259, 2449.
[111] William of Malmesbury, de gestis Pontif. Angl. (R. S.), 336 ‘quasi artem cantitandi professum, ... sensim inter ludicra verbis scripturarum insertis.’
[112] Grein, ii. 294.
[113] Grein, i. 284. A similar poem is The Sea-farer (Grein, i. 290).
[114] Cynewulf, Elene, 1259 (Grein, ii. 135); Riddle lxxxix (Grein, iii. 1. 183). But A. S. Cook, The Christ (1900), lv, lxxxiii, thinks that Cynewulf was a thane, and denies him the Riddle.
[115] Cynewulf, Christ (ed. Gollancz), 668; Gifts of Men (Grein, iii. 1. 140); Fates of Men (Grein, iii. 1. 148).
[116] William of Malmesbury, Gesta Reg. Angl. (R. S.), i. 126, 143.
[117] Asserius, de rebus gestis Alfredi (Petrie-Sharp, Mon. Hist. Brit. i. 473). Alfred was slow to learn as a boy, but loved ‘Saxonica poemata,’ and remembered them. His first book was a ‘Saxonicum poematicae artis librum,’ and ‘Saxonicos libros recitare et maxime carmina Saxonica memoriter discere non desinebat.’
[118] Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 133 ‘Statuimus atque decernimus ut episcopi vel quicunque ecclesiastici ordinis religiosam vitam professi sunt ... nec citharoedas habeant, vel quaecunque symphoniaca, nec quoscunque iocos vel ludos ante se permittant, quia omnia haec disciplina sanctae ecclesiae sacerdotes fideles suos habere non sinit.’
[119] Ibid. iii. 369 (can. 20) ‘ut monasteria ... non sint ludicrarum artium receptacula, hoc est, poetarum, citharistarum, musicorum, scurrorum.’ Can. 12 shows a fear of the influence of the scôp on ritual: ‘ut presbyteri saecularium poetarum modo in ecclesia non garriant, ne tragico sono sacrorum verborum compositionem et distinctionem corrumpant vel confundant.’ Cf. the twelfth-century account of church singers who used ‘histrionicis quibusdam gestis,’ quoted by Jusserand, E. L. 455, from the Speculum Caritatis of Abbot Ælred of Rievaulx.
[120] Bede to Egbert in 734 (Haddan-Stubbs, iii. 315) ‘de quibusdam episcopis fama vulgatum est ... quod ipsi ... secum habeant ... illos qui risui, iocis, fabulis ... subigantur.’
[121] Gutberchtus to Lullus in 764 (Dümmler, Epist. Mer. et Car. in M. G. H. i. 406).
[122] Alcuin, Ep. 124 (797) ‘melius est pauperes edere de mensa tua quam istriones vel luxuriosos quoslibet ... verba Dei legantur in sacerdotali convivio. ibi decet lectorem audiri, non citharistam; sermones patrum, non carmina gentium. quid Hinieldus cum Christo? angusta est domus; utrosque tenere non poterit ... voces legentium audire in domibus tuis, non ridentium turbam in plateis.’ The allusion to a lost epic cycle of Hinieldus (Ingeld) is highly interesting; on it cf. Haupt in Z. f. d. A. xv. 314.
[123] The Vitae of Dunstan (Stubbs, Memorials of Dunstan, R. S. 11, 20, 80, 257) record that he himself learnt the ‘ars citharizandi.’ One day he hung ‘citharam suam quam lingua paterna hearpam vocamus’ on the wall, and it discoursed an anthem by itself. Anthems, doubtless, were his mature recreation, but as a young clerk he was accused ‘non saluti animae profutura sed avitae gentilitatis vanissima didicisse carmina, et historiarum frivovolas colere incantationum naenias.’
[124] Anglo-Saxon Canons of Edgar (906), can. 58 (Wilkins, i. 228), sic Latine, ‘docemus artem, ut nullus sacerdos sit cerevisarius, nec aliquo modo scurram agat secum ipso, vel aliis’; Oratio Edgari Regis (969) pro monachatu propaganda (Wilkins, i. 246) ‘ut iam domus clericorum putentur ... conciliabulum histrionum ... mimi cantant et saltant.’
[125] Strutt, 172 and passim.
[126] Wright-Wülker, 150, 311, 539. A synonym for scôp is leodwyrhta. On 188 lyricus is glossed scôp. But the distinctive use of scôp is not in all cases maintained, e.g. tragicus vel comicus unwurð scôp (188), comicus scôp (283), comicus id est qui comedia scribit, cantator vel artifex canticorum seculorum, idem satyricus, i. scôp, ioculator, poeta (206). Other western peoples in contact with Latin civilization came to make the same classification of poet and buffoon. Wackernagel, i. 51, says that the German liuderi or poet is opposed to the skirnun or tûmarâ, scurra or mimus. The buffoon is looked askance at by the dignified Scandinavian men of letters (Saxo Grammaticus, Hist. Danica, transl. Elton, vi. 186); and Keltic bardism stands equally aloof from the clerwr (cf. p. 76). Of course Kelts and Teutons might conceivably have developed their buffoons for themselves, independently of Roman influence, but so far as the Germans go, Tacitus, Germ. 24, knows no spectaculum but the sweorda-gelác or sword-dance (ch. ix).
[127] Brooke, i. 12; Merbot, 11. The gleómon, according to Merbot, became mixed with the plegman or mimus. In the glosses pleȝa = ludus in the widest sense, including athletics; and pleȝ-stowe = amphitheatrum (Wright-Wülker, 342). A synonym of pleȝa is the etymological equivalent of ludus, lâc (cf. ch. viii). Spil is not A. S., spilian, a loan-word (Kögel, i. 1. 11).
[128] Scôp, the O. H. G. scopf or scof is the ‘shaper,’ ‘maker,’ from skapan, ‘to make’; it is only a West-German word, and is distinct from scopf, a ‘scoff,’ ‘mock,’ and also from O. N. skald. This is not West-German, but both ‘sing’ and ‘say’ are from the same root seg (Kögel, i. 1. 140). Gleómon is from gleo, gleow, gliw, glig = ‘glee,’ ‘mirth.’ The harp, in Beowulf and elsewhere, is the ‘glee-beam,’ ‘glee-wood.’
[129] Jordanis, de hist. Get. (in M. G. H.), c. 5 ‘ante quos etiam cantu maiorum facta modulationibus citharisque cantabant.’
[130] Cassiodorus, Variae, ii. 40, 41. Kögel, i. 1. 130, thinks that the professional singer, as distinct from the chorus, first became known to the Franks on this occasion. But one may rather infer from Theodoric’s letter to Boethius that the citharoedus was to replace barbaric by civilized music.
[131] Priscus, Hist. Goth. (ed. Bonn) 205 ἐπιγενομένης δὲ ἑσπέρας δ̂ᾷδες ἀνήφθησαν, δύο δὲ ἀντικρὺ τοῦ Ἀττήλα παρελθόντες βάρβαροι ᾄσματα πεποιημένα ἔλεγον, νίκας αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰς κατὰ πόλεμον ᾄδοντες ἀρετάς ἐς οὓς οἱ τῆς εὐωχίας ἀπέβλεπον, καὶ οἱ μὲν ἤδοντο τοῖς ποιήμασιν, οἱ δὲ τῶν πολέμων ἀναμιμνησκόμενοι διηγείροντο τοῖς φρονήμασιν, ἄλλοι δέ ἐχώρουν ἐς δάκρυα, ὧν ὑπὸ τοῦ χρόνου ἠσθένει τὸ σῶμα καὶ ἡσυχάζειν ὁ θυμὸς ἠναγκάζετο. μετὰ δὲ τὰ ἄσματα Σκύθης τις παρελθὼν φρενοβλαβής, ... ἐς γέλωτα πάντας παρεσκεύασε παρελθεῖν. μεθ’ ὃν ... Ζέρκων ὁ Μαυρουσιος ... πάντας ... ἐς ἄσβεστον ὁρμῆσαι γέλωτα παρεσκεύασε, πλὴν Ἀττήλα. Cf. Gibbon, iii. 440; Hodgkin, ii. 86; Kögel, i. 1. 114.
[132] Procopius, de bell. Vandal. ii. 6; Victor Vitensis, de persec. Vandal. i. 15. 47.
[133] Sidonius, Ep. i. 2. 9 ‘sane intromittuntur, quamquam raro, inter coenandum mimici sales, ita ut nullus conviva mordacis linguae felle feriatur.’ There are no musicians, ‘rege solum illis fidibus delenito, quibus non minus mulcet virtus animum quam cantus auditum.’ In Carm. xii Sidonius mentions Gothic songs, without specifying whether they are professional or choric.
[134] Alcuin, Ep. cclxxxi (793-804), to a disciple in Italy, ‘melius est Deo placere quam histrionibus, pauperum habere curam quam mimorum’; Ep. ccl (†801), to the monks of Fulda, ‘non sint [adulescentuli] luxuriosi, non ebrietati servientes, non contemptuosi, non inanes sequentes ludos’; Ep. ccxliv (†801), to Fredegis, master of the palace school, ‘non veniant coronatae columbae ad fenestras tuas, quae volant per cameras palatii, nec equi indomiti inrumpant ostia camerae; nec tibi sit ursorum saltantium cura, sed clericorum psallentium.’ The ‘coronatae columbae’ were Charlemagne’s wanton daughters. Dümmler (Ep. Mer. et Car. ii. 541) prints a responsio of Leidradus, Abp. of Lyons, to Charles. This is interesting, because it contrasts the ‘mobilitas histrionum’ which tempts the eye, with the ‘carmina poetarum et comediarum mimorumque urbanitates et strophae,’ which tempt the ear. This looks as if histriones, in the sense of pantomimi, were still known, but the piece also mentions ‘teatrorum moles’ and ‘circenses,’ and is, I suspect, quite antiquarian.
[135] Ep. clxxv (799), to Adalhart, Bp. of Old Corbey, ‘Vereor, ne Homerus [Angilbert] irascatur contra cartam prohibentem spectacula et diabolica figmenta. quae omnes sanctae scripturae prohibent, in tantum ut legebam sanctum dicere Augustinum, “nescit homo, qui histriones et mimos et saltatores introducit in domum suam, quam magna eos immundorum sequitur turba spirituum.” sed absit ut in domo christiana diabolus habeat potestatem’ (the quotation from Augustine cannot be identified): Ep. ccxxxvii (801), also to Adalhart, ‘quod de emendatis moribus Homeri mei scripsisti, satis placuit oculis meis ... unum fuit de histrionibus, quorum vanitatibus sciebam non parvum animae sui periculum imminere, quod mihi non placuit, ... mirumque mihi visum est, quomodo tam sapiens animus non intellexisset reprehensibilia dignitati suae facere et non laudabilia.’ Angilbert also seems to have had relations unbecoming an abbot with one of the ‘coronatae columbae.’
[136] Capit. of Mantua (Boretius, i. 195), can. 6 ‘neque ulla iocorum genera ante se fieri permittant quae contra canonum auctoritatem eveniunt.’
[137] Capit. Generale (Boretius, i. 64; P. L. xcvii. 188), c. 31 ‘ut episcopi et abbates et abbatissae cupplas canum non habeant, nec falcones, nec accipitres, nec ioculatores.’ If this is the carta of Alcuin’s Ep. clxxv, and I know of no other which it can be, Dümmler’s date for the letter of 799 seems too late. Mabillon’s 791 is nearer the mark.
[138] Capit. Gen. (Boretius, i. 96), can. 23 ‘cleri ... non inanis lusibus vel conviviis secularibus vel canticis vel luxuriosis usum habeant.’
[139] Conc. of Tours (Mansi, xiv. 84), c. 7 ‘histrionum quoque turpium et obscoenorum insolentiis iocorum et ipsi [sacerdotes] animo effugere caeterisque sacerdotibus effugienda praedicare debent.’
[140] Einhard, Vita Caroli Magni, c. 29 ‘barbara et antiquissima carmina, quibus veterum regum actus et bella canebantur, scripsit memoriaeque mandavit.’
[141] Alcuin, Ep. cxlix (798), to Charlemagne, ‘ut puerorum saevitia vestrorum cuiuslibet carminis dulcedine mitigaretur, voluistis’; Alcuin, who doubtless had to ménager Charlemagne a little, is apparently to write the poem himself.
[142] Kögel, i. 2. 222. The Chronicon Novaliciense, iii. 10, describes how after crossing Mt. Cenis in 773, Charlemagne was guided by a Lombard ioculator who sung a ‘cantiunculam a se compositam de eadem re rotando in conspectu suorum.’ As a reward the ioculator had all the land over which his tuba sounded on a hill could be heard. The Monachus S. Galli (Jaffé, Bibl. rer. Germ. iv), i. 13, tells how (†783) a scurra brought about a reconciliation between Charlemagne and his brother-in-law Uodalrich. The same writer (i. 33) mentions an ‘incomparabilis clericus’ of the ‘gloriosissimus Karolus,’ who ‘scientia ... cantilenae ecclesiasticae vel iocularis novaque carminum compositione sive modulatione ... cunctos praecelleret.’
[143] Philippe Mouskes, de Poetis Provincialibus (quoted Ducange, s. v. leccator):
[144] Kögel, i. 2. 220.
[145] Theganus, de gestis Ludovici Pii (M. G. H. Scriptores, ii. 594), c. 19 ‘Poetica carmina gentilia, quae in iuventute didicerat, respuit, nec legere nec audire nec docere voluit,’ and ‘nunquam in risu exaltavit vocem suam, nec quando in festivitatibus ad laetitiam populi procedebant thymelici, scurrae, et mimi cum choraulis et citharistis ad mensam coram eo, tunc ad mensuram ridebat populus coram eo, ille nunquam vel dentes candidos suos in risu ostendit.’ The ‘carmina gentilia,’ so much disliked by Louis, were probably Frankish and not classic poems.
[146] Benedictus Levita, vi. 205 (M. G. H. Leges, ii. 2. 83), ‘ne in illo sancto die vanis fabulis aut locutionibus sive cantationibus vel saltationibus stando in biviis et plateis ut solet inserviant.’ On this collection see Schaff, v. 272.
[147] This capitulary is of doubtful date, but belongs to the reign either of Louis the Pious, or Lothair (Boretius, i. 334; Pertz, i. 324; Ben. Levita, ii. 49) ‘ut in palatiis nostris ad accusandum et iudicandum et testimonium faciendum non se exhibeant viles personae et infames, histriones scilicet, nugatores, manzeres, scurrae, concubinarii, ... aut servi aut criminosi’; cf. R. Sohm, Die fränk. Reichs-und Gerichtsverfassung, 354.
[148] For ninth-century prohibitions see Statutes of Haito, Bp. of Basle (807-23), c. 11 (Boretius, i. 364); Conc. of Maintz (847), c. 13 (Boretius, ii. 179); Conc. of Maintz (852), c. 6 (Boretius, ii. 187); Capit. of Walter of Orleans (858), c. 17 (Mansi, xv. 507), Capit. of Hincmar of Rheims (P. L. cxxv. 776); and cf. Prynne, 556. Stress is often laid on the claims of the poor; e. g. Agobardus (†836), de Dispens. Eccles. Rer. 30 (P. L. civ. 249) ‘satiat praeterea et inebriat histriones, mimos, turpissimosque et vanissimos ioculares, cum pauperes ecclesiae fame discruciati intereant.’
[149] Otto Frisingensis, Chronicon, vi. 32, records of the Emperor Henry III in 1045 that ‘quumque ex more regio nuptias Inglinheim celebraret, omne balatronum et histrionum collegium, quod, ut assolet, eo confluxerat, vacuum abire permisit, pauperibusque ea quae membris diaboli subtraxerat, large distribuit.’ After the death of the Emperor Henry I of Germany his widow Matilda ‘neminem voluit audire carmina saecularia cantantem’ (Vita Machtildis Antiquior in M. G. H. Scriptores, iv. 294).
[150] Honorius Augustodunensis, Elucidarium (†1092), ii. 18 (P. L. clxxii. 1148) ‘Habent spem ioculatores? nullam; tota namque intentione sunt ministri Satanae’; on the vogue of this book cf. Furnivall Miscellany, 88.
[151] The following passages of the Decretum Gratiani, besides those already quoted, bear on the subject: (a) i. 23. 3, ex Isid. de Eccl. Officiis, ii. 2 ‘His igitur lege Patrum cavetur, ut a vulgari vita seclusi a mundi voluptatibus sese abstineant; non spectaculis, non pompis intersint’: (b) i. 44. 7, ex Conc. Nannetensi ‘Nullus presbyterorum ... quando ad collectam presbyteri convenerit ... plausus et risus inconditos, et fabulas inanes ibi referre aut cantare praesumat, aut turpia ioca vel urso vel tornatricibus ante se fieri patiatur’; I cannot identify the Council of Nantes referred to: the canon is not amongst those supposed to belong to the Council of 660, and given by Mansi, xviii. 166: (c) i. 46. 6, ex Conc. Carthag. iv. c. 60 [398. Mansi, iii. 956] ‘Clericum scurrilem et verbis turpibus ioculatorem ab officio retrahendum censemus’: (d) ii. 4. 1. 1, ex Conc. Carthag. vii (419) ‘Omnes etiam infamiae maculis aspersi, id est histriones ... ab accusatione prohibentur.’ The Decretum Gratiani was drawn up †1139. The Decretales of Gregory IX (1234) incorporate can. 16 of the Lateran Council (Mansi, xxii. 1003), held in 1215 (Decr. Greg. IX, iii. 1. 15) ‘[Clerici] mimis, ioculatoribus, et histrionibus non intendant’; and the Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII (1298) adds the following decree of that Pope (Sext. Decr. iii. 1. 1) ‘Clerici qui, clericalis ordinis dignitati non modicum detrahentes, se ioculatores seu goliardos faciunt aut bufones, si per annum artem illam ignominiosam exercuerint, ipso iure, si autem tempore breviori, et tertio moniti non resipuerint, careant omni privilegio clericali.’
[152] Wilkins, i. 585. For can. 16 of the Lateran council see last note. The prohibition is again confirmed by can. 17 of the Synod of Exeter in 1287 (Wilkins, ii. 129).
[153] Constitutiones of Bp. Grosseteste in his Epistolae (R. S.), 159 ‘ne mimis, ioculatoribus, aut histrionibus intendant.’ In 1230, Grosseteste’s predecessor, Hugh of Wells, had bid his archdeacons inquire, ‘an aliqui intendant histrionibus’ (Wilkins, i. 627).
[154] Annales de Burton (Ann. Monast. R. S. i. 485) ‘histrionibus potest dari cibus, quia pauperes sunt, non quia histriones; et eorum ludi non videantur, vel audiantur, vel permittantur fieri coram abbate vel monachis.’
[155] Const. of Roger de Mortival, § 46 (Dayman and Jones, Sarum Statutes, 76) ‘licet robustos corpore, laborem ad quem homo nascitur subire contemnentes, et in delicato otio sibi victum quaerere sub inepta laetitia saeculi eligentes, qui “menestralli” et quandoque “ludorum homines” vulgari eloquio nuncupantur, non quia tales sunt, sed quia opus Dei nostramque naturam conspicimus in eisdem, nostris domibus refectionis gratia aliquotiens toleremus,’ yet no money or goods convertible into money may be given them; ‘nec ad fabulas quas referunt, et quae in detractationibus, turpiloquio, scurrilitate consistunt, ullus voluntarium praebeat auditum, nec ad eas audiendas aures habeat prurientes, sed per obauditionem ab huiusmodi relatibus, quin potius latratibus, in quantum fieri poterit, excludantur, tamen nemo libenter invito referat auditori.’ They may, if they are not women, have their dole of bread, and keep peace from evil words. ‘Nec debet de huiusmodi personarum, quae infames sunt, laude, immo verius fraude, seu obloquio, aut alias vanae laudis praeconio, ecclesiasticus vir curare, cum nihil eo miserius sit praelato, qui luporum laudibus gloriatur.’ The statute is headed ‘De maledicis, adulatoribus, histrionibus, et detractoribus respuendis.’
[156] Thomas Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum S. Albani (ed. Riley, R. S. ii. 469) ‘illicita spectacula prorsus evitent’ (1326-35).
[157] J. T. Fowler, Memorials of Ripon Minster, ii. 68 (Surtees Soc.); the charge was that ‘vicarii, capellani, et caeteri ministri ... spectaculis publicis, ludibriis et coreis, immo teatricalibus ludis inter laicos frequentius se immiscent.’
[158] The Statutes, i. 5. 4, of St. Paul’s, as late as †1450, direct the beadles ‘quod menestrallos coram altaribus Virginis et Crucis indevote strepitantes arceant et eiiciant’ (W. S. Simpson, Register of St. Paul’s, 72).
[159] John of Salisbury, Polycraticus (†1159), i. 8 (P. L. cxcix. 406) ‘satius enim fuerat otiari quam turpiter occupari. Hinc mimi, salii vel saliares, balatrones, aemiliani, gladiatores, palaestritae, gignadii, praestigiatores, malefici quoque multi, et tota ioculatorum scena procedit.’
[160] Cf. Representations, s.v. London.
[161] R. Mannyng de Brunne (†1303), Handlyng Synne (ed. Furnivall), 148. ‘Here doyng ys ful perylous’ he translates William of Wadington’s ‘Qe unt trop perilus mester’; and tells a tale of divine judgement on ‘a mynstralle, a gulardous,’ who disturbed a priest at mass.
[162] Piers the Plowman, C. text, viii. 97:
[163] Cant. Tales (ed. Skeat), § 69 ‘Soothly, what thing that he yeveth for veyne glorie, as to minstrals and to folk, for to beren his renoun in the world, he hath sinne ther-of, and noon almesse.’
[164] e. g. Stubbes, Anatomy, i. 169.
[165] Aucassin et Nicolete (†1150-1200), ed. Bourdillon (1897), 22. The term ‘caitif’ has puzzled the editors. Surely the minstrel has in mind the abusive epithets with which the clergy bespattered his profession. See Appendix B.
[166] See especially Le Tombeor de Notre Dame (Romania, ii. 315). Novati (Rom. xxv. 591) refers to a passage quoted by Augustine, de Civ. Dei, vi. 10, from the lost work of Seneca, de Superstitionibus, ‘doctus archimimus, senex iam decrepitus, cotidie in Capitolio mimum agebat, quasi dii libenter spectarent quem illi homines desierant.’ Somewhat similar are Don Cierge qui descendi au Jougleour (Gautier de Coincy), Miracles de Nostre Dame (†1223, ed. Poquet, 1859), and Le Harpeor de Roncestre (Michel, Roms., Contes, Dits, Fabl. ii. 108). Saint Pierre et le Jongleur (Montaiglon Raynaud, v. 117) is a witty tale, in which a minstrel, left in charge of hell, loses so many souls to St. Peter at dice, that no minstrel has been allowed there since. B. Joannes Bonus (Acta SS. Oct. ix. 693) was a minstrel in his youth, but the patron saints of the minstrels were always St. Genesius the mime (cf. p. 10), and St. Julian Hospitator (Acta SS. Jan. iii. 589), who built a hospital and once entertained an angel unawares.
[167] Paris, 113; Bédier, 333.
[168] Brooke, Eng. Lit. 305; Ten Brink, i. 149.
[169] Sophus Bugge, in Bidrag til den aeldste Skaldedigtnings Historie (1894; cf. L. Duvau in Rev. Celt. xvii. 113), holds that Skaldic poetry began in the Viking raids of the eighth and ninth centuries, under the influence of the Irish filid. The tenth-century skald as described in the Raven-Song of Hornklofi at the court of Harold Fair-hair is very like the scôp (C. P. B. i. 254), and here too tumblers and buffoons have found their way. Cf. Kögel, i. 1. 111; E. Mogk, in Paul, Grundriss2, iii. 248.
[170] Guy of Amiens, de Bello Hastingensi (†1068), 391, 399:
Wace, Roman de Rou (†1170) (ed. Andresen, iii. 8035):
Cf. Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii. 477.
[171] Domesday Book, Gloc. f. 162; Hants, f. 38 (b). Before the Conquest, not to speak of Widsith and Deor, Edmund Ironside had given the hills of Chartham and Walworth ‘cuidam ioculatori suo nomine Hitardo’ (Somner-Battely, Antiq. of Canterbury, app. 39). Hitardus, wishing to visit Rome, gave it to Christ Church, Canterbury.
[172] Bernhard, iii. 378, gives a thirteenth-century regulation for the Petit Pont entry of Paris: ‘Et ausi tot li jougleur sunt quite por i ver de chançon.’
[173] Gautier, ii. 124.
[174] There were 426 at the wedding of Margaret of England with John of Brabant in 1290 (Chappell, i. 15, from Wardrobe Bk. 18 Edw. I).
[175] Rigordus, de gestis Philippi Augusti (1186) ‘vidimus quondam quosdam principes qui vestes diu excogitatas et variis florum picturationibus artificiossisimis elaboratas, pro quibus forsan viginti vel triginta marcas argenti consumpserant, vix revolutis septem diebus, histrionibus, ministris scilicet diaboli, ad primam vocem dedisse.’
[176] The Annales (†1330) of Johannes de Trokelowe (R. S.), 98, tell s. a. 1317, how when Edward II was keeping Pentecost in Westminster ‘quaedam mulier, ornatu histrionali redimita, equum bonum, histrionaliter phaleratum, ascensa, dictam aulam intravit, mensas more histrionum circuivit.’ She rode to the king, placed an insulting letter in his hands, and retired. The ‘ianitores et hostiarii,’ when blamed, declared ‘non esse moris regii, alicui menestrallo, palatium intrare volenti, in tanta solemnitate aditum denegare’; cf. Walsingham, Hist. Angl. (R. S.). i. 149.
[177] Strutt, 189, has a fourteenth-century story of a youth rebuked for coming to a feast in a coat bardy, cut German fashion like a minstrel’s; cf. the complaint against knights in A Poem on the times of Edward II (Percy Soc. lxxxii), 23:
The miniatures show minstrels in short coats to the knees and sometimes short capes with hoods. The Act of Apparel (1463, 3 Edw. IV, c. 5) excepts minstrels and ‘players in their interludes.’ The Franciscan story (p. 57) shows that some of the humbler minstrels went shabby enough.
[178] Klein, iii. 635; Du Méril, Or. Lat. 30; Gautier, ii. 104; Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Britonum, ix. 1 ‘rasit capillos suos et barbam, cultumque ioculatoris cum cithara cepit.’ Cf. the canon quoted on p. 61 requiring Goliardic clerks to be shorn or shaven, to obliterate the tonsure. The flat shoe had been a mark of the mimi planipedes at Rome.
[179] Gautier, ii. 105. Thus Nicolete (Aucassin et Nicolete, ed. Bourdillon, 120) ‘prist une herbe, si en oinst son cief et son visage, si qu’ele fu tote noire et tainte. Et ele fist faire cote et mantel et cemisse et braies, si s’atorna a guise de jogleor’; cf. King Horn (ed. Hall, 1901), 1471-2:
[180] Roger de Hoveden, Chronicon (R. S.), iii. 143 ‘De regno Francorum cantores et ioculatores muneribus allexerat, ut de illo canerent in plateis; et iam dicebatur quod non erat talis in orbe.’
[181] Ten Brink, i. 314.
[182] Malory, Morte d’Arthur, x. 27, 31. Even King Mark let the minstrel go quit, because he was a minstrel.
[183] Cf. p. 40.
[184] Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Eccles. xii. 19 ‘pro derisoriis cantionibus ... quin etiam indecentes de me cantilenas facetus choraula composuit, ad iniuriam mei palam cantavit, malevolosque mihi hostes ad cachinnos ita saepe provocavit.’ Lucas de Barre seems to have been of noble birth, but ‘palam cantavit cantilenas.’
[185] Cf. p. 30.