NOTE III.
Where does this idle Minstrel stay?—p. 5. l. 13.
It appears that female minstrels were not uncommon, as one is mentioned in the Romance of Richard Coeur de Lion, without any remark on the strangeness of the circumstance.
A goose they dight to their dinner
In a tavern where they were.
King Richard the fire bet;
Thomas to the spit him set;
Fouk Doyley tempered the wood:
Dear abought they that good!
When they had drunken well, a fin,
A minstralle com theirin,
And said, "Gentlemen, wittily,
Will ye have any minstrelsy?"
Richard bade that she should go;
That turned him to mickle woe!
The minstralle took in mind,[1]
And said, "Ye are men unkind;
And, if I may, ye shall for-think[2]
Ye gave me neither meat ne drink.
For gentlemen should bede
To minstrels that abouten yede,
Of their meat, wine, and ale;
For los[3] rises of minstrale."
She was English, and well true,
By speech, and sight, and hide, and hue.
Ellis's Specimens of early English Metrical Romances.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Was offended.
[2] Repent.
[3] Reputation, glory.