British Popular Customs, Present and Past / Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. Arranged According to the Calendar of the Year.

by T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

Cheshire.

In former times there was a privilege of licensing the minstrels, peculiar to the ancient family of Dutton. The original grant came from Earl Randal Blundeville to Roger Lacy, constable of Chester; and his son, John Lacy, assigned the privilege to the family of Dutton. The anniversary of this solemnity was constantly celebrated on the festival of St. John the Baptist by a regular procession of all the minstrels to the church of this tutelary saint in the city of Chester. But after having been constantly observed for at least 550 years, it seems to have been discontinued in 1758; and, as an instance how sacred these exclusive privileges were esteemed by legislative wisdom, the Act of the 29th of Elizabeth, which declares all itinerant minstrels to be vagabonds, particularly excepts the minstrel-jurisdiction of John Dutton, of Dutton in Cheshire, Esq.—Gower, Materials for a History of Cheshire, 1771, p. 67.