We are assured, too, that Painting was carried to a great extent in adorning the palaces and churches of this period, though we find scarcely any trace of it left. Henry III. kept several painters constantly at work, whose names are recorded, and who executed many beautiful paintings at his various palaces at Westminster, Winchester, Woodstock, Windsor, Kenilworth, etc. Bishop Langton painted the history of the wars and life of Edward I. on the walls of the episcopal palace at Lichfield. Edward III. collected by royal order painters from all quarters to decorate his palace at Westminster; and Foxe, in his "Acts and Monuments," tells us that the principal churches and chapels had not only portraits of the Madonna and the saints, but the walls were extensively decorated with paintings. So that, whatever its merits, painting was much in demand in this period.
Of Music as practised at this period we can only speak historically, for no proofs appear to have come down to us of the actual written music of the times. Though we had good writers on music in the fourteenth century, it is not till the fifteenth that we are enabled to judge of what the music of our ancestors was by actual notation. We know that both the ancient Gauls and Britons were extremely fond of music, and that at all the banquets of the nobles their minstrels accompanied their songs on the harp. The minstrel in most European countries was a union of the poet and musician. He composed his own music, and sang it. For this cause he was the welcome guest at all great houses. Every great baron—as well as our monarchs—kept his train of minstrels who composed songs in honour of their martial deeds, and sang them to the harp at their tables. Matilda, queen of Henry I., was, according to William of Malmesbury, so fond of music, that she expended all her revenues upon it, and oppressed her tenants to pay her minstrels. John of Salisbury declares that the great of his time imitated Nero in his extravagance towards musicians. He says they prostituted their favour by bestowing it on minstrels and buffoons.
Richard I. was not only extremely fond of minstrels, but was a distinguished one himself, and every one knows the story of his being discovered by his minstrel Blondel in his prison in Germany. Edward I. would have lost his life by assassination during the Crusades, but his harper, hearing the struggle, rushed in and brained the assassin with a tripod. We could accumulate a whole volume of such facts all through our history; but one which shows, too, how well the musicians were rewarded is that Roger, or Raherus, the king's minstrel in the reign of Henry I., in the year 1102, according to Leland, founded the priory and hospital of St. Bartholomew, in West Smithfield, became the first prior, and so remained till his death.
The first Earl of Chester gave a freedom of arrest on any account to all minstrels who should attend Chester Fair, and the last earl was rescued from the Welsh who besieged him in Rhuddlan Castle, by a band of these minstrels and their followers, who rushed away from the fair for that purpose.
John of Gaunt established a court of minstrels at Tutbury, in Staffordshire, traces of which remained to our own times.
In the Middle Ages, Du Cange says that these men swarmed so about the houses and courts of the great, and princes spent such large sums on them, as completely to drain their coffers. In fact, it would appear in all ages of our history that a singer would, as now, carry off more in one season than a popular author would in his whole life. The king in those times had accompanying him, when he went on his warlike expeditions, besides the musicians of the army, and expressly attached to his own train, fifteen or more minstrels. The nobles had often large bands of them in their houses. We read in the household book of the Earls of Northumberland of the regulations for the minstrels; and Bishop Percy, one of that family, in his "Hermit of Warkworth," says:—
"The minstrels of thy noble house,
All clad in robes of blue,
With silver crescents on their arms.
Attend in order due."