Trokelowe the chronicler gives us a very curious passage demonstrating at once the state assumed by minstrels at this period, and the free access which they had to the very presence of royalty. What is more, it shows that women were now accredited minstrels. When Edward II. in 1316 solemnised the feast of Pentecost, and sat at table in royal state in the Great Hall at Westminster, attended by the peers of the realm, a certain woman, dressed in the habit of a minstrel, riding on a great horse, trapped in the minstrel fashion, entered the hall, and going round the several tables, acting the part of a minstrel, at length mounted the steps to the royal table, on which she deposited a letter. Having done this, she turned her horse, and, saluting all the company, she departed.

When the letter was read it was found to contain severe animadversions on the king's conduct; at which he was greatly offended, and the door-keepers being called and reprimanded for admitting her, they replied "that it never was the custom of the king's palace to deny admission to minstrels, especially on such high solemnities and feast-days."

MINSTRELS AT A BANQUET IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. (See p. [503.])

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The harp was the great and favourite instrument, but we now find a number of others mentioned. The band of musicians in the household of Edward III. consisted of five trumpeters, one cyteler, five pipers, one tabret, one mabrer, two clarions, one fiddler, three wayghts, or hautbois. In a work of the time there are mentioned the following musical instruments: the organ, the harp, the sawtrey, the lyre, the cymbal, the sistrum, the trumpet, the flute, the pipe, the tabor, the nakyre, the drum, and several others. Some of these were used in martial, some in church music, and others in social and street music.

Chaucer, in the "Canterbury Tales," makes mention of "a ribible," as used by his parish clerk, who must have been a merry fellow:—

"In trousty manir coulth he trip and daunce

After the scale of Oxenford (Oxford) tho,

And with his legges casten to and fro,