[187] Froissart, vol. ii. c. 26. 52. 163. In Dr. Henderson’s History of Wines, p. 283, it is stated that our ancestors mixed honey and spices with their wine, in order to correct its harshness and acidity, and to give it an agreeable flavour. True, but it should also have been remarked that the spices were not always mixed with the wine, but that they were served up on a plate by themselves. This custom is proved from an amusing passage in Froissart, which involves also another point of manners. Describing a dinner at the castle of Tholouse, at which the king of France was present, our chronicler says, “This was a great dinner and well stuffed of all things; and after dinner and grace said, they took other pastimes in a great chamber, and hearing of instruments, wherein the Earl of Foix greatly delighted. Then wine and spices were brought, the Earl of Harcourt served the king of his spice plate, and Sir Gerrard de la Pyen served the Duke of Bourbon, and Sir Monnaut of Nouailles served the Earl of Foix.” Vol. ii. c. 264. Another passage is equally expressive: “The king alighted at his palace, which was ready apparelled for him. There the king drank and took spices, and his uncles also; and other prelates, lords, and knights.” Thus too, at a celebration of the order of the Golden Fleece, at Ghent, in 1445, Olivier de la Marche, describing the dinner, says, “Longuement dura le disner et le service. Là jouerent et sonnerent menestries et trompettes; et herauts eurent grans dons, et crierent largesse; et tables levées furent les espices aportées, et furent les princes et les chevaliers servis d’espices et de vins, &c.” Memoires, d’Olivier de la Marche, in the vol. ix. c. 15. of the great collection of French Memoirs: and in the Morte d’Arthur it is said they went unto Sir Persauntes pavilion, and drank the wine and ate the spices.
[188] He was a great personage, if wealth could confer dignity. The hospital and priory of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, London, were founded by Royer or Raherus, the king’s minstrel, in the third year of the reign of Henry I. A. D. 1102. Percy, Essay on the Ancient Minstrels, p. 32. The Serjeant of the minstrels was another title for the head of the royal minstrelsy. A circumstance that occurred in the reign of Edward IV. shews the confidential character of this officer, and his facility of access to the king at all hours and on all occasions. “And as he (king Edward IV.) was in the north country in the month of September, as he lay in his bed, one, named Alexander Carlisle, that was serjeant of the minstrels, came to him in great haste, and bade him arise, for he had enemies coming.” This fact is mentioned by Warton, on the authority of an historical fragment. ad calc. Sportti Chron. ed. Hearne, Oxon, 1729.
[189] Wordsworth’s Excursion, book ii.
[190] Wood, Hist. Antiq. Un. Oxon. 1. 67. sub anno 1224; and Percy, Notes on his Essay on the Ancient Minstrels, p. 64.
[191] Froissart, vol. ii. c. 31. Writers on chivalry have too often affirmed, that the minstrels besides singing, reciting, and playing on musical instruments, added the entertainments of vaulting over ropes, playing with the pendent sword, and practising various other feats of juggling and buffoonery. That this was sometimes the case during all the ages of the minstrelsy art, is probable enough, for the inferior minstrels were in a dreadful state of indigence. But the disgraceful union of poetry and juggling was not common in the best ages of chivalry. Chaucer expressly separates the minstrel from the juggler.
“There mightest thou karols seen,
And folk dance, and merry ben,
And made many a fair tourning
Upon the green grass springing.
There mightest thou see these flouters.
Minstrallis and eke jugelours.”
Romaunt of the Rose, l. 759, &c.
Other passages to the same effect are collected in Anstis Order of the Garter, vol. i. p. 304; and Warton, History of English poetry, vol. ii. p. 55. As chivalry declined, minstrelsy was discountenanced, and its professors, fallen in public esteem, were obliged to cultivate other arts besides those of poetry and music.
[192] Dunlop, History of Fiction, vol. i. p. 142.
[193] Wace, a canon of Bayeux, and one of the most prolific rhimers that ever practised the art of poetry, continually reminded the great of the benefits which accrued to themselves from patronising poets.
“Bien entend conuis e sai
Que tuit morrunt, e clerc, e lai;
E que mult ad curte decrée,
En pres la mort lur renumee;
Si per clerc ne est mis en livre,
Ne poet par el dureement vivre.
****
Suvent aveient des barruns,
E des nobles dames beaus duns,
Pur mettre lur nuns en estroire,
Que tuz tens mais fust de eus memoire.”