[162] Piers the Plowman, C. text, viii. 97:
‘Clerkus and knyȝtes · welcometh kynges mynstrales,
And for loue of here lordes · lithen hem at festes;
Muche more, me thenketh · riche men auhte
Haue beggars by-fore hem · whiche beth godes mynstrales.’
[163] Cant. Tales (ed. Skeat), § 69 ‘Soothly, what thing that he yeveth for veyne glorie, as to minstrals and to folk, for to beren his renoun in the world, he hath sinne ther-of, and noon almesse.’
[164] e. g. Stubbes, Anatomy, i. 169.
[165] Aucassin et Nicolete (†1150-1200), ed. Bourdillon (1897), 22. The term ‘caitif’ has puzzled the editors. Surely the minstrel has in mind the abusive epithets with which the clergy bespattered his profession. See Appendix B.
[166] See especially Le Tombeor de Notre Dame (Romania, ii. 315). Novati (Rom. xxv. 591) refers to a passage quoted by Augustine, de Civ. Dei, vi. 10, from the lost work of Seneca, de Superstitionibus, ‘doctus archimimus, senex iam decrepitus, cotidie in Capitolio mimum agebat, quasi dii libenter spectarent quem illi homines desierant.’ Somewhat similar are Don Cierge qui descendi au Jougleour (Gautier de Coincy), Miracles de Nostre Dame (†1223, ed. Poquet, 1859), and Le Harpeor de Roncestre (Michel, Roms., Contes, Dits, Fabl. ii. 108). Saint Pierre et le Jongleur (Montaiglon Raynaud, v. 117) is a witty tale, in which a minstrel, left in charge of hell, loses so many souls to St. Peter at dice, that no minstrel has been allowed there since. B. Joannes Bonus (Acta SS. Oct. ix. 693) was a minstrel in his youth, but the patron saints of the minstrels were always St. Genesius the mime (cf. p. 10), and St. Julian Hospitator (Acta SS. Jan. iii. 589), who built a hospital and once entertained an angel unawares.
[167] Paris, 113; Bédier, 333.