Mannyng represents Grosseteste as excusing his predilection by a reference to King David.
[240] Madox, Hist. of Exchequer, 251.
[241] Norfolk Archaeology, xi. 339 (Norwich); Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 97; Kennet, Parochial Antiq. ii. 259 (Bicester); Decem Scriptores, 2011 (Canterbury); for the rest cf. Appendix E.
[242] Hazlitt-Warton, ii. 97; iii. 118, quotes from the Register of St. Swithin’s amongst the Wolvesey MSS.; in 1338 ‘cantabat ioculator quidam nomine Herebertus canticum Colbrondi, necdum gestum Emmae reginae a iudicio ignis liberatae, in aula prioris’: in 1374 ‘In festo Alwynis episcopi ... in aula conventus sex ministralli, cum quatuor citharisatoribus, faciebant ministralcias suas. Et post cenam, in magna camera arcuata domini Prioris, cantabant idem gestum.... Veniebant autem dicti ioculatores a castello domini regis et ex familia episcopi.’ The ‘canticum Colbrondi’ was doubtless a romance of Guy of Warwick, of which Winchester is the locality. Fragments of early fourteenth-century English versions exist (Ten Brink, i. 246; Jusserand, E. L. i. 224; Zupitza, Guy of Warwick, E. E. T. S.; G. L. Morrill, Speculum Gy de Warewyke, E. E. T. S. lxxxi).
[243] Bartholomaeus (Albizzi) de Pisis (1385-99), Liber Conformitatum (ed. 1590, i. 94b); Antoninus Episc. Florentiae (1389-1459), Chronicon (ed. 1586, iii. 752) ‘alterius linguae ioculatores eos existimans’; cf. A. Wood, Hist. et Antiq. Univ. Oxon. (1674), i. 69; City of Oxford (O. H. S.), ii. 349.
[244] See Appendix E. At Paris the Statutes of Cornouaille College (1380) required abstinence from ‘ludis mimorum, ioculatorum, histrionum, goliardorum, et consimilium.’ Bulaeus, v. 782, gives another Paris regulation allowing ‘mimi, ad summum duo’ on Twelfth Night (Rashdall, ii. 674).
[245] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (†1274), ii. 2, quaest. 168, art. 3 ‘Sicut dictum est, ludus est necessarius ad conversationem vitae humanae. ad omnia autem, quae sunt utilia conversationi humanae, deputari possunt aliqua officia licita. et ideo etiam officium histrionum, quod ordinatur ad solatium hominibus exhibendum, non est secundum se illicitum, nec sunt in statu peccati: dummodo moderate ludo utantur, id est, non utendo aliquibus illicitis verbis vel factis ad ludum, et non adhibendo ludum negotiis et temporibus indebitis ... unde illi, qui moderate iis subveniunt, non peccant, sed iusta faciunt, mercedem ministerii eorum iis attribuendo. si qui autem superflue sua in tales consumunt, vel etiam sustentant illos histriones qui illicitis ludis utuntur, peccant, quasi eos in peccatis foventes. unde Augustinus dicit, super Ioan. quod donare res suas histrionibus vitium est immane,’ &c., &c.
[246] Cf. Appendix G.
[247] Another version of this story is given by Petrus Cantor (ob. 1197), Verbum Abbreviatum, c. 84 (P. L. ccv. 254) ‘Ioculatori cuidam papa Alexander (Alex. III) nec concessit vivere de officio suo, nec ei penitus interdixit.’ In c. 49 of the same work Petrus Cantor inveighs learnedly Contra dantes histrionibus. Doubtless the Alexander in question is Alexander III (1159-81), though the (Alex. III) above may be due to the seventeenth-century editor, Galopinus. A hasty glance at the voluminous and practically unindexed decrees and letters of Alexander III in P. L. cc. and Jaffé, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum (ed. 2, 1885-8), ii. 145-418, has not revealed the source of the story; and I doubt whether the Pope’s decision, if it was ever given, is to be found in black and white. The two reports of it by Thomas de Cabham and Petrus Cantor are barely consistent. In any case, it never got into the Gregorian Decretals.
[248] Gautier, ii. 42; Bédier, 389; Ten Brink, i. 186; Ducange, s. vv. Golia, &c.; O. Hubatsch, Lat. Vagantenlieder des Mittelalters (1870).