The Mediaeval Stage, Volume 1 (of 2)

by E. K. Chambers

For all the sleightes and turnyngs of thyne honde,

Thou must come nere this daunce to understonde.

. . . . . . . .

Lygarde de mayne now helpeth me right nought.’

[282] Ducange, s. v. bastaxi; Gautier, ii. 11; C. Magnin, Hist. des Marionnettes en Europe (ed. 2, 1862); cf. ch. xxiv. Bastaxus seems to be the origin of the modern bateleur, used in a wide sense of travelling entertainers.

[283] Du Méril, Com. 74; Strutt, 253; Jusserand, E. W. L. vi. 218. Amongst the letters commendatory of minstrels quoted by Gautier, ii. 109, is one ‘De illo qui scit volucrum exprimere cantilenas et voces asininas.’ Baudouin de Condé mentions a minstrel who ‘fait le cat’ (cf. p. 63, n. 1).

[284] See figures of bears (Strutt, 176, 214, 239, 240), apes (ibid. 240, 241; Jusserand, E. W. L. 218), horses (Strutt, 243, 244), dog (ibid. 246, 249), hare (ibid. 248), cock (ibid. 249). For the ursarius and for lion, marmoset, &c., cf. pp. 53, 68, and Appendix E.

[285] Strutt, 256. A horse-baiting is figured in Strutt, 243.

[286] Strutt, 244, figures a combat between man and horse. Gautier, ii. 66, cites Acta SS. Jan. iii. 257 for the intervention of St. Poppo when a naked man smeared with honey was to fight bears before the emperor Henry IV (†1048).

[287] Strutt, 260, 262.