[748] "Anonymi Petroburgensis Descriptio Norfolcensicum" (end of the twelfth century); "Norfolchiæ Descriptionis Impugnatio," in Latin verse, with some phrases in English, in Th. Wright, "Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries," London, 1838, 8vo.
[749] "Harrowing of Hell." This work consists in a dramatic dialogue or scene, but it was not meant to be represented. Time of Henry III.; text in Pollard, "English Miracle Plays," Oxford, 1890, p. 166.
[750] This game is described in the (very coarse) fabliau of the "Sentier batu" by Jean de Condé, fourteenth century:
De plusieurs deduis s'entremistrent
Et tant c'une royne fistrent
Pour jouer au Roy qui ne ment.
Ele s'en savoit finement
Entremettre de commander
Et de demandes demander.
Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil général des Fabliaux," vol. iii. p. 248.
[751] "Prohibemus etiam clericis ne intersint ludis inhonestis, vel choreis, vel ludant ad aleas, vel taxillos; nec sustineant ludos fieri de Rege et Regina," &c. "Constitutiones Walteri de Cantilupo, Wigorniensis episcopi ... promulgatæ ... a.d. 1240," art. xxxviii., in Labbe, "Sacrorum conciliorum ... Collectio," l. xxiii. col. 538.
[752] The two sorts are well described by Baudouin de Condé in his "Contes des Hiraus," thirteenth century. The author meets a servant and asks him questions about his master.
Dis-moi, par l'âme de ton père,
Voit-il volentiers menestreus?
—Oïl voir, biau frère, et estre eus
En son hostel à giant solas....
... Et quant avient
C'aucuns grans menestreus là vient,
Maistres en sa menestrandie,
Que bien viele ou ki bien die
De bouce, mesires l'ascoute
Volenticis....
Mais peu souvent i vient de teus
Mais des félons et des honteus,
who speak but nonsense and know nothing, and who, however, receive bread, meat, and wine,
... l'un por faire l'ivre,
L'autre le cat, le tiers le sot;
Li quars, ki onques rien ne sot
D'armes s'en parole et raconte
De ce preu due, de ce preu conte.