Upon the establishment of the Saxons in Britain, these poetical musicians were their chief favourites; the courts of the kings, and the residences of the opulent afforded them a constant asylum; their persons were protected, and admission granted to them without the least restraint. In the Anglo-Saxon language they were distinguished by two appellations; the one equivalent to the modern term of gleemen or merry-makers, and the other harpers, derived from the harp, an instrument they usually played upon. Glıƿ or Gliᵹman; hence Gliᵹᵹamen, glee-games, are properly explained in Somner's Lexicon, by merry tricks, jests, sports, and gambols, which were expressive of their new acquirements: Heaꞃpeꞃe, the appellation of harper, was long-retained by the English rhymists. The gleemen added mimicry, and other means of promoting mirth to their profession, as well as dancing and tumbling, with sleights of hand, and variety of deceptions to amuse the spectators; it was therefore necessary for them to associate themselves into companies, by which means they were enabled to diversify their performances, and render many of them more surprising through the assistance of their confederates. In Edgar's oration to Dunstan, the mimi, or minstrels, are said to sing and dance; and, in the Saxon canons made in that king's reign, A.D. 960, (Can. 58.) it is ordered that no priest shall be a poet, ꞅceop, or exercise the mimical or histrionical art, in any degree, public or private. [577] Lye renders the words "ne ænıᵹe Ƿıꞅan ᵹlıƿıᵹe," nec ullo modo scurram agat. Upon this subject we shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter.
IV.—NATURE OF THE PERFORMANCES BY THE GLEEMEN.
Representations of some of these pastimes are met with occasionally in the early Latin and Saxon manuscripts; and where they do occur, we uniformly find that the illuminators, being totally ignorant of ancient customs and the habits of foreign nations, have not paid the least regard to propriety in the depicting of either, but substituted those of their own time, and by this means they have, without design on their part, become the communicators of much valuable information. The following observations upon two very early paintings will, I doubt not, in great measure confirm the truth of this assertion.
49. Anglo-Saxon Dance.—VIII. Century.
This engraving represents two persons dancing to the music of the horn and the trumpet, and it does not appear to be a common dance in which they are engaged; on the contrary, their attitudes are such as must have rendered it very difficult to perform. On the next page is a curious specimen of a performer's art.