Or prating puppet on a theatre,
Or Mimoes whistling to his tabouret,
Selling a laughter for a cold meales meat. [601]
It is necessary, however, to observe, that public and private bands of musicians were called minstrels for a considerable time after this period, and without the least indication of disgrace; but then the appellation seems to have been confined to the instrumental performers, and such of them as were placed upon a regular establishment: the musicians of the city of London, for instance, were called indifferently waits and minstrels. [602] In the reign of Henry VII. there were musicians belonging to the royal household, called stryng minstrels.
We hear of the itinerant musicians again in an ordinance from Oliver Cromwell, dated 1656, during his protectorship, which prohibits "all persons commonly called fidlers, or minstrells," from "playing, fidling, and making music, in any inn, alehouse, or tavern;" and also from "proffering themselves, or desireing, or intreating any one to hear them play, or make music in the places aforesaid." The only vestige of these musical vagrants now remaining, is to be found in the blind fiddlers wandering about the country, and the ballad singers, who frequently accompany their ditties with instrumental music, especially the fiddle, vulgarly called a crowd, and the guitar. And here we may observe, that the name of fiddlers was applied to the minstrels as early at least as the fourteenth century: it occurs in the Vision of Pierce the Ploughman, [603] where we read, "not to fare as a fydeler, or a frier, to seke feastes." It is also used, but not sarcastically, in the poem of Launfel. [604]
XVII.—MINSTRELS WERE SATIRISTS AND FLATTERERS.
The British bards employed their musical talents in the praise of heroic virtue, or in the censure of vice, apparently without any great expectation of reward on the one hand, or fear of punishment on the other. The Scandinavian scalds celebrated the valiant actions of their countrymen in appropriate verses; and sometimes accompanied the warriors to the field of battle, that they might behold their exploits and describe them with more accuracy. The gleemen of the Saxons imitated their predecessors, and attached themselves to the persons of princes and chieftains, and retained their favour by continual adulation. The minstrels of the Normans trod in the same steps, but seem to have been more venal, and ready at all times to flatter or to satirize, as best suited their interest, without paying much regard to justice on either side.
XVIII.—ANECDOTES OF OFFENDING MINSTRELS.
It is said of William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, chancellor and justiciary of England, who was also the Pope's legate, and a great favourite of Richard I., that he kept a number of poets in his pay, to make songs and poems in his praise; and also, that with great gifts he allured many of the best singers and minstrels from the continent, to sing those songs in the public streets of the principal cities in England. [605]
It was, on the other hand, a very dangerous employment to censure the characters of great personages, or hold their actions up to ridicule; for, though the satirist might be secure at the moment, he was uncertain that fortune would not one day or another put him into the power of his adversary, which was the case with Luke de Barra, a celebrated Norman minstrel; who, in his songs having made very free with the character of Henry I. of England, by some untoward accident fell into the hands of the irritated monarch. He condemned him to have his eyes pulled out: and, when the earl of Flanders, who was present, pleaded warmly in his favour, the king replied: "This man, being a wit, a poet, and a minstrel, composed many indecent songs against me, and sung them openly to the great entertainment of mine enemies; and, since it has pleased God to deliver him into my hands, I will punish him, to deter others from the like petulance." The cruel sentence was executed, and the miserable satirist died soon after with the wounds he had received in struggling with the executioner. [606] The gratification of a mean revenge is a strong mark of a little mind; and this inhumanity reflects great discredit upon the king: it would have been noble in him to have pardoned the unfortunate culprit.