By the Masse, I would fayne go daunce a fit. [652]
This passage calls to my memory a circumstance recorded by Fauchet, which proves that the minstrels were sometimes dancing masters. "I remember," says he, "to have seen Martin Baraton, an aged minstrel of Orleans, who was accustomed to play upon the tambourine at weddings, and on other occasions of festivity. His instrument was silver, decorated with small plates of the same metal, [653] on which were engraved the arms of those he had taught to dance."
CHAPTER IV.
I. The Joculator.—II. His different Denominations and extraordinary Deceptions.—III. His Performances ascribed to Magic.—IV. Asiatic Jugglers.—V. Remarkable Story from Froissart.—VI. Tricks of the Jugglers ascribed to the Agency of the Devil; but more reasonably accounted for.—VII. John Rykell, a celebrated Tregetour.—VIII. Their various Performances.—IX. Privileges of the Joculators at Paris.—The King's Joculator an Officer of Rank.—X. The great Disrepute of modern Jugglers.
I.—THE JOCULATOR.
The joculator, or the jugglour of the Normans, was frequently included under the collective appellation of minstrel. His profession originally was very comprehensive, and included the practice of all the arts attributed to the minstrel; and some of the jugglers were excellent tumblers. Joinville, in the Life of St. Louis and Charpentier, quotes an old author, who speaks of a joculator, qui sciebat tombare. [654] He was called a gleeman in the Saxon era, and answers to the juggler of the more modern times. In the fourteenth century, he was also denominated a tregetour, or tragetour, at which time, he appears to have been separated from the musical poets, who exercised the first branches of the gleeman's art, and are more generally considered as minstrels.
II.—DIFFERENT DENOMINATIONS OF THE JOCULATOR, AND HIS EXTRAORDINARY DECEPTIONS.
The name of tregetours was chiefly, if not entirely, appropriated to those artists who, by sleight of hand, with the assistance of machinery of various kinds, deceived the eyes of the spectators, and produced such illusions as were usually supposed to be the effect of enchantment; for which reason they were frequently ranked with magicians, sorcerers, and witches; and, indeed, the feats they performed, according to the descriptions given of them, abundantly prove that they were no contemptible practitioners in the arts of deception. Chaucer, who, no doubt, had frequently an opportunity of seeing the tricks exhibited by the tregetours in his time, says, "There I sawe playenge jogelours, magyciens, trageteours, phetonysses, charmeresses, olde witches, and sorceresses," &c. [655] He speaks of them in a style that may well excite astonishment: "There are," says he, "sciences by which men can delude the eye with divers appearances, such as the subtil tregetours perform at feasts. In a large hall they will produce water with boats rowed up and down upon it." In the library of Sir Hans Sloane, at the British Museum, is a MS. [656] which contains "an experiment to make the appearance of a flode of water to come into a house." The directions are, to steep a thread in the liquor produced from snakes' eggs bruised, and to hang it up over a basin of water in the place where the trick is to be performed. The tregetours, no doubt, had recourse to a surer method. Chaucer goes on to say, "Sometimes they will bring in the similitude of a grim lion, or make flowers spring up as in a meadow; sometimes they cause a vine to flourish, bearing white and red grapes; or show a castle built with stone; and when they please, they cause the whole to disappear." He then speaks of "a learned clerk," who, for the amusement of his friend, showed to him "forests full of wild deer, where he saw an hundred of them slain, some with hounds and some with arrows; the hunting being finished, a company of falconers appeared upon the banks of a fair river, where the birds pursued the herons, and slew them. He then saw knights justing upon a plain;" and, by way of conclusion, "the resemblance of his beloved lady dancing; which occasioned him to dance also." But, when "the maister that this magike wrought thought fit, he clapped his hands together, and all was gone in an instante." [657] Again, in another part of his works, the same poet says,