IX.—PRIVILEGES OF THE JOCULATORS AT PARIS—THE KING'S JOCULATOR.
The joculator regis, or king's juggler, was anciently an officer of note in the royal household; and we find, from Domesday Book, that Berdic, who held that office in the reign of the Conqueror, was a man of property. [678] In the succeeding century, or soon afterwards, the title of rex juglatorum, or king of the jugglers, was conferred upon the chief performer of the company, and the rest, I presume, were under his control. The king's juggler continued to have an establishment in the royal household till the time of Henry VIII.; [679] and in his reign the office and title seem to have been discontinued.
X.—GREAT DISREPUTE OF MODERN JUGGLERS.
The profession of the juggler, with that of the minstrel, had fallen so low in the public estimation at the close of the reign of queen Elizabeth, that the performers were ranked, by the moral writers of the time, not only with "ruffians, blasphemers, thieves, and vagabonds;" but also with "Heretics, Jews, Pagans, and sorcerers;" [680] and, indeed, at an earlier period they were treated with but little more respect, as appears from the following lines in Barclay's Eclogues:
Jugglers and pipers, bourders and flatterers,
Baudes and janglers, and cursed adouteres. [681]
In another passage, he speaks of a disguised juggler, and a vile jester or bourder; [682] by the word disguised he refers, perhaps, to the clown, or mimic; who, as Comenius has just informed us, danced "disguised with a vizard." In more modern times, by way of derision, the juggler was called a hocus-pocus, [683] a term applicable to a pick-pocket, or a common cheat; and his performances were denominated juggling castes. [684]