The barons and knights themselves, and their ladies, did not disdain to learn the harper’s craft; and Gower, in his “Confessio Amantis,” describes a scene in which a princess plays the harp at table. Appolinus is dining in the hall of king Pentapolin, with the king and queen and their fair daughter, and all his lords, when, reminded by the scene of the royal estate from which he is fallen, he sorrowed and took no meat; therefore the king, sympathising with him, bade his daughter take her harp and do all that she could to enliven that “sorry man:”—
And she to don her faderes heste,
Her harpe fette, and in the feste
Upon a chaire which thei fette,
Her selve next to this man she sette.
Appolinus in turn takes the harp, and proves himself a wonderful proficient, and
When he hath harped alle his fille,
The kingis hest to fulfille,
Awaie goth dishe, awaie goth cup,
Doun goth the borde, the cloth was up,
Thei risen and gone out of the halle.
No. 117. A Harper.
The minstrels, or jougleurs, formed a very important class of society in the middle ages, and no festival was considered as complete without their presence. They travelled singly or in parties, not only from house to house, but from country to country, and they generally brought with them, to amuse and please their hearers, the last new song, or the last new tale. When any great festival was announced, there was sure to be a general gathering of minstrels from all quarters, and as they possessed many methods of entertaining, for they joined the profession of mountebank, posture-master, and conjurer with that of music and story-telling, they were always welcome. No sooner, therefore, was the business of eating done, than the jougleur or jougleurs were brought forward, and sometimes, when the guests were in a more serious humour, they chanted the old romances of chivalry; at other times they repeated satirical poems, or party songs, according to the feelings or humour of those who were listening to them, or told love tales or scandalous anecdotes, or drolleries, accompanying them with acting, and intermingling them with performances of various kinds. The hall was proverbially the place for mirth, and as merriment of a coarse description suited the mediæval taste, the stories and performances of the jougleurs were often of an obscene character, even in the presence of the ladies. In the illuminated manuscripts, the minstrel is most commonly a harper, perhaps because these illuminations are usually found in the old romances of chivalry where the harper generally acts an important part, for the minstrels were not unfrequently employed in messages and intrigues. In general the harp is wrapped in some sort of drapery, as represented in our cut [No. 117], taken from a MS. in the National Library of Paris, which was perhaps the bag in which the minstrel carried it, and may have been attached to the bottom of the instrument. The accompanying scene of minstrelsy is taken from a manuscript of the romance of Guyron le Courtois in the French National Library, No. 6976.
No. 118. Minstrelsy.
The dinner was always accompanied by music, and itinerant minstrels, mountebanks, and performers of all descriptions, were allowed free access to the hall to amuse the guests by their performances. These were intermixed with dancing and tumbling, and often with exhibitions of a very gross character, which, however, amid the looseness of mediæval manners, appear to have excited no disgust. These practices are curiously illustrated in some of the mediæval illuminations. In the account of the death of John the Baptist, as given in the gospels (Matthew xiv. 6, and Mark vi. 21), we are told, that at the feast given by Herod on his birthday, his daughter Herodias came into the feasting-hall, and (according to our English version) danced before him and his guests. The Latin vulgate has saltasset, which is equivalent to the English word but the mediæval writers took the lady’s performances to be those of a regular wandering jougleur; and in two illuminated manuscripts of the early part of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum, she is pictured as performing tricks very similar to those exhibited by the modern beggar-boys in our streets. In the first of these ([No. 119]), taken from MS. Reg. 2 B. vii., the princess is supporting herself upon her hands with her legs in the air, to the evident admiration of the king, though the guests seem to be paying less attention to her feats of activity. In the second ([No. 120]), from the Harleian MS. No. 1527, she is represented in a similar position, but more evidently making a somersault. She is here accompanied by a female attendant, who expresses no less delight at her skill than the king and his guests.