Whenne they have wasshen, and grace is sayde,
Away he takes at a brayde (at once),
Avoydes the borde into the store,
Tase away the trestles that been so store.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MINSTREL.—HIS POSITION UNDER THE ANGLO-SAXONS.—THE NORMAN TROUVERE, MENESTREL, AND JOUGLEUR.—THEIR CONDITION.—RUTEBEUF.—DIFFERENT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS IN USE AMONG THE MINSTRELS.—THE BEVERLEY MINSTRELS.
The minstrel acted so very prominent a part in the household and domestic arrangements during the middle ages, that a volume on the history of domestic manners would be incomplete without some more detailed account of his profession than the slight and occasional notices given in the preceding pages.
Our information relating to the Anglo-Saxon minstrel is very imperfect. He had two names—scop, which meant literally a “maker,” and belonged probably to the primitive bard or poet; and glig-man, or gleo-man, the modern gleeman, which signifies literally a man who furnished joy or pleasure, and appears to have had a more comprehensive application, which included all professional performers for other people’s amusement. In Beowulf (l. 180), the “song of the bard” (sang scopes) is accompanied by the sound of the harp (hearpan swég); and it is probable that the harp was the special instrument of the old Saxon bard, who chanted the mythic and heroic poems of the race. The gleemen played on a variety of instruments, and they also exhibited a variety of other performances for the amusement of the hearers or spectators. In our engraving from an Anglo-Saxon illumination (p. 37), one of the gleemen is tossing knives and balls, which seems to have been considered a favourite exhibition of skill down to a much later period. The early English Rule of Nuns (printed by the Camden Society) says of the wrathful man, that “he skirmishes before the devil with knives, and he is his knife-tosser, and plays with swords, and balances them upon his tongue by the sharp point.” In the Life of Hereward, the gleeman (whose name is there translated by joculator) is represented as conciliating the favour of the new Norman lords by mimicking the unrefined manners of the Saxons, and throwing upon them indecent jests and reproaches. But, in the later Anglo-Saxon period at least, the words scop and gleóman appear to have been considered as equivalent; for, in another hall-scene in Beowulf, where the scop performs his craft, we are told that— Leoð wæs asungen, The lay was sung, gleómannes gyd, the gleeman’s recital, gamen eft astáh, pastime began again, beorhtode benc-swég. the bench-noise became loud. —Beowulf, l. 2323. There is here evidently an intimation of merrier songs than those sung by the scop, and whatever his performances were, they drew a louder welcome. And in a fragment of another romance which has come down to us, the gleeman Widseth bears witness to the wandering character of his class, and enumerates in a long list the various courts of different chiefs and peoples which he had visited. We learn, also, that among the Anglo-Saxons there were gleemen attached to the courts or households of the kings and great chieftains. Under Edward the Confessor, as we learn from the Domesday Survey, Berdic, the king’s joculator, possessed three villas in Gloucestershire.
On the continent, when we first become acquainted with the history of the popular literature, we find the minstrels, the representatives of the ancient bards, appearing as the composers and chanters of the poems which told the stories of the old heroes of romance, and they seem also to have been accompanied usually with the harp, or with some other stringed instrument. They speak of themselves, in these poems, as wandering about from castle to castle, wherever any feasting was going on, as being everywhere welcome, and as depending upon the liberality either of the lord of the feast, or of the guests, for their living. Occasional complaints would lead us to suppose that this liberality was not always great, and the poems themselves contain formules of begging appeals, which are not very dignified or delicate. Thus, in the romance of “Gui de Bourgogne,” the minstrel interrupts his narrative, to inform his hearers that “Whoever wishes to hear any more of this poem, must make haste to open his purse, for it is now high time that he give me something”— Qui or voldra chançon oïr et escouter,
Si voist isnelement sa boursse desfermer,
Qu’il est hui mès bien tans qu’il me doie doner.
—Gui de Bourgogne, l. 4136.
In like manner, in the romance of “Huon de Bordeaux,” the minstrel, after having recited nearly five thousand lines, makes his excuse for discontinuing until another day. He reminds his auditors that it is near vespers, and that he is weary, and invites them to return next day after dinner, begging each of them to bring with him a maille, or halfpenny, and complaining of the meanness of those who were accustomed to give so small a coin as the poitivine “to the courteous minstrel.” The minstrel seems to have calculated that this hint might not be sufficient, and that they would require being reminded of it, for, after some two or three hundred lines of the next day’s recital, he introduces another formule of appeal to the purses of his hearers. “Take notice,” he goes on to say, “as may God give me health, I will immediately put a stop to my song; ... and I at once excommunicate all those who shall not visit their purses in order to give something to my wife”— Mais saciés bien, se Dix me doinst santé,
Ma cançon tost vous ferai desiner;
Tous chiaus escumenie, ...
* * * * *
Qui n’iront à lour bourses pour ma feme donner.
—Huon de Bordeaux, l. 5482.
These minstrels, too, display great jealousy of one another, and especially of what they term the new minstrels, exclaiming against the decadence of the profession.
It would appear, indeed, that these French minstrels, the poets by profession, who now become known to us by the name of trouvères, or inventors (in the language of the south of France, trobadors), held a position towards the jougleurs, or jogleurs[25] (from the Latin joculatores, and this again from jocus, game), which the Anglo-Saxon scop held towards the gleeman. Though the mass of the minstrels did get their living as itinerant songsters, they might be respectable, and sometimes there was a man of high rank who became a minstrel for his pleasure; but the jougleurs, as a body, belonged to the lowest and most degraded class of mediæval society, that of the ribalds or letchers, and the more respectable minstrels of former days were probably falling gradually into their ranks. It was the class which abandoned itself without reserve to the mere amusement and pleasure of the aristocracy, and it seems to have been greatly increased by the Crusades, when the jougleurs of the west were brought into relations with those of the east, and learnt a multitude of new ways of exciting attention and making mirth, of which they were previously ignorant. The jougleurs had now become, in addition to their older accomplishments, magicians and conjurers, and wonderfully skilled in every description of sleight of hand, and it is from these qualities that we have derived the modern signification of the word juggler. They had also adopted the profession of the eastern story-tellers, as well as their stories, which, however, they turned into verse; and they brought into the west many other exhibitions which did not tend to raise the standard of western morals.
The character of the minstrels, or jougleurs, their wandering life, and the ease with which they were admitted everywhere, caused them to be employed extensively as spies, and as bearers of secret news, and led people to adopt the disguise of a minstrel, as one which enabled them to pass through difficulties unobserved and unchallenged. In the story of Eustace the monk, when Eustace sought to escape from England, to avoid the pursuit of king John, he took a fiddle and a bow (a fiddlestick), and dressed himself as a minstrel, and in this garb he arrived at the coast, and, finding a merchant ready to sail, entered the ship with him. But the steersman, who did not recognise the minstrel as one of the passengers, ordered him out. Eustace expostulated, represented that he was a minstrel, and, after some dispute, the steersman, who seems to have had some suspicions either of his disguise or of his skill, concluded by putting the question, “At all events, if thou knowest any song, friend, let us have it.” The monk was not skilled in singing, but he replied boldly, “Know I one? Yea! of Agoulant, and Aymon, or of Blonchadin, or of Florence of Rome (these were all early metrical romances); there is not a song in the whole world but I know it. I should be delighted, no doubt, to afford you amusement; but, in truth, the sea frightens me so much at present, that I could not sing a song worth hearing.” He was allowed to pass. Some of those who adopted the disguise of the jougleur were better able to sustain it, and minstrelsy became considered as a polite accomplishment, perhaps partly on account of its utility. There is, in the history of the Fitz-Warines, a remarkable character of this description named John de Raunpaygne. Fulke Fitz-Warine had formed a design against his great enemy, Moris Fitz-Roger, and he established himself, with his fellow outlaws, in the forest near Whittington, in Shropshire, to watch him. Fulke then called to him John de Raunpaygne. “John,” said he, “you know enough of minstrelsy and joglery; dare you go to Whittington, and play before Moris Fitz-Roger, and spy how things are going on?” “Yea,” said John. He crushed a herb, and put it in his mouth, and his face began immediately to swell, and became so discoloured, that his own companions hardly knew him; and he dressed himself in poor clothes, and “took his box with his instruments of joglery and a great staff in his hand;” and thus he went to Whittington, and presented himself at the castle, and said that he was a jogeleur. The porter carried him to Sir Moris, who received him well, inquired in the first place for news, and receiving intelligence which pleased him (it was designedly false), he gave the minstrel a valuable silver cup as a reward. Now, “John de Raunpaygne was very ill-favoured in face and body, and on this account the ribalds of the household made game of him, and treated him roughly, and pulled him by his hair and by his feet. John raised his staff, and struck a ribald on the head, that his brain flew into the middle of the place. ‘Wretched ribald,’ said the lord, ‘what hast thou done?’ ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘for God’s mercy, I cannot help it; I have a disease which is very grievous, which you may see by my swollen face. And this disease takes entire possession of me at certain hours of the day, when I have no power to govern myself.’ Moris swore a great oath, that if it were not for the news he had brought, he would have his head cut off immediately. The jogeleur hastened his departure, for the time he remained there seemed very long.” The result of this adventure was the attack upon and slaughter of Moris Fitz-Roger by Fulk Fitz-Warine. Some time after this, Fulk Fitz-Warine, having recovered his castle of Whittington, was lamenting over the loss of his friend, Sir Audulf de Bracy, who had fallen into the hands of king John’s emissaries, and was a prisoner in Shrewsbury castle, where king John had come to make his temporary residence, and again asked the aid of John de Raunpaygne, who promised to make a visit to the king. “John de Raunpaygne knew enough of tabor, harp, fiddle, citole, and joglery; and he attired himself very richly, like an earl or baron, and he caused his hair and all his body to be entirely dyed as black as jet, so that nothing was white except his teeth. And he hung round his neck a very handsome tabor, and then, mounting a handsome palfrey, rode through the town of Shrewsbury to the gate of the castle; and by many a one was he looked at. John came before the king, and placed himself on his knees, and saluted the king very courteously. The king returned his salutation, and asked him whence he came. ‘Sire,’ said he, ‘I am an Ethiopian minstrel, born in Ethiopia.’ Said the king, ‘Are all the people in your land of your colour?’ ‘Yea, my lord, man and woman.’ ... John, during the day, made great minstrelsy of tabor and other instruments. When the king was gone to bed, Sir Henry de Audeley sent for the black minstrel, and led him into his chamber. And they made great melody; and when Sir Henry had drunk well, then he said to a valet, ‘Go and fetch Sir Audulf de Bracy, whom the king will put to death to-morrow; for he shall have a good night of it before his death.’ The valet soon brought Sir Audulf into the chamber. Then they talked and played. John commenced a song which Sir Audulf used to sing; Sir Audulf raised his head, looked at him full in the face, and with great difficulty recognised him. Sir Henry asked for some drink; John was very serviceable, jumped nimbly on his feet, and served the cup before them all. John was sly, he threw a powder into the cup, which nobody perceived, for he was a good jogeleur, and all who drunk became so sleepy that, soon after drinking, they lay down and fell asleep. John de Raunpaygne and Sir Audulf de Bracy took the opportunity for making their escape. We have here a mysterious intimation of the fact that the minstrel was employed also in dark deeds of poisoning. Still later on in the story of Fulk Fitz-Warine, the hero himself goes to a tournament in France in disguise, and John de Raunpaygne resumes his old character of a jougleur.” “John,” says the narrative, “was very richly attired, and well mounted, and he had a very rich tabor, and he struck the tabor at the entry to the lifts, that the hills and valleys rebounded, and the horses became joyful.”
All these anecdotes reveal to us minstrels who were perfectly free, and wandered from place to place at will; but there were others who were retained by and in the regular employ of individuals. The king had his minstrels, and so most of the barons had their household minstrels. In one of the mediæval Latin stories, current in this country probably as early as the thirteenth century, we are told that a jougleur (mimus he is called in the Latin, a word used at this time as synonymous with joculator) presented himself at the gate of a certain lord to enter the hall and eat (for the table in those days was rarely refused to a minstrel), but he was stopped by the porter, who asked him to what lord he was attached, evidently thinking, as was thought some three centuries later, that the treatment merited by the servant depended on the quality of the master. The minstrel replied that his master was God. When the porter communicated this response to his churlish lord, or equally churlish steward, they replied that if he had no other lord, he should not be admitted there. When the jougleur heard this, he said that he was the devil’s own servant; whereupon he was received joyfully, “because he was a good fellow” (quia bonus socius erat). The records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries contain many entries of payments to the king’s minstrels, and the names of some of them are preserved. On great festivals at the king’s court, minstrels came to seek employment from every part of the world which acknowledged the reign of feudalism. Four hundred and twenty-six minstrels were present at the marriage festivities of the princess Margaret, daughter of Edward I.; and several hundred played before the same monarch at the Whitsuntide of 1306. This affluence of minstrels gave rise to the practice of building a large music-gallery at one end of the mediæval hall, which seems to have been introduced in the fourteenth century. At this time minstrels were sometimes employed for very singular purposes, such as for soothing the king when undergoing a disagreeable operation. We learn from the wardrobe accounts that, in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Edward I. (A.D. 1297) twenty shillings, or about fifteen pounds in modern money, was given to the minstrel of Sir John Maltravers as a reward for performing before the king while he was bled.
The king’s minstrels, and those of the great lords, were very well paid, but the great mass of the profession, who depended only on what they obtained in gifts at each particular feast, which they recklessly squandered away as soon as they got it, lived a hard as it was a vagabond life. The king’s minstrels, in the fourteenth century in England, received from sixpence to sevenpence halfpenny a day, that is from seven shillings and sixpence to nine shillings and fourpence halfpenny, during the whole year. On the other hand, Colin Muset, one of the best of the French song-writers of the thirteenth century, complains of the want of liberality shown to him by the great baron before whom he had played on the viol in his hostel, and who had given him nothing, not even his wages:— Sire quens, j’ai vielé
Devant vos en vostre ostel;
Si ne m’avez riens donné,
Ne mes gages acquiter.
And he laments that he is obliged to go home in poverty, because his wife always received him ill when he returned to her with an empty purse, whereas, when he carried back his malle well stuffed, he was covered with caresses by his whole family. The French poet Rutebeuf, whose works have been collected and published by M. Jubinal, may be considered as the type of the better class of minstrels at this period, and he has become an object of especial interest to us in consequence of the number of his shorter effusions which describe his own position in life. The first piece in the collection has for its subject his own poverty. He complains of being reduced to such distress, that he had been obliged for some time to live upon the generosity of his friends; that people no longer showed any liberality to poor minstrels; that he was perishing with cold and hunger; and that he had no other bed but the bare straw. In another poem, entitled Rutebeuf’s Marriage, he informs us that his privations were made more painful by the circumstance of his having a shrew for his wife. In a third he laments over the loss of the sight of his right eye, and informs us that, among other misfortunes, his wife had just been delivered of a child, and his horse had broke its leg, so that, while he had no means of supporting a nurse for the former, the latter accident had deprived him of the power of going to any distance to exercise his minstrelsy craft. Rutebeuf repeats his laments on his extreme poverty in several other pieces, and they have an echo in those of other minstrels of his age. We find, in fact, in the verse-writers of the latter half of the thirteenth century, and in some of those of the fourteenth, a general complaint of the neglect of the minstrels, and of the degeneracy of minstrelsy. In a poem against the growing taste for the tabor, printed in M. Jubinal’s volume, entitled “Jougleurs et Trouvères,” the low state into which the minstrels’ art had fallen is ascribed to a growing love for instruments of an undignified character, such as the tabor, which is said to have been brought to us from the Arabs, and the pipe. If an ignorant shepherd from the field, says the writer of this poem, but play on the tabor and pipe, he becomes more popular than the man who plays on the viol ever so well— Quar s’uns bergiers de chans tabore et chalemele,
Plus tost est apelé que cil qui bien viele.
Everybody followed the tabor, he says, and the good minstrels were no longer in vogue, though their fiddles were so much superior to the flutes, and flajolets (flajols), and tabors of the others. He consoles himself, however, with the reflection that the holy Virgin Mary never loved the tabor, and that no such vulgar instrument was admitted at her wedding; while she had in various ways shown her favour to the jougleurs. “I pray God,” our minstrel continues, “that he will send mischief to him who first made a tabor, for it is an instrument which ought to please nobody. No rich man ought to love the sound of a tabor, which is bad for people’s heads; for, if stretched tight, and struck hard, it may be heard at half a league’s distance:”—
Qui primes sist tabor. Diex li envoit contraire!
Que c’estrument i est qu’ à nului ne doit plaire.