VI. In all the establishments of royal and noble households, we find an ample provision made for the minstrels; and their situation to have been both honourable and lucrative. In proof of this it is sufficient to refer to the Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland, A.D. 1512.[Cc] And the rewards they received so frequently recur in ancient writers that it is unnecessary to crowd the page with them here.[Cc2]
The name of minstrel seems however to have been gradually appropriated to the musician only, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; yet we occasionally meet with applications of the term in its more enlarged meaning as including the singer, if not the composer of heroic or popular rhymes.[1087]
In the time of K. Henry VIII. we find it to have been a common entertainment to hear verses recited, or moral speeches learned for that purpose, by a set of men who got their livelihood by repeating them, and who intruded without ceremony into all companies; not only in taverns, but in the houses of the nobility themselves. This we learn from Erasmus, whose argument led him only to describe a species of these men who did not sing their compositions; but the others that did, enjoyed without doubt the same privileges.[Dd]
For even long after, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was usual "in places of assembly" for the company to be "desirous to heare of old adventures and valiaunces of noble knights in times past, as those of king Arthur, and his knights of the round table, Sir Bevys of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke and others like" in "short and long meetres, and by breaches or divisions (sc. Fits)[1088] to be more commodiously sung to the harpe," as the reader may be informed by a courtly writer in 1589.[1089] Who himself had "written for pleasure a litle brief romance or historicall ditty ... of the Isle of Great Britaine" in order to contribute to such entertainment. And he subjoins this caution: "Such as have not premonition hereof" (viz. that his poem was written in short metre, &c. to be sung to the harpe in such places of assembly), "and consideration of the causes alledged, would peradventure reprove and disgrace every romance, or short historicall ditty for that they be not written in long meeters or verses Alexandrins," which constituted the prevailing versification among the poets or that age, and which no one now can endure to read.
And that the recital of such romances sung to the harp was at that time the delight of the common people, we are told by the same writer,[1090] who mentions that "common rimers" were fond of using rimes at short distances, "in small and popular musickes song by these Cantabanqui" (the said common rimers) "upon benches and barrels heads," &c. "or else by blind harpers or such like Taverne minstrels that give a fit of mirth for a groat; and their matter being for the most part stories of old time, as the Tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances, or historicall rimes," &c. "also they be used in carols and rounds, and such light or lascivious poemes, which are commonly more commodiously uttered by these buffons, or vices in playes, then by any other person. Such were the rimes of Skelton (usurping the name of a poet laureat) being in deede but a rude railing rimer, and all his doings ridiculous."[1091]
But although we find here that the minstrels had lost much of their dignity, and were sinking into contempt and neglect: yet that they still sustained a character far superior to anything we can conceive at present of the singers of old ballads, I think, may be inferred from the following representation.
When Queen Elizabeth was entertained at Killingworth Castle by the Earl of Leicester in 1575, among the many devices and pageants which were contrived for her entertainment, one of the personages introduced was to have been that of an ancient minstrel: whose appearance and dress are so minutely described by a writer there present,[1092] and give us so distinct an idea of the character, that I shall quote the passage at large.[Ee]
"A person very meet seemed he for the purpose, of a xlv years old, apparelled partly as he would himself. His cap off; his head seemly rounded Tonsler wise:[1093] fair kembed, that with a sponge daintily dipt in a little capon's greace was finely smoothed, to make it shine like a mallard's wing. His beard smugly shaven: and yet his shirt after the new trink, with ruffs fair starched, sleeked and glistering like a pair of new shoes, marshalled in good order with a setting stick, and strut, that every ruff stood up like a wafer. A side (i.e. long) gown of Kendal green, after the freshness of the year now, gathered at the neck with a narrow gorget, fastened afore with a white clasp and a keeper close up to the chin; but easily, for heat to undo when he list. Seemly begirt in a red caddis girdle: from that a pair of capped Sheffield knives hanging a' two sides. Out of his bosom drawn forth a lappet of his napkin[1094] edged with a blue lace, and marked with a true love, a heart, and a D for Damian, for he was but a batchelor yet.
"His gown had side (i.e. long) sleeves down to mid-leg, slit from the shoulder to the hand, and lined with white cotton. His doublet-sleeves of black worsted: upon them a pair of poynets[1095] of tawny chamlet laced along the wrist with blue threaden points, a wealt towards the hand of fustian-a-napes. A pair of red neather stocks. A pair of pumps on his feet, with a cross cut at the toes for corns: not new indeed, yet cleanly blackt with soot, and shining as a shoing horn.
"About his neck a red ribband suitable to his girdle. His harp in good grace dependent before him. His wrest[1096] tyed to a green lace and hanging by. Under the gorget of his gown a fair flaggon chain (pewter,[1097] for) silver, as a squire minstrel of Middlesex, that travelled the country this summer season, unto fairs and worshipful mens houses. From his chain hung a scutcheon, with metal and colour, resplendant upon his breast, of the ancient arms of Islington."