It may be observed here, that minstrels and others often rode on horseback up to the royal table, when the kings were feasting in their great halls. See in this vol. book I, No. 6.
The answer of the porters (when they were afterwards blamed for admitting her) also deserves attention. "Non esse moris domus regiæ histriones ab ingressu quomodolibet prohibere, &c." Walsingh.
That Stow rightly translated the Latin word histrio here by minstrel, meaning a musician that sung, and whose subjects were stories of chivalry, admits of easy proof; for in the Gesta Romanorum, chap. cxi. Mercury is represented as coming to Argus in the character of a minstrel; when he "incepit, more histrionico fabulas dicere, et plerumque cantare." (T. Warton, iii. p. li.) And Muratori cites a passage, in an old Italian chronicle, wherein mention is made of a stage erected at Milan: "Super quo histriones cantibant, sicut modo cantatur de Rolando et Oliverio." Antich. Ital. ii. p. 6. (Observ. on the Statutes, 4th edit. p. 362.)
See also [E] p. [388]. [F] p. [389].
[Aa] [There should seem to have been women of this profession.] This may be inferred from the variety of names appropriated to them in the Middle Ages, viz. Anglo-Sax. Glιp-meꝺen (Glee-maiden), &c. ᵹlẏpιenꝺemaꝺen, ᵹlẏpbẏꝺeneꞅꞇꞃa. (vid. supra, p. [393].) Fr. jengleresse, Med. Lat. joculatrix, ministralissa, fœmina ministerialis, &c. (vid. Du Cange, Gloss. & Suppl.)
See what is said in p. [371] concerning the "sisters of the fraternity of minstrels;" see also a passage quoted by Dr. Burney (ii. 315) from Muratori, of the chorus of women singing thro' the streets accompanied with musical instruments in 1268.
Had the female described by Walsingham been a tombestere, or dancing-woman (see Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, iv. 307, and v. Gloss.) that historian would probably have used the word saltatrix (see T. Warton, i. 240, note M.)
These saltatrices were prohibited from exhibiting in churches and church-yards along with joculatores, histriones, with whom they were sometimes classed, especially by the rigid ecclesiastics, who censured, in the severest terms, all these sportive characters (vid. T. Warton in loco citato, and vide supra not. E, F, &c.).
And here I would observe, that although Fauchet and other subsequent writers affect to arrange the several members of the minstrel profession under the different classes of troverres (or troubadours), chanterres, conteours, and jugleurs, &c. (vid. p. [385]) as if they were distinct and separate orders of men, clearly distinguished from each other by these appropriate terms, we find no sufficient grounds for this in the oldest writers; but the general names in Latin, histrio, mimus, joculator, ministrallus, &c. in French, menestrier, menestrel, jongleur, jugleur, &c. and in English, jogeleur, jugler, minstrels, and the like, seem to be given them indiscriminately. And one or other of these names seem to have been sometimes applied to every species of men, whose business it was to entertain or divert (joculari) whether with poesy, singing, music, or gesticulation, singly, or with a mixture of all these. Yet as all men of this sort were considered as belonging to one class, order or community (many of the above arts being sometimes exercised by the same person), they had all of them doubtless the same privileges, and it equally throws light upon the general history of the profession to shew what favour or encouragement was given, at any particular period of time, to any one branch of it. I have not therefore thought it needful to inquire whether, in the various passages quoted in these pages, the word minstrel, &c. is always to be understood in its exact and proper meaning of a singer to the harp, &c.
That men of very different arts and talents were included under the common name of minstrels, &c. appears from a variety of authorities. Thus we have menestrels de trompes and menestrels de bouche in the suppl. to Du Cange, c. 1227, and it appears still more evident from an old French rhymer, whom I shall quote at large: