"Le Quens[1128] manda les Menestrels;
Et si a fet[1129] crier entre els,
Qui la meillor truffe[1130] sauroit
Dire, ne faire, qu'il auroit
Sa robe d'escarlate nueve.
L'uns Menestrels à l'autre reuve
Fere son mestier, tel qu'il sot,
Li uns fet l'yvre, l'autre sot;
Li uns chante, li autre note;
Et li autres dit la riote;
Et li autres la jenglerie;[1131]
Cil qui sevent de jonglerie
Vielent par devant le Conte;
Aucuns ja qui fabliaus conte
Il i ot dit mainte risée," &c.
Fabliaux et Contes, 12mo. tom. ii. p. 161.
And what species of entertainment was afforded by the ancient juggleurs we learn from the following citation from an old romance, written in 1230:
"Quand les tables ostees furent
C'il juggleurs in pies esturent
S'ont vielles, et harpes prisees
Chansons, sons, vers, et reprises
Et gestes chantè nos ont."
Sir J. Hawkins, ii. 44, from Andr. du Chene. See also Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, iv. p. 299.
All the before mentioned sports went by the general name of ministralcia ministellorum ludicra, &c.—Charta an. 1377, apud Rymer, vii. p. 160. "Peracto autem prandio, ascendebat D. Rex in cameram suam cum Prælatis Magnatibus & Proceribus prædictis: & deinceps Magnates, Milites & Domini, aliique Generosi diem illum, usque ad tempus cœnæ, in tripudiis, coreis & solempnibus Ministralciis, præ gaudio solempnitatis illius continuarunt." (Du Cange, Gloss. 773.) This was at the coronation of K. Richard II.
It was common for the minstrels to dance, as well as to harp and sing (see above, note [E], p. [389]); thus in the old Romance of Tirante el Blanco, Val. 1511, the 14th cap. lib. 2, begins thus: "Despues qui las Mesas fueron alçadas vinieron los Ministriles; y delante del rey, y de la Reyna dançaron un rato: y despues truxeron colacion."
They also probably, among their other feats, played tricks of slight of hand, hence the word jugler came to signify a performer of legerdemain; and it was sometimes used in this sense (to which it is now appropriated) even so early as the time of Chaucer, who in his Squire's Tale, (ii. 108) speaks of the horse of brass, as:
"——like
An apparence ymade by som magike,
As Jogelours plaien at thise festes grete."
See also the Frere's Tale, i. p. 279, v. 7049.