☛ The foregoing essay on the ancient minstrels has been very much enlarged and improved since the first edition, with respect to the Anglo-Saxon minstrels, in consequence of some objections proposed by the reverend and learned Mr. Pegge, which the reader may find in the second volume of the Archæologia, printed by the Antiquarian Society: but which that gentleman has since retracted in the most liberal and candid manner in the third volume of the Archæologia, No. xxxiv. p. 310.
And in consequence of similar objections respecting the English minstrels after the Conquest, the subsequent part hath been much enlarged, and additional light thrown upon the subject; which, to prevent cavil, hath been extended to minstrelsy in all its branches, as it was established in England, whether by natives or foreigners.
[Ritson made a searching examination of this essay, and dissented from many of the propositions contained in it. His essay "On the Ancient English Minstrels" will be found in his collection of Ancient Songs and Ballads.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1103] The Anglo-Saxon and primary English name for this character was Gleeman (see below, note [I], sect. 1), so that wherever the term minstrel is in these pages applied to it before the Conquest, it must be understood to be only by anticipation. Another early name for this profession in English was jogeler, or jocular, Lat. joculator. (See p. [353], as also note [V2] and note [Q].) To prevent confusion, we have chiefly used the more general word minstrel, which (as the author of the Observ. on the Statutes hath suggested to the editor) might have been originally derived from a diminutive of the Lat. minister, scil. ministerellus, ministrellus.]
[1104] Ministers seems to be used for minstrels in the account of the Inthronization of Abp. Neville (An. 6, Edw. IV.). "Then all the Chaplyns must say grace, and the ministers do sing." Vid. Lelandi Collectanea, by Hearne, vol. vi. p. 13.
[1105] It has, however, been suggested to the editor by the learned and ingenious author of Irish Antiquities, 4to. that the ancient mimi among the Romans had their heads and beards shaven, as is shown by Salmasius in Notis ad Hist. August. Scriptores VI. Paris, 1622, fol. p. 385. So that this peculiarity had a classical origin, though it afterwards might make the minstrels sometimes pass for ecclesiastics, as appears from the instance given below. Dr. Burney tells us that histriones and mimi abounded in France in the time of Charlemagne (ii. 221), so that their profession was handed down in regular succession from the time of the Romans, and therewith some leading distinctions of their habit or appearance; yet with a change in their arts of pleasing, which latterly were most confined to singing and music.