[1126] The harp (Lat. cithara) differed from the sautry, or psaltry (Lat. psalterium) in that the former was a stringed instrument, and the latter was mounted with wire: there was also some difference in the construction of the bellies, &c. See Bartholomæus de proprietatibus rerum, as Englished by Trevisa and Batman, ed. 1584, in Sir J. Hawkins's Hist. vol ii. p. 285.
[1127] Jogeler (Lat. joculator) was a very ancient name for a minstrel. Of what nature the performance of the joculator was, we may learn from the register of St. Swithin's Priory at Winchester (T. Warton, i. 69): "Et cantabat Joculator quidam nomine Herebertus Canticum Colbrondi, necnon Gestum Emme regine a judicio ignis liberate, in aula Prioris." His instrument was sometimes the fythele, or fiddle, Lat. fidicula: which occurs in the Anglo-Saxon lexicon. On this subject we have a curious passage from a MS. of the Lives of the Saints in metre, supposed to be earlier than the year 1200 (T. Warton's Hist. i. p. 17), viz.:
"Christofre him served longe
The kynge loved melodye much of fithele and of songe:
So that his Jogeler on a day beforen him gon to pleye faste,
And in a tyme he nemped in his song the devil at laste."
[1128] Le Compte.
[1129] fait.
[1130] Sornette, a gibe, a jest, or flouting
[1131] Janglerie, babillage, raillerie.
[1132] Of the 24 songs in what is now called Robin Hood's Garland, many are so modern as not to be found in Pepys's collection completed only in 1700. In the folio MS. are ancient fragments of the following, viz.: Robin Hood and the Beggar, Robin Hood and the Butcher, Robin Hood and Fryer Tucke, Robin Hood and the Pindar, Robin Hood and Queen Catharine, in two parts, Little John and the four Beggars, and Robine Hoode his Death. This last, which is very curious, has no resemblance to any that have been published; and the others are extremely different from the printed copies; but they unfortunately are in the beginning of the MS. where half of every leaf hath been torn away.
[1133] That the French minstrel was a singer and composer; &c. appears from many passages translated by M. Le Grand, in Fabliaux ou Contes, &c. see tom. i. p. 37, 47, ii. 306, 313, & seqq. iii. 266, &c. Yet this writer, like other French critics, endeavours to reduce to distinct and separate classes the men of this profession under the precise names of fablier, conteur, menetrier, menestrel, and jongleur (tom. i. pref. p. xcviii.) whereas his own tales confute all these nice distinctions, or prove at least that the title of menetrier or minstrel was applied to them all.