[1136] See p. [359], note [1051].
[1137] The fondness of the English (even the most illiterate) to hear tales and rimes, is much dwelt on by Rob. de Brunne, in 1330 (Warton, i. p. 59, 65, 75). All rimes were then sung to the harp: even Troilus and Cresseide, though almost as long as the Æneid, was to be "redde ... or else songe." l. ult. (Warton, i. 388).
[1138] Gests at length came to signify adventures or incidents in general. So in a narrative of the journey into Scotland of Queen Margaret and her attendants, on her marriage with K. James IV. in 1503 (in appendix to Leland. Collect. iv. p. 265), we are promised an account "of their gestys and manners during the said voyage."
[1139] The romance of Richard Cœur de Lion (No. 25) I should judge to be of English origin, from the names Wardrewe and Eldrede, &c. iii. appendix (sect. ii.). As is also Eger and Grim (No. 12), wherein a knight is named Sir Gray Steel, and a lady who excells in surgery is called Loosepaine or Losepain; these surely are not derived from France.
[1140] See the romance of Sir Isenbras (No. 14) sign. a.
"Harpers loved him in Hall
With other Minstrels all."
[1141] T. Warton, ii. 258, note (a) from Leland's Collect. vol. iv. append. edit. 1774, p. 267.
[1142] The curious author of the Tour in Wales, 1773, 4to. p. 435, I find to have read these words, "in toune and contrey;" which I can scarce imagine to have been applicable to Wales at that time. Nor can I agree with him in the representation he has given (p. 367) concerning the Cymmorth or meeting, wherein the bards exerted their powers to excite their countrymen to war; as if it were by a deduction of the particulars he enumerates, and, as it should seem, in the way of harangue, &c. After which, "the band of minstrels ... struck up; the harp, the crwth, and the pipe filled the measures of enthusiasm, which the others had begun to inspire." Whereas it is well known that the bard chanted his enthusiastic effusions to the harp; and as for the term minstrel, it was not, I conceive, at all used by the Welsh; and in English it comprehended both the bard and the musician.
[1143] "Your ordinarie rimers use very much their measures in the odde, as nine and eleven, and the sharpe accent upon the last sillable, which therefore makes him go ill favouredly and like a minstrels musicke." (Puttenham's Arte of Eng. Poesie, 1589, p. 59.) This must mean his vocal music, otherwise it appears not applicable to the subject.