While some exhibited their eloquence in defending or accusing prisoners, and others spoke against king, or chiefs of obnoxious parties, some minstrels were still to be found chanting the old romances for ready money. In 1368, the municipal authorities of Valenciennes are found allowing Colart de Maubeuge, "xii gros, in value vi sols ix deniers, for playing on his instrument, and singing gests of arms." The ancient romances of Charlemagne, of King Arthur, and of the wars of Troy, were still in possession of the popular mind, but such poets as there were did not fail to seize on recent or passing events, and do their best to immortalize them, as well as perpetuate their own fame. The raising of the walls of New Ross, on the Barrow, was celebrated by a poet of the day in two hundred and nineteen verses, in which the patriotism of the citizens, and the clergy, and the ladies, was sung, not forgetting the beauty of the women of all degrees, whose delicate hands did not disdain to bring materials to the masons. "Yet in no part of the earth, where the minstrel had been, did he ever see such beauty."
"Kique la fu pur regarder
Meint bele dame, y put veer
Ke unke en terre ou jal esté,
Tants belies ne vi in fossé."
The siege of Carlaverock by King Edward I., in 1300, where six hundred men defended the place against three thousand assailants, was sung by an eye-witness in octo-syllabic rhyme.
The Vow of the Heron, commencing the war between Edward III. and Philippe de Valois, was not neglected by the rhymers. Collins, trouvere of John of Hainault, Lord of Beaumont, in a poem of five hundred and sixty-six eight-syllable verses, lamented the fate of the brave old king of Bohemia, and his ostrich plume and the other victims of the battle of Creci, signalized by the minstrels of the era as in
"L'an mil iij.c.xl.vj.,
Que nos seigneurs furent occis
En la bataille de Creci;
Jhü Cris leur face mierci!"
[Footnote 132]
[Footnote 132:
"The year one thousand, three hundred, forty, and six,
When our lords were slain
In the battle of Creci;
Jesus Christ show them mercy!">[
The life and deeds of the Black Prince were commemorated by Chandos, the herald of Sir John Chandos, Constable of Aquitaine, in five thousand and forty-six verses, of the same measure as those others recorded. We quote a few lines of the courteous communications between the captive king and the chivalric prince.
"Li rois Johan lui ad dit,
'Beaux douis cosins pur Dieu mercit.
Laissez; il n'apartient a moi,
Car par la foi que jeo vous doi,
Plus avez ei jour d'hul d'honour
Qu'onques n'éust prince a un jour.'
Dont dist il prince, 'Sire douls,
Dieux l'ad fait et non mie nous.
Si l'en devons remercier,
Et de bon coer vers lui prier,
Qu'll nous ottroier sa gloire,
Et pardonner cesto victoire,'" etc.
[Footnote 133]
[Footnote 133:
"But King John to him said,
'Fair, sweet cousin, God-a-mercy,
Let be; it belongs to me not,
For, by the faith which I owe thee,
More honor this day you've won
Than ever did prince in any one day (of fight)'
Then to him said the prince, Sweet sire,
God has achieved it, not we ourselves,
So to him we should give thanks,
And with good heart thus pray to him,
That he would give us his glory,
And pardon this victory.'">[