It is certain that many persons in France bore the title of "Roy de ministraux," instances whereof are given by Du Cange; but, in England, though Anstis has mentioned several minstrels who are distinguished by the title of king (as Rex Robertus ministrallus, etc. in the time of King Edward I.), none of them is expressly called rex ministrallorum or King of the minstrels (except John Caumz, king of Richard II.'s, in 1387); neither does his Rex juglatorum belong to this country. Adenés, a celebrated poet, who lived in the thirteenth century, says of himself, in one of his romances: "Ce livre de Cleomades Rimé je le roy Adenez, Menestre au bon duc Henry:" meaning, it seems, Henry Duke of Brabant, who died in 1247. He elsewhere calls himself Roy Adenés and is so called by others; but still the reason is unknown. Pasquier is quite at a loss to account for the word king as applied to a minstrel; remarking only that the word jouingleur (jouglerie) had, by succession of time, turned into slight-of-hand. "We have seen," he says, "in our youth the jouingleurs meet at a certain day every year, in the town of Chauny in Picardy, to shew their profession before the people, who could do best; and this," adds he, "that I here say of them is not to depreciate these ancient rimers, but to shew that there is nothing so beauteous which is not annihilated with time: "* where, by the way, he seems, by the expression "anciens rimeurs," to allude rather to what they had formerly been, than to what they were in his own time, when, as he has already told us, they were sunk into mere jugglers. That the different professors of minstrelsy were, in ancient times, distinguished by names appropriated to their respective pursuits, cannot reasonably be disputed, though it may be difficult to prove. The trouveur, trouverre, or rymour, was he who composed romans, contes, fabliaux, chansons, and lais; and those who confined themselves to the composition of contes and fabliaux, obtained the appellation of conteurs, conteours, or fabliers. The menetrier, menestrel, or minstrel, was he who accompanied his song by a musical instrument, both the words and the melody being occasionally furnished by himself, and occasionally by others. The jogelour, jougleor, jugleor, jogelere, or jugler, amused the spectators with slight-of-hand tricks, cups and balls, etc. * Recherches, etc., Paris, 1633, fo. p. 611. Le Grand distinguishes the menestrier who played and sung from the menestrel who was the chief or head of the troop; but without being able to adduce any authority for proving such a distinction. Not jongleur, as the ignorant or inattentive French printers of the fifteenth century, who could not, it is probable, read the manuscripts, and mistook the u for an n, there being, in fact, little or no distinction between them, uniformly orthographised it; and as every French author, historian commentator, etymologist, glossarist, or dictionary-maker, with the whole herd of copyists and printers, from Again, in The Frere's Tale, v. 7049: "A lousy jogelour can deceiven thee.” This appears clear from the conduct of John de Raumpayne, who, when he sets out to deceive Moris of Whitington, takes with him a male, which contains his jugleries, and out of which, most likely, he had already so blackened, inflated, and deformed his visage, that his most intimate acquaintance did not know him. The chanteour, or chanterre, was one who sang; the vielere or harpere, he who accompanied the chanterre, when he did not perform himself, and would be called indifferently by either name, or the general one of minstrel, etc. A histrio, or mimus, should properly have been the buffoon of a play, as he was among the Romans; but these names, in fact, appear to have been given by affected pedants, who mistook their meaning. There were, likewise, flutours, timbesteres, and sailours, dancers, all three mentioned by Chaucer in his translation of Romant of the Rose, v. 762, etc. "There mightist thou se these flutours, Minstrallis and eke jogelours, And sailours, that i dare well swere, The timbris up full subtilly Thei castin, and hent them full oft that time to the present, have constantly written, printed, etymologised and explained it. In every manuscript, however, French or Norman, of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, or, at least, wherever the u occurs, and can be distinguished from ann, it is uniformly written jougleour, or jougleor (Roman de Troye, Harley MS. 4482), but generally without a u joglere (Roman de Fitz-Guarine, in the king's MS. 12, c. xii.), and frequently without an o, as jugleour (Harley MS. 2253), jugelere (Le Brut, passim). Many hundred of such instances could have been easily added, but the scrupulous reader had better consult the originals. The same propriety was observed in England, where the corrupt orthography, jongler, has never been made use of, either in manuscript or print, till within these few years, and probably for the first time in the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Thus in Davies' Lyf of Alysander: "The minstrelles synge, the jogelours carpe." Again in Robert Mannyngs translation from Peter of Bridlington. "Fogelours were there inouh." But though he names both, he does not give them several employments. Carping seems synonymous to singing; though it is said above "The minstrels sing, the jogelours carpe;" and may, therefore, imply talking or reciting. Again in Chaucer's Romant of the Rose, v. 764— "Ministrallis and eke jogelours.' All evidently and immediately from the Latin joculator. He is however, in other places, repeatedly called a jogelor. Carpentier, says Warton, mentions a joculator qui sciebat tom bare, a jugler who knew how to tumble (I.G). The farceurs, or buffoons, were, possibly, the proper histriones or mimi, who acted ridiculous and burlesque dramas of a single part, whence the term farce is still used for a short and laughable entertainment; baladins or dancers; tabourers, or tabereres, who performed on the tabour or tabourine :* and, peradventure, several other distinctions. All these, however, in process of time, appear to have been confounded under the common name of minstrels or juglers, and by Latin writers, ministri, ministrelli, joculatores, histriones, mimi, leccatores, scurræ, vaniloqui, citharista or citharædæ, cantores, or cantatores, parasitæ, famelici, nebulones, epulones, and the like. Their peculiar appellations, however, may doubtless have been preserved among themselves, without being much attended to by those who only considered them as a body of men whose profession was to please; or, at least, by their own corruption in later times, when one did all, and the whole system sunk into insignificance and contempt. Sometimes," says Fontenelle, "during the repast of a prince, you would see arrive an unknown trouverre, with his minstrels or juglers, and make them sing, upon their harps or violins, the verses which he had composed; those who made the sounds as well as the words, being the most esteemed."+ Le Grand having already spoken of these troops of rambling musicians, who in the great feasts, in the plenary courts, and at marriages ran together to amuse the nobility, says, "This profession, which misery, libertinism, and the vagabond life of this sort of people, have much decried, required, however, a multiplicity of attainments and of talents, which one would, at this day, have some difficulty to find reunited, and who has much more right to be astonished, moreover, in the ages of ignorance: for beside all the songs, old and new, beside the current anecdotes, the tales, and fabliaux, which they piqued themselves upon knowing; beside the romances of the time, which it behoved them to know, and to possess in part, they could declaim, sing, compose in music, play on several instruments and accompany them. Frequently, even, were they authors, and made themselves the pieces which they uttered. * In an old fabliau, in the Harleian MS. 2253, a minstrel setting out from London and meeting the king, Entour son col porta soun tabour Depeynt de ore riche acour." The king, who addresses him with 'sire joglour," is treated with very little ceremony. Fauchet remembered to have seen Martin Baraton (then old minstrel of Orleans), who at feasts and nuptials beat a tabour (tabourin) of silver, set with plates, also of silver, graven with the armorial bearings of those whom he had taught to dance (Recueil, p. 73). 'Here," observes doctor Percy, we see that a minstrel performed sometimes the function of a dancing-master" (p. xlviii). Histoire du theatre. “In fine, there were some who, to all these talents, joined the science of the cork-balls, of juglery, and of all the tricks known.” * The following curious narrative of these singular characters is related in an old fabliau: "Two troops of minstrels met in a castle, and willed to amuse the lord by a quarrel. One said he could tell tales (conter) in Romance (i.e., French), and Latin. He knew more than forty lays and songs of gests, and all the songs you could possibly ask for. He knew, also, the romances of adventure, and in particular those of the round table. He knew, in fact, how to SING a great many romances, such as Vivien, Reynaud (r Oger), le Danois, etc., and to TELL Floris and Blancheflower. He finished the enumeration of his talents by some pleasantries; and pretended that if he had taken to the profession he followed, it was not that he had not many others to procure him a considerable fortune; for he knew very well how to hoop an egg, to bleed cats, to cup an ox, and cover houses with omelettes, etc., and if anyone would give him two harps, he felt himself capable of producing music such as no one ever heard the like. At length, after some new insults, he advised the minstrel whom he had attacked to go out of the castle without further trouble: despising him too much to dishonour himself and his comrades by striking a man so contemptible. This fellow undervalued him in his turn, and demanded of him how he dared to say he was a good minstrel who knew neither pleasant tales nor dits. As for me, said he, I am not one of these ignoramuses whose whole talent is to play the cat, the fool, the drunken man, or to say foolish things to their comrades; I am of the number of these good trouverres, who invent all that they say: "Ge suis juglere de viele ; I know how to sing a song; I know tales, I know fabliaux, I know how to tell fine new dits, rotruenges ‡ old and new, and sirvantes and pastorals; I know how to counsel love, and to make chaplets of flowers; and a girdle for lovers; and to speak courteously." After this detail of his talents, as the musician * A., 47. "I am a player of the violin, So know I the bagpipe, and the frestele And the harp, and the symphony, The gig, the harmony, And the psaltery and the rote.' " The translation of the whole passage was so absurdly faulty, I ave been compelled to alter it considerably.-E.G. A species of song sung to the rote. and fine fellow, he passes to those which he has for the tricks of dexterity, and the play of cork-ball (a song); "Well know I the corkball; and to make the beetle come alive and dancing on the table; and so I know many a fair table game the result of dexterity and magic; well I know how to make an enchantment; I know how to play with the cudgels; and so I know how to play with the cutlasses; and with the cord, and the rope." He boasts himself to know all the songs of gests which the first knew; he knows all the good serjeants, and renowned champions of his time; and the most celebrated minstrels, to whom he gives ridiculous nick-names. In fine, addressing himself to his rival, he advises him, if he have a little shame, never to enter into the places where he shall know him: "And you, sir," says he, "if I have spoken better than he, I pray you to put him out of doors, and thus prove to him that he is a sot." The musical instruments of the French minstrels were chiefly the viele,† the clavicorde, the rote, the tabour, and others, it is probable, not only to accompany the voice, but to perform sprightly airs, and exhilarate the lively dance. None of the minstrel melodies, or chants, are supposed to be now existing, unless, it is possible, in some ancient manuscript of the French National Library. Sainte Palaye, in fact, says that the beautiful tale of Aucassin and Nicolette occurs in a MS. near five hundred years old, and that what was preceded by the words "on chante," was set to music, but whether the poetical part be in the minstrel-metre does not clearly appear. The Chansons du chatelain de Coucy, in 1200, likewise Du roy de Navarre, have been printed with the original music. It is a plain chant, in square notes, ranged upon four lines, under the clef C. sol ut (Fabliaux ou contes, A. 48).§ Some idea of the dress or manners of a French minstrel in the fourteenth century may be conceived from the following anecdote : "A yonge man cam to a feste, where were many lordes, ladyes, and damoysels, and arrayed as they wold have sette them to dyner, and had on hem a coote hardye after the manner of Almayne. He cam and salewed the lordes and ladyes, and whan he had done to them reverence, syre Geffroy (de Lyege) called hym before hym, and demanded hym where his vyell or clavycordes were, and that he should make his craft: and the yonge man answered, Syre, I cannot * Le Grand, B., 313, etc. Those who, in the north of England, cheat the poor ignorant graziers, farmers, and horse-cosers, who come to the fair, by the delusion of the cork-ball, are called thimblers. † Doctors Percy and Burney mistake this for the rote or mandolin (Reliques, I., lxxv); but that it was clearly the violin is proved by M. Le Grand (Fabliaux ou contes, A. 49; B. 319). Fauchet writes it "viole." The rote, from rota, a wheel, in modern French vielle, and in vulgar English hurdy-gurdy, which is seen so frequently both in Paris and London in the hands of Savoyards. § I presume Ritson means the clef of C.-E. G. |