Early English Poetry. Dr. Percy's "Reliques of ancient English poetry" he speaks of the minstrels as an order of men in the Middle Ages, highly honored, retained and pensioned by kings, lavishly rewarded by nobles, and kindly entertained by the common people. *[1]Ritson in his "Ancient Songs" admits that such an "order" of singers existed in France, but never in England; that individuals wandered up and down the country chanting romances and singing songs or ballads to the harp or fiddle; but that they never enjoyed the respect of the high born or received favors from them. The church evidently looked upon them with disfavor, as the enemies of sobriety and the promoters of revelry and mirth. In the sixteenth century they lost all credit and were classed, in penal enactments, with "rogues and vagabonds." One reason of the decline of minstrelsy was the in- troduction of printing and the advance of learning : that which might afford amusement and pleasure when sung to the harp, lost its point and spirit when read in retirement from the printed page. Their composition would not bear criticism. Besides, the market had become overstocked with these musical wares ; as the religious houses had with homilies and saintly legends. The con- sideration bestowed on the early min- strels "enticed into their ranks idle vaga- bonds," according to the act of Edward I, who went about the country under color of minstrelsy ; men who cared more about the supper than the song ; who for base lucre divorced the arts of WTit- ing and reciting and stole other men's thunder. Their social degeneracy may be traced in the dictionary. The chanter of the "gests" of kings, ^<rx/a ducutn regumque, dwindled into a gesticulator, a jester : the honored jogelar of Provence, into a mountebank ; the jockie, a doggrel ballad-monger.
Beggars they are by one consent, And rogues by act of Parliament.
What a fall was there from their for- mer high estate and reverence. The earliest minstrels of the Norman courts, doubtless, came from France, where their rank was almost regal.
Froissart, describing a Christmas fes- tival given by Comte de Foix in the fourteenth century, says :
" There were many Mynstrels as well of hys own as of strangers, and cache of them dyd their devoyres in their facalties. The same day the Earl of Foix gave to Hauralds and Minstrelles the sum of 500 franks, and gave to the Duke of Tonrayns Mynstreles gouns of cloth of gold furred with ermyne valued at 200 franks."
The courts of kings swarmed with these merry singers in the Dark Ages, and such sums were expended upon them, that they often drained the royal treasuries. In William's army there was a brave warrior named Taillefer, who was as renowned for minstrelsy as for arms. Like Tyrtseus and Alemon, in Sparta, he inspired his comrades with courage by his martial strains, and ac- tually led the van in the fight against the English, chanting the praises of Charle- magne, and Roland, Richard Coeur de Lion was a distinguished patron of minstrels as well as " the mirror of chiv- alry." He was sought out in his prison in Austria by a faithful harper who made himself known by singing a French song under the window of the castle in which the king was confined. Blondel was the harper's name. The French song translated reads thus :
Your beauty, lady fair, None views without delight;
But still so cold aa air No pauion can excite.
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- ↑ Ritson and Bishop Percy speak of different ages: one describing the rise and the other the decline of minstrelsy.
