Chapter III: Guilds of Minstrels

It is not unlikely that the principal minstrel of every great noble exercised some kind of authority over all minstrels within his lord's jurisdiction. There are several famous instances of something of this kind on record. The earliest is that of the authority granted by Ranulph, Earl of Chester, to the Duttons over all minstrels of his jurisdiction; for the romantic origin of the grant the curious reader may see the Introductory Essay to Percy's "Reliques," or the original authorities in Dugdale's "Monasticon," and D. Powel's "History of Cambria." The ceremonies attending the exercise of this authority are thus described by Dugdale, as handed down to his time:--viz., "That at Midsummer fair there, all the minstrels of that countrey resorting to Chester, do attend the heir of Dutton from his lodging to St. John's Church (he being then accompanied by many gentlemen of the countrey), one of the minstrels walking before him in a surcoat of his arms, depicted on taffeta; the rest of his fellows proceeding two and two, and playing on their several sorts of musical instruments. And after divine service ended, gave the like attendance on him back to his lodging; where a court being kept by his (Mr. Dutton's) steward, and all the minstrels formally called, certain orders and laws are usually made for the better government of that society, with penalties on those that transgress." This court, we have seen, was exempted from the jurisdiction of the King of the Minstrels by Edward IV., as it was also from the operation of all Acts of Parliament on the subject down to so late a period as the seventeenth year of George II., the last of them. In the fourth year of King Richard II., John[356] of Gaunt created a court of minstrels at Tutbury, in Staffordshire, similar to that at Chester; in the charter (which is quoted in Dr. Plott's "History of Staffordshire," p. 436) he gives them a King of the Minstrels and four officers, with a legal authority over the men of their craft in the five adjoining counties of Stafford, Derby, Notts, Leicester, and Warwick. The form of election, as it existed at a comparatively late period, is fully detailed by Dr. Plott.

Another of these guilds was the ancient company or fraternity of minstrels in Beverley, of which an account is given in Poulson's "Beverlac" (p. 302). When the fraternity originated we do not know; but they were of some consideration and wealth in the reign of Henry VI., when the Church of St. Mary's, Beverley, was built; for they gave a pillar to it, on the capital of which a band of minstrels are sculptured, of whom we here re-produce a drawing from Carter's "Ancient Painting and Sculpture," to which we shall have presently to ask the reader's further attention. The oldest existing document of the fraternity is a copy of laws of the time of Philip and Mary. They are similar to those by which all trade guilds were governed: their officers were an alderman and two stewards or sears (_i.e._ seers, searchers); the only items in their laws which throw much additional light upon our subject are the one already partly quoted, that they should not take "any new brother except he be mynstrell to some man of honour or worship (proving that men of honour and worship still had minstrels), or waite[357] of some towne corporate or other ancient town, or else of such honestye and conyng as shall be thought laudable and pleasant to the hearers there." And again, "no myler, shepherd, or of other occupation, or husbandman, or husbandman servant, playing upon pype or other instrument, shall sue any wedding, or other thing that pertaineth to the said science, except in his own parish." We may here digress for a moment to say that the shepherds, throughout the Middle Ages, seem to have been as musical as the swains of Theocritus or Virgil; in the MS. illuminations we constantly find them represented playing upon instruments; we give a couple of goatherds from the MS. Royal 2 B vii. folio 83, of early fourteenth-century date.

Besides the pipe and horn, the bagpipe was also a rustic instrument. There is a shepherd playing upon one in folio 112 of the same MS.; and again, in the early fourteenth-century MS. Royal 2 B vi., on the reverse of folio 8, is a group of shepherds, one of whom plays a small pipe, and another the bagpipes. Chaucer (3rd Book of the "House of Fame") mentions--

"Pipes made of greené corne,
As have these little herd gromes,
That keepen beastés in the bromes."

It is curious to find that even at so late a period as the time of Queen Mary, the shepherds still officiated at weddings and other merrymakings in their villages, so as to excite the jealousy of the professors of the joyous science.

The accompanying wood-cut, from a MS. in the French National library, may represent such a rustic merry-making.

One might, perhaps, have been disposed to think that the good minstrels of Beverley were only endeavouring to revive usages which had fallen into desuetude; but we find that in the time of Elizabeth the profession of minstrelsy was sufficiently universal to call for the inquiry, in the Injunctions of 1559, "Whether any minstrells, or any other persons, do use to sing any songs or ditties that be vile or unclean."

Ben Jonson gives us numerous allusions to them: _e.g._, in the "Tale of a Tub," old Turve talks of "old Father Rosin, the chief minstrel here--chief minstrel, too, of Highgate; she has hired him, and all his two boys, for a day and a half." They were to be dressed in bays, rosemary, and ribands, to precede the bridal party across the fields to church and back, and to play at dinner. And so in "Epicoene," act iii. sc. 1:--

"Well, there be guests to meat now; how shall we do for music?" [for
Morose's wedding.]

_Clerimont._--The smell of the venison going thro' the street will
invite one noise of fiddlers or other.

_Dauphine._--I would it would call the trumpeters hither!

_Clerimont._--Faith, there is hope: they have intelligence of all
feasts. There's a good correspondence betwixt them and the London
cooks: 'tis twenty to one but we have them.

And Dryden, so late as the time of William III., speaks of them--

"These fellows
Were once the minstrels of a country show,
Followed the prizes through each paltry town,
By trumpet cheeks and bloated faces known."

There were also female minstrels throughout the Middle Ages; but, as might be anticipated from their irregular wandering life, they bore an indifferent reputation. The romance of "Richard Coeur de Lion" says that it was a female minstrel, and, still worse, an Englishwoman, who recognised and betrayed the knight-errant king and his companions, on their return from the Holy Land, to his enemy, the "King of Almain." The passage is worth quoting, as it illustrates several of the traits of minstrel habits which we have already recorded. After Richard and his companions had dined on a goose, which they cooked for themselves at a tavern--

"When they had drunken well afin,
A minstralle com therin,
And said 'Gentlemen, wittily,
Will ye have any minstrelsey?'
Richard bade that she should go.
That turned him to mickle woe!
The minstralle took in mind,[358]
And saith, 'Ye are men unkind;
And if I may, ye shall for-think[359]
Ye gave neither meat nor drink.
For gentlemen should bede[360]
To minstrels that abouten yede[361]
Of their meat, wine, and ale;
For los[362] rises of minstrale.'
She was English, and well true
By speech, and sight, and hide, and hue."

Stow tells that in 1316, while Edward II. was solemnizing his Feast of Pentecost in his hall at Westminster, sitting royally at table, with his peers about him, there entered a woman adorned like a minstrel, sitting on a great horse, trapped as minstrels then used, who rode round about the tables showing her pastime. The reader will remember the use which Sir E. B. Lytton has made of a troop of tymbesteres in "The Last of the Barons," bringing them in at the epochs of his tale with all the dramatic effect of the Greek chorus: the description which he gives of their habits is too sadly truthful. The daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod is scornfully represented by the mediæval artists as a female minstrel performing the tumbling tricks which were part of their craft. We give a representation of a female minstrel playing the tambourine from the MS. Royal, 2 B vii. folio 182.

A question of considerable interest to artists, no less than to antiquaries, is whether the minstrels were or not distinguished by any peculiar costume or habit. Bishop Percy[363] and his followers say that they were, and the assertion is grounded on the following evidences: Baldulph, the Saxon, in the anecdote already related, when assuming the disguise of a minstrel, is described as shaving his head and beard, and dressing himself in the habit of that profession. Alfred and Aulaff were known at once to be minstrels. The two poor priests who were turned out of the monastery by the dissolute monks were at first mistaken for minstrels. The woman who entered Westminster Hall at King Edward the Second's Pentecost feast was adorned like a minstrel, sitting on a great horse, trapped as minstrels then used.

The Knight of La Tour-Landry (chap. xvii) tells a story which shows that the costume of minstrels was often conspicuous for richness and fashion: "As y have herde telle, Sir Piere de Luge was atte the feste where as were gret foyson of lordes, ladies, knightes, and squieres, and gentilwomen, and so there came in a yonge squier before hem that was sette atte dyner and salued the companie, and he was clothed in a cote-hardy[364] upon the guyse of Almayne, and in this wise he come further before the lordes and ladies, and made hem goodly reverence. And so the said Sir Piere called this yonge squier with his voys before alle the statis, and saide unto hym and axed hym, where was his fedylle or hys ribible, or suche an instrument as longethe unto a mynstralle. 'Syr,' saide the squier, 'I canne not medille me of such thinge, it is not my craft nor science.' 'Sir,' saide the knight, 'I canne not trowe that ye saye, for ye be counterfait in youre araye and lyke unto a mynstralle; for I have knowe herebefore alle youre aunsetours, and the knightes and squiers of youre kin, which were alle worthie men; but I sawe never none of hem that were [wore] counterfait, nor that clothed hem in such array.' And thanne the yonge squier answered the knight and saide, 'Sir, by as moche as it mislykithe you it shalle be amended,' and cleped a pursevant and gave him the cote-hardy. And he abled hym selff in an other gowne, and come agen into the halle, and thanne the anncyen knight saide openly, 'This yonge squier shalle have worshipe for he hath trowed and do bi the counsaile of the elder withoute ani contraryenge.'"

In the time of Henry VII. we read of nine ells of _tawny_ cloth for three minstrels; and in the "History of Jack of Newbury," of "a noise [_i.e._ band] of musicians in _townie_ coats, who, putting off their caps, asked if they would have music." And lastly, there is a description of the person who personated "an ancient mynstrell" in one of the pageants which were played before Queen Elizabeth at her famous visit to Kenilworth, which is curious enough to be quoted. "A person, very meet seemed he for the purpose, of a forty-five years old, apparalled partly as he would himself. His cap off; his head seemly rounded tonsterwise;[365] fair kembed, that with a sponge daintily dipped in a little capon's grease was finely smoothen, to make it shine like a mallard's wing. His beard smugly shaven; and yet his shirt after the new trick, with ruffs fair starched, sleeked and glistering like a paire of new shoes, marshalled in good order with a setting stick and strut, that every ruff stood up like a wafer. A side (_i.e._ long) gown of Kendal Green, after the freshness of the year now, gathered at the neck with a narrow gorget, fastened afore with white clasp and keeper close up to the chin; but easily, for heat to undo when he list. Seemly begirt in a red caddis girdle: from that a pair of capped Sheffield knives hanging a' two sides. Out of his bosom drawn forth a lappel of his napkin (_i.e._ handkerchief) edged with a blue lace, and marked with a true love, a heart, and a D. for Damian, for he was but a batchelor yet. His gown had side (_i.e._ long) sleeves down to midleg, slit from the shoulder to the hand, and lined with white cotton. His doublet sleeves of black worsted: upon them a pair of paynets (perhaps points) of tawny chamlet laced along the wrist with blue threaden points, a weall towards the hand of fustian-a-napes. A pair of red neather socks. A pair of pumps on his feet, with a cross cut at the toes for corns: not new, indeed, yet cleanly blackt with soot, and shining as a shoeing horn. About his neck a red ribband suitable to his girdle. His harp in good grace dependant before him. His wrest tyed to a green lace, and hanging by; under the gorget of his gown a fair flaggon chain (pewter for) silver, as a squire-minstrel[366] of Middlesex that travelled the country this summer season, unto fairs and worshipful men's houses. From this chain hung a scutcheon, with metal and colour resplendant upon his breast, of the ancient arms of Islington," to which place he is represented as belonging.

From these authorities Percy would deduce that the minstrels were tonsured and apparelled very much after the same fashion as priests. The pictorial authorities do not bear out any such conclusion. There are abundant authorities for the belief that the dress of the minstrels was remarkable for a very unclerical sumptuousness; but in looking through the numerous ancient representations of minstrels we find no trace of the tonsure, and no peculiarity of dress; they are represented in the ordinary costume of their time; in colours blue, red, grey, particoloured, like other civilians; with hoods, or hats, or without either; frequently the different members of the same band of minstrels present all these differences of costume, as in the instance here given, from the title-page of the fourteenth century MS. Add., 10,293; proving that the minstrels did not affect any uniformity of costume whatever.

The household minstrels probably wore their master's badge[367] (liveries were not usual until a late period); others the badge of their guild. Thus in the Morte Arthur, Sir Dinadan makes a reproachful lay against King Arthur, and teaches it an harper, that hight Elyot, and sends him to sing it before King Mark and his nobles at a great feast. The king asked, "Thou harper, how durst thou be so bold to sing this song before me?" "Sir," said Elyot, "wit you well I am a minstrell, and I must doe as I am commanded of these lords that _I bear the armes of_;" and in proof of the privileged character of the minstrel we find the outraged king replying, "Thou saiest well, I charge thee that thou hie thee fast out of my sight." So the squire-minstrel of Middlesex, who belonged to Islington, had a chain round his neck, with a scutcheon upon it, upon which were blazoned the arms of Islington. And in the effigies of the Beverley minstrels, which we have given on page 298, we find that their costume is the ordinary costume of the period, and is not alike in all; but that each of them has a chain round his neck, to which is suspended what is probably a scutcheon, like that of the Islington minstrel. In short, a careful examination of a number of illustrations in illuminated MSS. of various dates, from Saxon downwards, leaves the impression that minstrels wore the ordinary costume of their period, more or less rich in material, or fashionable in cut, according to their means and taste; and that the only distinctive mark of their profession was the instrument which each bore, or, as in the case of the Kenilworth minstrel, the tuning wrest hung by a riband to his girdle; and in the case of a household minstrel the badge of the lord whom he served.

The forms of the most usual musical instruments of various periods may be gathered from the illustrations which have already been given. The most common are the harp, fiddle, cittern or lute, hand-organ, the shalm or psaltery, the pipe and tabor, pipes of various sizes played like clarionets, but called flutes, the double pipe, hand-bells, trumpets and horns, bagpipes, tambourine, tabret, drum, and cymbals. Of the greater number of these we have already incidentally given illustrations; we add, on the last page, other illustrations, from the Royal MS., 2 B vii., and Royal MS. 14 E iii. In the fourteenth century new instruments were invented. Guillaume de Marhault in his poem of "Le Temps Pastour," gives us an idea of the multitude of instruments which composed a grand concert of the fifteenth century; he says[368]--

"Là je vis tout en un cerne
Viole, rubebe, guiterne,
L'enmorache, le micamon,
Citole et Psalterion,
Harpes, tabours, trompes, nacaires,
Orgues, cornes plus de dix paires,
Cornemuse, flajos et chevrettes
Douceines, simbales, clochettes,
Tymbre, la flauste lorehaigne,
Et le grand cornet d'Allemayne,
Flacos de sans, fistule, pipe,
Muse d'Aussay, trompe petite,
Buisine, eles, monochorde,
Ou il n'y a qu'une corde;
Et muse de blet tout ensemble.
Et certainment il me semble
Qu' oncques mais tèle mélodie
Ne feust oncques vene ne oye;
Car chascun d'eux, selon l'accort
De son instrument sans descort,
Vitole, guiterne, citole,
Harpe, trompe, corne, flajole,
Pipe, souffle, muse, naquaire,
Taboure et qu cunque ou put faire
De dois, de peune et à l'archet,
Ois et vis en ce porchet."

In conclusion we give a group of musical instruments from one of the illustrations of "Der Weise König," a work of the close of the fifteenth century.

THE KNIGHTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.