Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/186

 i66 Hifiory of Doniejiic Manners rafter, even in the preience of the ladies. In the illuminated manulcripts, the minftrel is moft comnrionly a harper, perhaps becaule thefe illumina- tions are uiually found in the old romances of chivalry M^here the harper generally afts an important part, for the minllrels were not unfrequently employed in meilages and intrigues. In general the harp is wrapped in Ibme fort of drapery, as reprefented in our cut No. 1 17, taken from a MS. in the National Library of Paris, which was per- haps the bag in which the minftrel carried it, and may have been attached to the bottom of the inftrument. The accompanying fcene of min- ftrelfy is taken from a manulcript of the romance ^ I of Guyron le Com-tois in the French National AT .,^ A jr ^ Library, No. 6076. JSo. 117. A Harper. -" -'' The dinner was always accompanied by mulic, and itinerant mintirels, mountebanks, and performers of all defcriptions, were allowed free accefs to the hall to amufe the guefts by their per- formances. Thefe were intermixed with dancing and tumbling, and No. 118. Mlnjtrelfy. often with exhibitions of a very grofs charafter, which, however, amid the loofenefs of mediaeval manners, appear to have excited no difguft. Thefe practices are curioully illuftrated in fome of the mediaeval illu- minations.