Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/211

 aiid Sentif?ients. 191 have been one of the mulical inilruments borrowed immediately from the Romans. Jn conchiiion of this fubjecl we give a group of mulical inftru- ments (No. 136) from one of the illuftrations of the celebrated book entitled "DerWeife Konig," a work of the clofe of the fifteenth century. The early commentator on the Diftionarius, or Vocabulary, of John de Garlande, calls the mufical inftruments 'uijirumenta Icccatorum, (inftru- ments of the letchcrs or ribalds), and I have already ftated that the minllrels, or jougleurs, were conlidered as belonging generally to that degraded clafs of fociety. In the vocabularies of the fifteenth century, they are generally claffed under the head of reprehenfible or difgraceful profeflions, along with ribalds, heretics, harlots, and fo forth. It was the fame charafter 'hich led them, a little later, to be profcribed in a6ls of parliament, under the titles of rogues and vagabonds. In the older poetry, too, they are often joined with difgraceful epithets. There is a curious early metrical ftory, or fabliau, which was made, no doubt, to be recited by the minfl:rels themfelves, although it throws ridicule on their profeliion ; it is entitled Les deux Troveors rilaiix, " the two ribald trou- veres," and confifts in a ludicrous difpute between them on their qualifi- cations as mlnrtrels. JMy readers mult not fuppofe that at this time the reciters of poetry were a dilferent or better clafs than thofe who per- formed jugglery and low buffoonery — for, in this poem, either of the two claimants to fuperiority boalls of his ikill equally in poffelling in his memory completely, and being able to recite well, the early Chanfons de Gefte, or Carlovingian romances, the later romances of chivalry, and the fabliaus or metrical ilories ; in playing upon the moft falhionable mufical infl:ruments, fuch as the citole, the fiddle, and the gigiw (gittern) ; in performing extraordinary feats and in fleight of hand ; and even in making chaplets of flowers, and in ading as a Ipy or as a go-between in love intrigues. No doubt there were minllrels who kept themfelves more refpeftable, but they were exceptions to the general chara6ter of the clafs, and were chiefly men in the fervice of the king or of the great barons. There appears alfo to have been, for a long time, a continued attempt to raife minftrelfy to a refpeftable pofition, and out of this attempt arofe, in different places, companies and guilds. Of thefe, the mofl: