Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/56

 36 Hijlory of Domejiic Marnier s affemblage, from the feftive hall to the village wake, was a perfon not efteemed refpeftable. He was beneath confideration in any other light than as affording amufement, and as fuch he was admitted everywhere, without examination. It was for this reafon that Alfred, and fubfe- quently Athelftan, found fuch eafy accefs in this garb to the camps of their enemies ; and it appears to have been a common difguife for fuch purpofes. The group given in the laft cut (No. 26) are intended to repre- fent the perfons charafterifed in the text (of Prudentius) by the Latin word ganeones (vagabonds, ribalds), which is there gloffed by the Saxon term gleemen (ganeoniim, gUwig-manna). Befides muiic and dancing, they feem to have performed a variety of tricks and jokes, to while away the tedioufnefs of a Saxon afternoon, or excite the coarfe mirth of the peafant. That fuch performers, refembling in many refpe6ts the Norman jougleur, were ufually employed by Anglo-Saxons of wealth and rank, is evident from various allufions to them. Gaimar has preferved a curious Saxon ftory of the murder of king Edward by his ftepmother (a.d. 978), in which the queen is reprefented as having in her fervice a dwarf minftrel, who is employed to draw the young king alone to her houfe. According to the Anglo-Norman relator of this flory, the dwarf was Ikilled in various modes of dancing and tumbling, chara£terifed by words of which we can hardly now point out the exa£t diftinftion, "and could play many other games." Woljianet un naim a-veit, Ki baler e trejcher Jave'it ,• Si fa-velt Ja'ilkr e t umber, E ahres gius plufurs juer. In a Saxon manufcript in the Britiih Mufeum (MS. Cotton. Tiberius, C. vi.), among the minftrels attendant on king David (reprefented in our cut. No. 27), we fee a gleeman, who is throwing up and catching knives and balls, a common performance of the later Norman jongleurs, as well as of our modern mountebanks. Some of the tricks and geflures of thefe performers were of the coarfeft defcription, fuch as could be only tolerated in a rude ftate of fociety. An example will be found in a Ilory told by William of Malmelbury of wandering minftrels, whom he had ieen. performing