Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/637

* MINSTREL. 569 MINSTREL. ^^ minor, less). The term scoms to have been em- ployed at first to designate a retainer who amused his lord with music and song. It has now come to he the generic name lor the poet- musician, the verse-reciter, the mountebank, merry Andrew, juggler, and acrobat of the Mid- dle Ages, as well as for certain modern entertain- ers. (See below. ) Before the Norman Comiuest, the professional poet was known in England as a scop (shaper or maker). "Maker' sometimes signified a poet in Shakespeare's time. The seOp shaped or composed his own poems, and chanted or sang them to the accomiianimcnt of a rude harp. Widsith (i.e. Long-travel), per- haps the oldest of extant English poems (for it is earlier than the Angles' inroad of Britain), is an account of the scop's wandering and recep- tion among the Huns. Goths, Danes, and other peoples. For the tales he recited in the mead hall, the scop was rewarded with many treasures, including golden rings and bracelets. The scop was not commonly a wanderer. He was rather attached to the household of some chief, by whom he was maintained, and in some cases rewarded with gifts of land. The scop was held in great honor. He composed his poems in solitude and re- cited them in the hall where his master feasted. The recitation was doubt- less accompanied by ges- ture as well as by music. The scop was first of all a poet, differing from the modern poet mainly in the fact that he not only shaped but also recited his compositions. His theme was the glorious deeds of his chieftain or of some hero of his race. To him we are indebted for our primitive and narrative poems like Beo- wulf. The spread of Christianity in England broke up the old tribal relation, and therefore the standing of the scop was changed. In a rank much beneath the scop were the gleemen. W'ho, though they no doubt sometimes improvised songs and modified the matter that came to them, were satisfied for the most part to render what others had composed. They had no settled abode, but strolled far and near, earning what they could by their minstrels^'. (The accompanying illus- trations, derived from mediicval manuscripts, give some notion as to the strolling minstrels' looks and demeanor.) Among their aeeom])lish- nients were tumbling. ro[)e-walking. and feats of jugglery. Some of them chewed stones or ap- peared to swallow knives or fire. Others had performing animals, such as bears, goats, mar- mots, dogs, and monkeys. The Xormans brought not a few jonfileum (q.v.) and irouhadours (q.v.) to England. The minstrels of the ^liddlc Ages were in part de- scendants of the Teutonic seopas and gleemen who took root in Gaul with the invasion of the Franks, or of those who went along with the ROPE-WALKER JCQGLER. Teuton invaders into Italy, England, and else- where, in part of the niiini and scurrw who had once overrun the Roman Empire. With the Celtic bards they have probably no kindred. At the battle of Hastings Taillefer. minstrel and warrior, rode before the Xorman chivalry, tossing his shield aloft, and stirring their courage with the Song of Roland, and there bravely met his death. By the fourteenth century the poet and the performer in England were usually distinct. The scop and the troubadour were transformed into poets like Chaucer and Gowcr. True, there MINSTREL WITH DRUM, FLAGEOLET. AND PERFORMING BEAR. still survived in the structure of their tales sev- eral devices of the singers, such as the address to an audience, but the audience was wholly imag- inary. The gleemen and jongleurs were then known as minstrels, of whom the more reputable were still held in great honor. At feasts and festivals they swarmed in great numbers with MINSTREL PLAYINO A REBEC, harps, fiddles, bagpipes, flutes, flageolets, cit- terns, and kettle-drums. Such an occasion is de- scribed by Chaucer in the Squire's Tale: As Cam- buskan dines, the "minstralles" play "beforn him at the bord deliciously." When he goes out he is preceded by "loude niinistralcye," Ther afi the.v sownen ciivprs*^ iustrumentz That it is l.vk an lieveu for to here. But the decline of minstrelsy had already set in, as we know from Langland's Piers I'lowiiian, the best single source of information for England. Jlinstrels as a class Langland severely satirized, calling them prattlers and bufToons, foul and scurrilous of speech, indeed the very children of