of Iopas in the Æneid and of the scôp in Beowulf are types of those primitive speculations on the origin of things, which prepare the way for the metrical treatises of philosophers like Empedocles and Heracleitus. It is easy 1 to understand that an art embracing so much science and accomplishment should be regarded as of divine origin; the inspiration of Cædmon is granted to him directly from Heaven, just as it is taken away from Thamyris by the will of the Muses.1 But as society advances, and the institutions and ideas of men become more settled, the single art of the minstrel begins to branch into a variety of channels, and as soon as the art of writing comes into general use, the productions of the epic, the dramatic, and the lyric poet, of the historian and the philosopher, are separated by natural boundaries, though each still retains some traces of the common oral source. The works of Hesiod, of Simonides, of Pindar, of Æschylus, and even of Herodotus, are all of them the lineal offspring of the minstrelsy of the primitive bard. In the case of mediæval poetry, the descent, though more complex and irregular, is substantially the same. Percy was amply warranted in concluding that “the minstrels seem to have been the genuine successors of the ancient bards." Ritson, it is true, positively asserted that "there is no connection, no resemblance between the scalds of Scandinavia and the French minstrels "; 2 but setting aside the antecedent improbability that an order of men so distinct as the scôpas and scalds should have utterly disappeared after the barbarian irruption, the direct descent of the jongleurs from the scôpas is proved by evidence with which neither Percy nor Ritson was acquainted. In the Anglo-Saxon Traveller's Song the functions and character of the scôpas are thus described : "So through all lands wander the gleemen of men. Always North and South they fall in with some man, knowing in 1 στεῦτο γὰρ εὐχόμενος νικησέμεν, εἴπερ ἂν αὐταὶ Μοῦσαι ἀείδοιεν, κοῦραι Διός αιγιόχοιο · αἱ δὲ χολωσάμεναι πηρὸν θέσαν, αὐτὰρ ἀοιδὴν θεσπεσίην ἀφέλοντο καὶ ἐκλέλαθον κιθαριστύν. --Iliad, ii. 597. 2 Ancient English Metrical Romances, p. xxx. song, bounteous in gifts, who wishes before his great show his dignity, till all He who works praise has men to exalt his power and vanishes, life and light at once. under heaven enduring glory." 1 to sing the praises of the great was one of the chief duties of the mediæval minstrel. To cite one instance out of a thousand, John of Salisbury, in the reign of Henry I., writes approvingly to a noble correspondent because “he has not, like the triflers of the age, lavished his wealth on minstrels and mimes and suchlike monsters, in order to purchase fame and the propagation of renown. In the Teutonic or Scandinavian court the accomplished gleeman was rewarded with presents of rings, bracelets, and lands;3 on the roving minstrel of the Middle Ages who succeeded him were bestowed sumptuous robes, horses, and the favours of ladies; the wandering ballad-singer in the days of Elizabeth, the last survivor of the line, had to content himself with the payment of the conventional groat.5 4 But while the line of succession from scalds to jongleurs and from jongleurs to ballad singers was thus unbroken, the development of the art, or profession, was far more irregular than Percy's description seems to imply. So long as the scald remained in the North, he united in himself the various functions before mentioned, and expressed his thoughts by singing to the accompaniment of a single instrument, the harp. But, when the barbarians overthrew the Roman Empire, tribal institutions were brought into contact with the traditions of civil life, and the lower intellectual equipment of the conquerors gave way before, or sought to assimilate, the system of ancient culture. Their language merged itself in the speech of the subject race; their native religions were suppressed by the victorious advance of Christianity; while, in the resources of civilisation, they found a thousand arts of 1 Codex Exoniensis, pp. 326, 327. 2 Cited by Du Cange under Ministelli. His reference to the letter (247) seems to be incorrect. 3 Notes 2 and 3, p. 83. 4 Percy, Essay on the Ancient Minstrels, Note E. 6 Wheatley's Preface to Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, p. xxiii. VOL. I 2 F amusement and interest which before were unknown to them. Under these influences the simple character of the Northern minstrel soon expanded itself, leaving the course of its transformation plainly visible on the surface of language. It was the office of the Teutonic "gleeman at once to celebrate the great actions of his lord and to amuse his leisure; and it is therefore not surprising to find his name at first translated into Latin as “joculator,” and afterwards corrupted into French as "jogleur"; nor to hear of a "jogleur" of the Lombards prophesying victory to Charlemagne on his march into Italy.1 But our ordinary associations are certainly shocked when we read of martial songs of the same kind being sung by a scurra or buffoon; 2 for this can only mean that the gleeman while continuing to sing the ancient tribal "gestes" has begun to amuse his lord by an exhibition of the same kind of tricks as diverted the rich and corrupted Roman. In the same manner the "gestour," or singer of heroic songs, gradually declines into the jester or court fool. Besides, the barbarians found among the Romans a long-established form of amusement provided by the "mimus," who entertained his audience by dumb action. As no word is more frequently used than this by the Latin writers of the Middle Ages to denote the minstrel class, we may infer that the arts of the mime were imitated by some of the gleemen. This would have naturally led to a separation between the offices of the singer and the harper, hitherto combined in the single person of the Teutonic minstrel; hence in the laws of James II., king of Majorca, provision is made for the engagement in the service of the palace of five mimes, of whom two are to be trumpeters, and a third a tabourer.3 In course of time the art of minstrelsy came to include all the other instruments which the barbarians found in use among the nations with whom 1 "Contigit joculatorem ex Longobardorum gente ad Carolum venire, et cantiunculam a se compositam de eadem re, rotando in conspectu suorum, cantare."-Muratori, Antiquitates Italicæ, ii. 845. 2. Tanta vero illius securitas . . . ut scurram se præcedere facerent qui musico instrumento res fortiter gestas et priorum bella præcineret."—Aimoinus, De Miraculis S. Benedicti, c. 37, cited by Du Cange under Ministelli. 3 Du Cange, under Mimus. they were brought into contact, those most frequently mentioned being the viol, the clavichord, the rote, and the psaltery.1 Besides the accomplishment of singing and playing, the professional minstrel, descending from his dignity to meet the growing wants of his patrons, added to his stock of entertainments dancing and even tumbling, in which female as well as male performers displayed their skill; 2 nor did he disdain tricks of magic and sleight of hand. Taillefer at the battle of Hastings appears to have exhibited his dexterity as a "tregetour" (trajector), while he animated the courage of the Normans by his heroic chants; and, in the feats of the juggler of the London streets, may be found a lingering tradition of a craft (jogleur) which was not without honour in the days of chivalry. 3 Thus the simple art of the harping minstrel was broken up, by the advance of the Teutonic tribes to a more civil condition of society, into a number of separate branches. These again gradually decayed, or were absorbed into higher forms of art, as tribes grew into nations, and each nation invented fresh methods of luxury and refinement. The more venerable theological and didactic functions of the bard naturally disappeared under the influence of Christianity; and this was especially the case among the Anglo-Saxons. Minstrelsy, in the latter days of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty, when the tide of monastic revival ran strongly, was regarded with much 1 Wace's enumeration (in his Brut) of the different kinds of minstrelsy employed in Arthur's court shows how great was the variety of musical entertainment in the Middle Ages 2 Mult ost a la cort jogleurs, Laiz de violes, laiz de rotez, Lires, tympres, et chalemealx, Symphoniez, psalterions, Monacors, des cymbes, chorons, Joieresses et joieors, Li uns dient contes et fables. Percy, Essay on the Ancient Minstrels, Note A; and Ritson, Ancient English Metrical Romances (1802), vol. i. p. cxciii. 3 Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, vol. iii. p. 478, Note 4. disfavour by the Church, as diverting the thoughts of the people into mundane channels. King Edgar, in one of his canons, published in 960, enjoined that no priest should be an ale-drinker, nor in any wise a minstrel (3liwige, scurra); and in his oration to Dunstan he expressed his grief that the houses of clerks were become a conciliabulum of minstrels.1 Independently, therefore, of the great change in the manners of the Anglo-Saxons, which brought about the decline in their native poetry, described in an earlier chapter, the influence of monasticism tended in the same direction; and, as we have already seen, the genius of Puritanism, the natural antagonist of the arts of minstrelsy, gives no uncertain sound in the poems of men like Robert of Brunne, the author of the Cursor Mundi, and Langland himself. Percy's assertion that the Anglo-Saxon minstrels "continued a distinct order of men for many ages after the Norman Conquest" is not supported by any evidence. If minstrelsy took fresh root and flourished in England after the battle of Hastings, it was owing to the tastes and habits of the Norman conquerors. Even among these, however, the progress of civil refinement tended to discourage the practice of oral poetry. The number of readers in court and castle increased so much as to provide occupation for the class of scrivener; and greater finish was required in metrical compositions, intended for private study, than could be found in the often improvised songs of the minstrel. When printing was invented, the multiplication of books brought to hundreds of individuals sources of amusement which they could previously only have shared as members of a collective audience. As to the pleasure derived from gesture and mimicry, the growth of dramatic exhibitions, by means of pageants and Miracle Plays, and the composition of plays requiring the co-operation of many actors, drew off a large number of the mimetic minstrels into a separate profession. There was accordingly a constant tendency, as far as the minstrel's art depended on recitation, 1 Ritson, Ancient English Metrical Romances (1802), vol. i. p. clxxi. |