CHAPTER XI.

No. 113. Another Irishman.

If the Welshman of this period was somewhat more scantily clothed than the Irishman, he had the advantage of him, to judge by this manuscript, in wearing at least one shoe. Our cut No. 114, taken from it, represents a Welshman armed with bow and arrow, whose clothingconsists apparently only of a plain tunic and a light mantle. This is quite in accordance with the description by Giraldus Cambrensis, who tells us that in all seasons their dress was the same, and that, however severe the weather, “they defended themselves from the cold only by a thin cloak and tunic.” Giraldus says nothing of the practice of the Welsh in wearing but one shoe, yet it is evident that at the time of this record that was their practice, for in another figure of a Welshman, given in our cut No. 115, we see the same peculiarity, and in both cases the shoe is worn on the left foot. Giraldus merely says that the Welshmen in general, when engaged in warfare, “either walked bare-footed, or made use of high shoes, roughly made of untanned leather.” He describes them as armed sometimes with bows and arrows, and sometimes with long spears; and accordingly our first example of a Welshman from this manuscript is using the bow, while the second carries the spear, which he apparently rests on the single shoe of his left foot, while he brandishes a sword in his left hand. Both our Welshmen present a singularly grotesque appearance.

No. 114. A Welsh Archer.No. 115. A Welshman with his Spear.

No. 114. A Welsh Archer.

No. 115. A Welshman with his Spear.

No. 116. A Gascon at his Vine.

The Gascon is represented with more peaceful attributes. Gascony was the country of vineyards, from whence we drew our great supply of wines, a very important article of consumption in the middle ages. When the official clerk who wrote this manuscript came to documents relating to Gascony, his thoughts wandered naturally enough to its rich vineyards and the wine they supplied so plentifully, and to which, according to old reports, clerks seldom showed any dislike, and accordingly, in the sketch, which we copy in our cut No. 116, we have a Gascon occupied diligently in pruning his vine-tree. He, at least, wears two shoes, though his clothing is of the lightest description. He is perhaps thevinitorof the mediæval documents on this subject, a serf attached to the vineyard. Our second sketch, cut No. 117, presents a more enlarged scene, and introduces us to the whole process of making wine. First we see a man better clothed, with shoes (or boots) of much superior make, and a hat on his head, carrying away the grapes from the vineyard to the place where another man, with no clothing at all, is treading out the juice in a large vat. This is still in some of the wine countriesthe common method of extracting the juice from the grape. Further to the left is the large cask in which the juice is put when turned into wine.

No. 117. The Wine Manufacturer.

Satires on the people of particular localities were not uncommon during the middle ages, because local rivalries and consequent local feuds prevailed everywhere. The records of such feuds were naturally of a temporary character, and perished when the feuds and rivalries themselves ceased to exist, but a few curious satires of this kind have been preserved. A monk of Peterborough, who lived late in the twelfth or early in the thirteenth century, and for some reason or other nourished an unfriendly feeling to the people of Norfolk, gave vent to his hostility in a short Latin poem in what we may call goliardic verse. He begins by abusing the county itself, which, he says, was as bad and unfruitful as its inhabitants were vile; and he suggests that the evil one, when he fled from the anger of the Almighty, had passed through it and left his pollution upon it. Among other anecdotes of the simplicity and folly of the people of this county, which closely resemble the stories of the wise men of Gotham of a later date, he informs us that one day the peasantry of one district were so grieved by the oppressions of their feudal lord, that they subscribed together and bought their freedom, which he secured to them by formal deed, ratified with a ponderous seal. They adjourned to the tavern, and celebrated their deliverance by feasting and drinking until night came on, and then, for want of a candle, they agreed to burn the wax of the seal. Next day their former lord, informed of what had taken place, brought them before a court, where the deed was judged to be void for want of the seal, and they lost all their money, were reduced to their old position of slavery, and treated worse than ever. Other stories, still more ridiculous, are told of these old Norfolkians, but few of them are worth repeating. Another monk, apparently, who calls himself John de St. Omer, took up the cudgels for the people of Norfolk, and replied to the Peterborough satirist in similar language.[59]I have printed inanother collection,[60]a satirical poem against the people of a place called Stockton (perhaps Stockton-on-Tees in Durham), by the monk of a monastic house, of which they were serfs. It appeared that they had risen against the tyranny of their lord, but had been unsuccessful in defending their cause in a court of law, and the ecclesiastical satirist exults over their defeat in a very uncharitable tone. There will be found in the“Reliquæ Antiquæ,”[61]a very curious satire in Latin prose directed against the inhabitants of Rochester, although it is in truth aimed against Englishmen in general, and is entitled in the manuscript, which is of the fourteenth century,“Proprietates Anglicorum”(the Peculiarities of Englishmen). In the first place, we are told, that the people of Rochester had tails, and the question is discussed, very scholastically, what species of animals these Rocestrians were. We are then told that the cause of their deformity arose from the insolent manner in which they treated St. Augustine, when he came to preach the Gospel to the heathen English. After visiting many parts of England, the saint came to Rochester, where the people, instead of listening to him, hooted at him through the streets, and, in derision, attached tails of pigs and calves to his vestments, and so turned him out of the city. The vengeance of Heaven came upon them, and all who inhabited the city and the country round it, and their descendants after them, were condemned to bear tails exactly like those of pigs. This story of the tails was not an invention of the author of the satire, but was a popular legend connected with the history of St. Augustine’s preaching, though the scene of the legend was laid in Dorsetshire. The writer of this singular composition goes on to describe the people of Rochester as seducers of other people, as men without gratitude, and as traitors. He proceeds to show that Rochester being situated in England, its vices had tainted the whole nation, and he illustrates the baseness of the English character by a number of anecdotes of worse than doubtful authenticity. It is, in fact, a satire on the English composed in France, and leads us into the domains of political satire.

Political satire in the middle ages appeared chiefly in the form of poetry and song, and it was especially in England that it flourished, a sure sign that there was in our country a more advanced feeling of popular independence, and greater freedom of speech, than in France or Germany.[62]M. Leroux de Lincy, who undertook to make a collection of this poetry for France, found so little during the mediæval period that came under the character of political, that he was obliged to substitute the word “historical” in the title of his book.[63]Where feudalism was supreme, indeed, the songs which arose out of private or public strife, which then were almost inseparable from society, contained no political sentiment, but consisted chiefly of personal attacks on the opponents of those who employed them. Such are the four short songs written in the time of the revolt of the French during the minority of St. Louis, which commenced in 1226; they are all of a political character which M. Leroux de Lincy has been able to collect previous to the year 1270, and they consist merely of personal taunts against the courtiers by the dissatisfied barons who were out of power. We trace a similar feeling in some of the popular records of our baronial wars of the reign of Henry III., especially in a song, in the baronial language (Anglo-Norman), preserved in a small roll of vellum, which appears to have belonged to the minstrel who chanted it in the halls of the partisans of Simon de Montfort. The fragment which remains consists of stanzas in praise of the leaders of the popular party, and in reproach of their opponents. Thus of Roger de Clifford, one of earl Simon’s friends, we are told that “the good Roger de Clifford behaved like a noble baron, and exercisedgreat justice; he suffered none, either small or great, or secretly or openly, to do any wrong.”

Et de Cliffort ly bon RogerSe contint cum noble ber,Si fu de grant justice;Ne suffri pas petit ne grant,Ne arère ne par devant,Fere nul mesprise.

Et de Cliffort ly bon Roger

Se contint cum noble ber,

Si fu de grant justice;

Ne suffri pas petit ne grant,

Ne arère ne par devant,

Fere nul mesprise.

On the other hand, one of Montfort’s opponents, the bishop of Hereford, is treated rather contemptuously. We are told that he “learnt well that the earl was strong when he took the matter in hand; before that he (the bishop) was very fierce, and thought to eat up all the English; but now he is reduced to straits.”

Ly eveske de HerefortSout bien que ly quens fu fort,Kant il prist l’affère;Devant ce esteit mult fer,Les Englais quida touz manger,Mès ore ne set que fere.

Ly eveske de Herefort

Sout bien que ly quens fu fort,

Kant il prist l’affère;

Devant ce esteit mult fer,

Les Englais quida touz manger,

Mès ore ne set que fere.

This bishop was Peter de Aigueblanche, one of the foreign favourites, who had been intruded into the see of Hereford, to the exclusion of a better man, and had been an oppressor of those who were under his rule. The barons seized him, threw him into prison, and plundered his possessions, and at the time this song was written, he was suffering under the imprisonment which appears to have shortened his life.

The universities and the clerical body in general were deeply involved in these political movements of the thirteenth century; and our earliest political songs now known are composed in Latin, and in that form and style of verse which seems to have been peculiar to the goliards, and which I venture to call goliardic. Such is a song against the three bishops who supported king John in his quarrel with the pope about the presentation to the see of Canterbury, printed in my Political Songs. Such, too, is the song of the Welsh, and one or two others, in the same volume. And such, above all, is that remarkable Latin poem in which a partisanof the barons, immediately after the victory at Lewes, set forth the political tenets of his party, and gave the principles of English liberty nearly the same broad basis on which they stand at the present. It is an evidence of the extent to which these principles were now acknowledged, that in this great baronial struggle our political songs began to be written in the English language, an acknowledgment that they concerned the whole English public.

We trace little of this class of literature during the reign of Edward I.; but, when the popular feelings became turbulent again under the reign of his son and successor, political songs became more abundant, and their satire was directed more even than formerly against measures and principles, and was less an instrument of mere personal abuse. One satirical poem of this period, which I had printed from an imperfect copy in a manuscript at Edinburgh, but of which a more complete copy was subsequently found in a manuscript in the library of St. Peter’s College, Cambridge,[64]is extremely curious as being the earliest satire of this kind written in English that we possess. It appears to have been written in the year 1320. The writer of this poem begins by telling us that his object is to explain the cause of the war, ruin, and manslaughter which then prevailed throughout the land, and why the poor were suffering from hunger and want, the cattle perished in the field, and the corn was dear. These he ascribes to the increasing wickedness of all orders of society. To begin with the church, Rome was the head of all corruptions, at the papal court false-hood and treachery only reigned, and the door of the pope’s palace was shut against truth. During the twelfth and following centuries these complaints, in terms more or less forcible, against the corruptions of Rome, are continually repeated, and show that the evil must have been one under which everybody felt oppressed. The old charge of Romish simony is repeated in this poem in very strong terms. “The clerk’s voice shall be little heard at the court of Rome, were he ever so good, unlesshe bring silver with him; though he were the holiest man that ever was born, unless he bring gold or silver, all his time and anxiety are lost. Alas! why love they so much that which is perishable?”

Voys of clerk shall lytyl be heard at the court of Rome,Were he never so gode a clerk, without silver and he come;Though he were the holyst man that ever yet was ibore,But he bryng gold or sylver, al hys while is forloreAnd his thowght.Allas! whi love thei that so much that schal turne to nowght?

Voys of clerk shall lytyl be heard at the court of Rome,

Were he never so gode a clerk, without silver and he come;

Though he were the holyst man that ever yet was ibore,

But he bryng gold or sylver, al hys while is forlore

And his thowght.

Allas! whi love thei that so much that schal turne to nowght?

When, on the contrary, a wicked man presented himself at the pope’s court, he had only to carry plenty of money thither, and all went well with him. According to our satirist, the bishops were “fools,” and the other dignitaries and officials of the church were influenced chiefly by the love of money and self-indulgence. The parson began humbly, when he first obtained his benefice, but no sooner had he gathered money together, than he took “a wenche” to live with him as his wife, and rode a hunting with hawks and hounds like a gentleman. The priests were men with no learning, who preached by rote what they neither understood nor appreciated. “Truely,” he says, “it fares by our unlearned priests as by a jay in a cage, who curses himself: he speaks good English, but he knows not what it means. No more does an unlearned priest know his gospel that he reads daily. An unlearned priest, then, is no better than a jay.”

Certes at so hyt fareth by a prest that is lewed,As by a jay in a cage that hymself hath beshrewed:Gode Englysh he speketh, but he not never what.No more wot a lewed prest hys gospel wat he ratBy day.Than is a lewed prest no better than a jay.

Certes at so hyt fareth by a prest that is lewed,

As by a jay in a cage that hymself hath beshrewed:

Gode Englysh he speketh, but he not never what.

No more wot a lewed prest hys gospel wat he rat

By day.

Than is a lewed prest no better than a jay.

Abbots and priors were remarkable chiefly for their pride and luxury, and the monks naturally followed their examples. Thus was religion debased everywhere. The character of the physician is treated with equal severity, and his various tricks to obtain money are amusingly described. In this manner the songster presents to view the failings of the various orders of lay society also, the selfishness and oppressive bearing of the knights andaristocracy, and their extravagance in dress and living, the neglect of justice, the ill-management of the wars, the weight of taxation, and all the other evils which then afflicted the state. This poem marks a period in our social history, and led the way to that larger work of the same character, which came about thirty years later, the well-known “Visions of Piers Ploughman,”[65]one of the most remarkable satires, as well as one of the most remarkable poems, in the English language.

We will do no more than glance at the further progress of political satire which had now taken a permanent footing in English literature. We see less of it during the reign of Edward III., the greater part of which was occupied with foreign wars and triumphs, but there appeared towards the close of his reign, a very remarkable satire, which I have printed in my “Political Poems and Songs.” It is written in Latin, and consists of a pretended prophecy in verse by an inspired monk named John of Bridlington, with a mock commentary in prose—in fact, a parody on the commentaries in which the scholastics of that age displayed their learning, but in this case the commentary contains a bold though to us rather obscure criticism on the whole policy of Edward’s reign. The reign of Richard II. was convulsed by the great struggle for religious reform, by the insurrections of the lower orders, and by the ambition and feuds of the nobles, and produced a vast quantity of political and religious satire, both in prose and verse, but especially the latter. We must not overlook our great poet Chaucer, as one of the powerful satirists of this period. Political song next makes itself heard loudly in the wars of the Roses. It was the last struggle of feudalism in England, and the character of the song had fallen back to its earlier characteristics, in which all patriotic feelings were abandoned to make place for personal hatred.

MINSTRELSY A SUBJECT OF BURLESQUE AND CARICATURE.—CHARACTER OF THE MINSTRELS.—THEIR JOKES UPON THEMSELVES AND UPON ONE ANOTHER.—VARIOUS MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN THE SCULPTURES OF THE MEDIÆVAL ARTISTS.—SIR MATTHEW GOURNAY AND THE KING OF PORTUGAL.—DISCREDIT OF THE TABOR AND BAGPIPES.—MERMAIDS.

One of the principal classes of the satirists of the middle ages, the minstrels, or jougleurs, were far from being unamenable to satire themselves. They belonged generally to a low class of the population, one that was hardly acknowledged by the law, which merely administered to the pleasures and amusements of others, and, though sometimes liberally rewarded, they were objects rather of contempt than of respect. Of course there were minstrels belonging to a class more respectable than the others, but these were comparatively few; and the ordinary minstrel seems to have been simply an unprincipled vagabond, who hardly possessed any settled resting-place, who wandered about from place to place, and was not too nice as to the means by which he gained his living—perhaps fairly represented by the street minstrel, or mountebank, of the present day. One of his talents was that of mocking and ridiculing others, and it is not to be wondered at, therefore, if he sometimes became an object of mockery and ridicule himself. One of the well-known minstrels of the thirteenth century, Rutebeuf, was, like many of his fellows, a poet also, and he has left several short pieces of verse descriptive of himself and of his own mode of life. In one of these he complains of his poverty, and tells us that the world had in his time—the reign of St. Louis—become so degenerate, that few people gave anything to the unfortunate minstrel. According to his own account, he was withoutfood, and in a fair way towards starvation, exposed to the cold without sufficient clothing, and with nothing but straw for his bed.

Je touz de froit, de fain baaille,Dont je suis mors et maubailliz,Je suis sanz coutes et sans liz;N’a si povre jusqu’à Senliz.Sire, si ne sai quel part aille;Mes costeiz connoit le pailliz,Et liz de paille n’est pas liz,Et en mon lit n’a fors la paille.—Œuvres de Rutebeuf, vol. i. p. 3.

Je touz de froit, de fain baaille,

Dont je suis mors et maubailliz,

Je suis sanz coutes et sans liz;

N’a si povre jusqu’à Senliz.

Sire, si ne sai quel part aille;

Mes costeiz connoit le pailliz,

Et liz de paille n’est pas liz,

Et en mon lit n’a fors la paille.

—Œuvres de Rutebeuf, vol. i. p. 3.

In another poem, Rutebeuf laments that he has rendered his condition still more miserable by marrying, when he had not wherewith to keep a wife and family. In a third, he complains that in the midst of his poverty, his wife has brought him a child to increase his domestic expenses, while his horse, on which he was accustomed to travel to places where he might exercise his profession, had broken its leg, and his nurse was dunning him for money. In addition to all these causes of grief, he had lost the use of one of his eyes.

Or a d’enfant géu ma fame;Mon cheval a brisié la jameA une lice;Or veut de l’argent ma norrice,Qui m’en destraint et me pélice,For l’enfant pestre.

Or a d’enfant géu ma fame;

Mon cheval a brisié la jame

A une lice;

Or veut de l’argent ma norrice,

Qui m’en destraint et me pélice,

For l’enfant pestre.

Throughout his complaint, although he laments over the decline of liberality among his contemporaries, he nevertheless turns his poverty into a joke. In several other pieces of verse he speaks in the same way, half joking and half lamenting over his condition, and he does not conceal that the love of gambling was one of the causes of it. “The dice,” he says, “have stripped me entirely of my robe; the dice watch and spy me; it is these which kill me; they assault and ruin me, to my grief.”

Li dé que li détier ont fet,M’ont de ma robe tout desfet;Li dé m’ocient.Li dé m’aguetent et espient;Li dé m’assaillent et dessient,Ce poise moi.—Ib., vol. i. p. 27.

Li dé que li détier ont fet,

M’ont de ma robe tout desfet;

Li dé m’ocient.

Li dé m’aguetent et espient;

Li dé m’assaillent et dessient,

Ce poise moi.—Ib., vol. i. p. 27.

And elsewhere he intimates that what the minstrels sometimes gained from the lavish generosity of their hearers, soon passed away at the tavern in dice and drinking.

One of Rutebeuf’s contemporaries in the same profession, Colin Muset, indulges in similar complaints, and speaks bitterly of the want of generosity displayed by the great barons of his time. In addressing one of them who had treated him ungenerously, he says, “Sir Count, I have fiddled before you in your hostel, and you neither gave me a gift, nor paid me my wages. It is discreditable behaviour. By the duty I owe to St. Mary, I cannot continue in your service at this rate. My purse is ill furnished, and my wallet is empty.”

Sire quens, j’ai vieléDevant vos en vostre ostel;Si ne m’avez riens donné,Ne mes gages acquitez,C’est vilanie.Foi que doi sainte Marie,Ensi ne vos sieurré-je mie.M’aumosnière est mal garnie,Et ma male mal farsie.

Sire quens, j’ai vielé

Devant vos en vostre ostel;

Si ne m’avez riens donné,

Ne mes gages acquitez,

C’est vilanie.

Foi que doi sainte Marie,

Ensi ne vos sieurré-je mie.

M’aumosnière est mal garnie,

Et ma male mal farsie.

He proceeds to state that when he went home to his wife (for Colin Muset also was a married minstrel), he was ill received if his purse and wallet were empty; but it was very different when they were full. His wife then sprang forward and threw her arms round his neck; she took his wallet from his horse with alacrity, while his lad conducted the animal cheerfully to the stable, and his maiden killed a couple of capons, and prepared them with piquant sauce. His daughter brought a comb for his hair. “Then,” he exclaims, “I am master in my own house.”

Ma fame va destroserMa male sans demorer;Mon garçon va abuvrerMen cheval et conreer;Ma pucele va tuerDeux chapons por deporterA la sause aillie.Ma fille m’aporte un pigneEn sa main par cortoisie.Lors sui de mon ostel sire.

Ma fame va destroser

Ma male sans demorer;

Mon garçon va abuvrer

Men cheval et conreer;

Ma pucele va tuer

Deux chapons por deporter

A la sause aillie.

Ma fille m’aporte un pigne

En sa main par cortoisie.

Lors sui de mon ostel sire.

When the minstrels could thus joke upon themselves, we need not be surprised if they satirised one another. In a poem of the thirteenth century, entitled“Les deux Troveors Ribauz,”two minstrels are introduced on the stage abusing and insulting one another, and while indulging in mutual accusations of ignorance in their art, they display their ignorance at the same time by misquoting the titles of the poems which they profess to be able to recite. One of them boasts of the variety of instruments on which he could perform:—

Je suis jugleres de viele,Si sai de muse et frestele,Et de harpes et de chifonie,De la gigue, de l’armonie,De l’salteire, et en la roteSai-ge bien chanter une note.

Je suis jugleres de viele,

Si sai de muse et frestele,

Et de harpes et de chifonie,

De la gigue, de l’armonie,

De l’salteire, et en la rote

Sai-ge bien chanter une note.

It appears, however, that among all these instruments, the viol, or fiddle, was the one most generally in use.

No. 118. A Charming Fiddler.

The mediæval monuments of art abound with burlesques and satires on the minstrels, whose instruments of music are placed in the hands sometimes of monsters, and at others in those of animals of a not very refined character. Our cut No. 118 is taken from a manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton, Domitian A. ii.), and represents a female minstrel playing on the fiddle; she has the upper part of a lady, and the lower parts of a mare, a combination which appears to have been rather familiar to the imagination of the mediæval artists. In our cut No. 119, which is taken from a copy made by Carter of one of the misereres in Ely Cathedral, it is not quite clear whether the performer on the fiddle be a monster or merely a cripple; but perhaps the latter was intended. The instrument, too, assumes a rather singular form. Our cut No. 120, also taken from Carter, was furnished by a sculpture in the church of St. John, at Cirencester, and represents a man performing on an instrument rather closely resembling the modern hurdy-gurdy, which is evidently played byturning a handle, and the music is produced by striking wires or strings inside. The face is evidently intended to be that of a jovial companion.

No. 119. A Crippled Minstrel.

No. 120. The Hurdy-Gurdy.

Gluttony was an especial characteristic of that class of society to whichthe minstrel belonged, and perhaps this was the idea intended to be conveyed in the next picture, No. 121, taken from one of the stalls in Winchester Cathedral, in which a pig is performing on the fiddle, and appearsto be accompanied by a juvenile of the same species of animal. One of the same stalls, copied in our cut No. 122, represents a sow performing on another sort of musical instrument, which is not at all uncommon in mediæval delineations. It is the double pipe or flute, which was evidently borrowed from the ancients. Minstrelsy was the usual accompaniment of the mediæval meal, and perhaps this picture is intended to be a burlesque on that circumstance, as the mother is playing to her brood while they are feeding. They all seem to listen quietly, except one, who is evidently much more affected by the music than his companions. The same instrument is placed in the hands of a rather jolly-looking female in one of the sculptures of St. John’s Church in Cirencester, copied in our cut No. 123.

No. 121. A Swinish Minstrel.

No. 122. A Musical Mother.

No. 123. The Double Flute.

Although this instrument is rather frequently represented in mediæval works of art, we have no account of or allusion to it in mediæval writers; and perhaps it was not held in very high estimation, and was used only by a low class of performers. As in many other things, the employment of particular musical instruments was guided, no doubt, by fashion, new ones coming in as old ones went out. Such was the case with theinstrument which is named in one of the above extracts, and in some other mediæval writers, achiffonie, and which has been supposed to be the dulcimer, that had fallen into discredit in the fourteenth century. This instrument is introduced in a story which is found in Cuvelier’s metrical history of the celebrated warrior Bertrand du Gueselin. In the course of the war for the expulsion of Pedro the Cruel from the throne of Castile, an English knight, Sir Matthew Gournay, was sent as a special ambassador to the court of Portugal. The Portuguese monarch had in his service two minstrels whose performances he vaunted greatly, and on whom he let great store, and he insisted on their performing in the presence of the new ambassador. It turned out that they played on the instrument just mentioned, and Sir Matthew Gournay could not refrain from laughing at the performance. When the king pressed him to give his opinion, he said, with more regard for truth than politeness, “in France and Normandy, the instruments your minstrels play upon are regarded with contempt, and are only in use among beggars and blind people, so that they are popularly called beggar’s instruments.” The king, we are told, took great offence at the bluntness of his English guest.

The fiddle itself appears at this time to have been gradually sinking in credit, and the poets complained that a degraded taste for more vulgar musical instruments was introducing itself. Among these we may mention especially the pipe and tabor. The French antiquary, M. Jubinal, in a very valuable collection of early popular poetry, published under the title of“Jongleurs et Trouvères,”has printed a curious poem of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, intended as a protest against the use of the tabor and the bagpipes, which he characterises as properly the musical instruments of the peasantry. Yet people then, he says, were becoming so besotted on such instruments, that they introduced them in places where better minstrelsy would be more suitable. The writer thinks that the introduction of so vulgar an instrument as the tabor into grand festivals could be looked upon in no other light than as one of the signs which might be expected to be the precursors of the coming of Antichrist. “If such people are to come to grand festivals as carry a bushel [i.e.a tabor made in the form of a bushel measure, on the end of which they beat],and make such a terrible noise, it would seem that Antichrist must now be being born; people ought to break the head of each of them with a staff.”

Déussent itiels genz venir à bele festeQui portent un boissel, qui mainent tel tempeste,Il samble que Antecrist doie maintenant nestre;L’en duroit d’un baston chascun brisier la teste.

Déussent itiels genz venir à bele feste

Qui portent un boissel, qui mainent tel tempeste,

Il samble que Antecrist doie maintenant nestre;

L’en duroit d’un baston chascun brisier la teste.

This satirist adds, as a proof of the contempt in which the Virgin Mary held such instruments, that she never loved a tabor, or consented to hear one, and that no tabor was introduced among the minstrelsy at her espousals. “The gentle mother of God,” he says, “loved the sound of the fiddle,” and he goes on to prove her partiality for that instrument by citing some of her miracles.

Onques le mère Dieu, qui est virge honorée,Et est avoec les angles hautement coronée,N’ama onques tabour, ne point ne li agrée,N’onques tabour n’i ot quant el fu espousée.La douce mère Dieu ama son de viele.

Onques le mère Dieu, qui est virge honorée,

Et est avoec les angles hautement coronée,

N’ama onques tabour, ne point ne li agrée,

N’onques tabour n’i ot quant el fu espousée.

La douce mère Dieu ama son de viele.

No. 124. The Tabor, or Drum.

No. 125. Bruin turned Piper.

The artist who carved the curious stalls in Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster, seems to have entered fully into the spirit displayed by this satirist, for in one of them, represented in our cut No. 124, he has introduced a masked demon playing on the tabor, with an expression apparently of derision. This tabor presents much the form of a bushel measure, or rather, perhaps, of a modern drum. It may be remarked that the drum is, in fact, the same instrument as the tabor, or, at least, is derived from it, and they were called by the same names,taborortambour. The English namedrum, which has equivalents in the later forms of the Teutonic dialects, perhaps means simply something which makes a noise, and is not, as far as I know, met with before the sixteenth century. Another carving of the same series of stalls at Westminster, copied in our cut No. 125, represents a tame bear playing on the bagpipes. This is perhaps intended to be at the same time a satire on the instrument itself, and upon the strange exhibitions of animals domesticated and taught various singular performances, which were then so popular.

No. 126. Royal Minstrelsy.

In our cut No. 126 we come to the fiddle again, which long sustained its place in the highest rank of musical instruments. It is taken from one of the sculptures on the porch of the principal entrance to the Cathedral of Lyons in France, and represents a mermaid with her child, listening to the music of the fiddle. She wears a crown, and is intended, no doubt, to be one of the queens of the sea, and the introduction of the fiddle under such circumstances can leave no doubt how highly it was esteemed.

The mermaid is a creature of the imagination, which appears to have been at all times a favourite object of poetry and legend. It holds an important place in the mediæval bestiaries, or popular treatises on natural history, and it has only been expelled from the domains of science at a comparatively recent date. It still retains its place in popular legends of our sea-coasts, and more especially in the remoter parts of our islands. The stories of the merrow, or Irish fairy, hold a prominent place among my late friend Crofton Croker’s “Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland.” The mermaid is also introduced not unfrequently in mediævalsculpture and carving. Our cut No. 127, representing a mermaid and a merman, is copied from one of the stalls of Winchester Cathedral. The usual attributes of the mermaid are a looking-glass and comb, by the aid of which she is dressing her hair; but here she holds the comb alone. Her companion, the male, holds a fish, which he appears to have just caught, in his hand.

No. 127. Mermaids.

While, after the fifteenth century the profession of the minstrel became entirely degraded, and he was looked upon more than ever as a rogue and vagabond, the fiddle accompanied him, and it long remained, as it still remains in Ireland, the favourite instrument of the peasantry. The blind fiddler, even at the present day, is not unknown in our rural districts. It has always been in England the favourite instrument of minstrelsy.

THE COURT FOOL.—THE NORMANS AND THEIR GABS.—EARLY HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.—THEIR COSTUME.—CARVINGS IN THE CORNISH CHURCHES.—THE BURLESQUE SOCIETIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES.—THE FEASTS OF ASSES, AND OF FOOLS.—THEIR LICENCE.—THE LEADEN MONEY OF THE FOOLS.—THE BISHOP’S BLESSING.

From the employment of minstrels attached to the family, probably arose another and well-known character of later times, the court fool, who took the place of satirist in the great households. I do not consider what we understand by the court fool to be a character of any great antiquity.

It is somewhat doubtful whether what we call a jest, was really appreciated in the middle ages. Puns seem to have been considered as elegant figures of speech in literary composition, and we rarely meet with anything like a quick and clever repartee. In the earlier ages, when a party of warriors would be merry, their mirth appears to have consisted usually in ridiculous boasts, or in rude remarks, or in sneers at enemies or opponents. These jests were termed by the French and Normansgabs(gabæ, in mediæval Latin), a word supposed to have been derived from the classical Latin wordcavilla, a mock or taunt; and a short poem in Anglo-Norman has been preserved which furnishes a curious illustration of the meaning attached to it in the twelfth century. This poem relates how Charlemagne, piqued by the taunts of his empress on the superiority of Hugh the Great, emperor of Constantinople, went to Constantinople, accompanied by hisdouze pairsand a thousand knights, to verify the truth of his wife’s story. They proceeded first to Jerusalem, where, when Charlemagne and his twelve peers entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they looked so handsome and majestic, that they were taken at first forChrist and his twelve apostles, but the mystery was soon cleared up, and they were treated by the patriarch with great hospitality during four months. They then continued their progress till they reached Constantinople, where they were equally well received by the emperor Hugo. At night the emperor placed his guests in a chamber furnished with thirteen splendid beds, one in the middle of the room, and the other twelve distributed around it, and illuminated by a large carbuncle, which gave a light as bright as that of day. When Hugh left them in their quarters for the night, he lent them wine and whatever was necessary to make them comfortable; and, when alone, they proceeded to amuse themselves withgabs, or jokes, each being expected to say his joke in his turn. Charlemagne took the lead, and boasted that if the emperor Hugh would place before him his strongest “bachelor,” in full armour, and mounted on his good steed, he would, with one blow of his sword, cut him through from the head downwards, and through the saddle and horse, and that the sword should, after all this, sink into the ground to the handle. Charlemagne then called upon Roland for hisgab, who boasted that his breath was so strong, that if the emperor Hugh would lend him his horn, he would take it out into the fields and blow it with such force, that the wind and noise of it would shake down the whole city of Constantinople. Oliver, whose turn came next, boasted of exploits of another description if he were left alone with the beautiful princess, Hugh’s daughter. The rest of the peers indulged in similar boasts, and when thegabshad gone round, they went to sleep. Now the emperor of Constantinople had very cunningly, and rather treacherously, made a hole through the wall, by which all that passed inside could be seen and heard, and he had placed a spy on the outside, who gave a full account of the conversation of the distinguished guests to his imperial master. Next morning Hugh called his guests before him, told them what he had heard by his spy, and declared that each of them should perform his boast, or, if he failed, be put to death. Charlemagne expostulated, and represented that it was the custom in France when people retired for the night to amuse themselves in that manner. “Such is the custom in France,” he said, “at Paris, and at Chartres, when the French are in bed theyamuse themselves and make jokes, and say things both of wisdom and of folly.”

Si est tel custume en France, à Paris e à Cartres,Quand Franceis sunt culchiez, que se giuunt e gabent,E si dient ambure e saver e folage.

Si est tel custume en France, à Paris e à Cartres,

Quand Franceis sunt culchiez, que se giuunt e gabent,

E si dient ambure e saver e folage.

But Charlemagne expostulated in vain, and they were only saved from the consequence of their imprudence by the intervention of so many miracles from above.[66]

In such trials of skill as this, an individual must continually have arisen who excelled in some at least of the qualities needful for raising mirth and making him a good companion, by showing himself more brilliant in wit, or more biting in sarcasms, or more impudent in his jokes, and he would thus become the favourite mirth-maker of the court, the boon companion of the chieftain and his followers in their hours of relaxation. We find such an individual not unusually introduced in the early romances and in the mythology of nations, and he sometimes unites the character of court orator with the other. Such a personage was the Sir Kay of the cycle of the romances of king Arthur. I have remarked in a former chapter that Hunferth, in the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf, is described as holding a somewhat similar position at the court of king Hrothgar. To go farther back in the mythology of our forefathers, the Loki of Scandinavian fable appears sometimes to have performed a similar character in the assembly of his fellow deities; and we know that, among the Greeks, Homer on one occasion introduces Vulcan acting the part of joker (γελωτοποιὸς) to the gods of Olympus. But all these have no relationship whatever to the court-fool of modern times.

The German writer Flögel, in his “History of Court Fools,”[67]has thrown this subject into much confusion by introducing a great mass of irrelevant matter; and those who have since compiled from Flögel, have made the confusion still greater. Much of this confusion has arisen fromthe misunderstanding and confounding of names and terms. The mimus, the joculator, the ministrel, or whatever name this class of society went by, was not in any respects identical with what we understand by a court fool, nor does any such character as the latter appear in the feudal household before the fourteenth century, as far as we are acquainted with the social manners and customs of the olden time. The vast extent of the early Frenchromans de geste, or Carlovingian romances, which are filled with pictures of courts both of princes and barons, in which the court fool must have been introduced had he been known at the time they were composed, that is, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, contains, I believe, no trace of such personage; and the same may be said of the numerous other romances, fabliaux, and in fact all the literature of that period, one so rich in works illustrative of contemporary manners in their most minute detail. From these facts I conclude that the single brief charter published by M. Rigollot from a manuscript in the Imperial Library in Paris, is either misunderstood or it presents a very exceptional case. By this charter, John, king of England, grants to hisfollus, William Picol, or Piculph (as he is called at the close of the document), an estate in Normandy named in the document Fons Ossanæ (Menil-Ozenne in Mortain), with all its appurtenances, “to have and to hold, to him and to his heirs, by doing there-for to us once a year the service of onefollus, as long as he lives; and after his death his heirs shall hold it of us, by the service of one pair of gilt spurs to be rendered annually to us.”[68]The service (servitium) here enjoined means the annual payment of the obligation of the feudal tenure, andtherefore iffollusis to be taken as signifying “a fool,” it only means that Picol was to perform that character on one occasion in the course of the year. In this case, he may have been some fool whom king John had taken into his special favour; but it certainly is no proof that the practice of keeping court fools then existed. It is not improbable that this practice was first introduced in Germany, for Flögel speaks, though rather doubtfully, of one who was kept at the court of the emperor Rudolph I. (of Hapsburg), whose reign lasted from 1273 to 1292. It is more certain, however, that the kings of France possessed court fools before the middle of the fourteenth century, and from this time anecdotes relating to them begin to be common. One of the earliest and most curious of these anecdotes, if it be true, relates to the celebrated victory of Sluys gained over the French fleet by our king Edward III. in the year 1340. It is said that no one dared to announce this disaster to the French king, Philippe VI., until a court fool undertook the task. Entering the king’s chamber, he continued muttering to himself, but loud enough to be heard, “Those cowardly English! the chicken-hearted Britons!” “How so, cousin?” the king inquired. “Why,” replied the fool, “because they have not courage enough to jump into the sea, like your French soldiers, who went over headlong from their ships, leaving those to the enemy who showed no inclination to follow them.” Philippe thus became aware of the full extent of his calamity. The institution of the court fool was carried to its greatest degree of perfection during the fifteenth century; it only expired in the age of Louis XIV.

It was apparently with the court fool that the costume was introduced which has ever since been considered as the characteristic mark of folly. Some parts of this costume, at least, appear to have been borrowed from an earlier date. Thegelotopœiof the Greeks, and themimiandmorionesof the Romans, shaved their heads; but the court fools perhaps adopted this fashion as a satire upon the clergy and monks. Some writers professed to doubt whether the fools borrowed from the monks, or the monks from the fools; and Cornelius Agrippa, in his treatise on the Vanity of Sciences, remarks that the monks had their heads “all shaven like fools” (raso toto capite ut fatui). The cowl, also, was perhaps adoptedin derision of the monks, but it was distinguished by the addition of a pair of asses’ ears, or by a cock’s head and comb, which formed its termination above, or by both. The court fool was also furnished with a staff or club, which became eventually his bauble. The bells were another necessary article in the equipment of a court fool, perhaps also intended as a satire on the custom of wearing small bells in the dress, which prevailed largely during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially among people who were fond of childish ostentation. The fool wore also a party-coloured, or motley, garment, probably with the same aim—that of satirising one of the ridiculous fashions of the fourteenth century.

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