beyond the seas, with thirty shillings to bear his expenses. Licence was also granted to Morlan the Bagpiper, to visit the minstrels' schools; and forty shillings for his expenses.2 A little lower we find a present of five shillings made by the king to a minstrel, for performing his minstrelsy before the image of the Blessed Virgin.3 In the eleventh year of the same reign, John de Hoglard, minstrel to John de Pulteney, was paid forty shillings for exhibiting before the king at Hatfield, and at London; and to Roger the Trumpeter, and to the minstrels his associates, performing at the feast for the queen's delivery, held at Hatfield, ten pounds. In the ninth year of Henry VII. "Pudesay the piper in bagpipes," received six shillings and eight pence from the king, for his performance. In the fourteenth year of his reign, five pounds were paid to three stryng-mynstrels for wages, but the time is not specified; in a subsequent entry, however, we find that fifteen shillings were given to "a stryng-mynstrel, for one moneth's wages;" also to a "straunge taberer, in reward, sixty-six shillings and eight pence." XXIII.-WEALTH OF CERTAIN MINSTRELS. In the middle ages, the professors of minstrelsy had the opportunity of amassing much wealth; and certainly some of them were men of property. In Domesday Book, it appears that Berdic, the king's joculator, had lands in Gloucestershire;8 Raher, or Royer, mimus rex, the mimic, or minstrel, belonging to Henry I., was the founder of the hospital and priory of Saint Bartholomew, in West Smithfield; and the minstrels contributed towards building the church of Saint Mary, at Beverley in Yorkshire, as the inscription on one of the pillars plainly indicates; 10 though, it must be owned, their general character does not bear the marks of prudence, as the reader must have observed in the perusal of this section. "Scolas ministrallis in partibus trans mare." Liber de Computis Garderobæ, MS. Cott. Lib. Nero, C. viii. p. 276. 2 Ibid. "Facienti ministralsiam suam coram imagine Beatæ Mariæ in Veltam, rege presente, 5 sol." Ibid. p. 277. Ibid. p. 290. Ibid. • MS. in the Remembrancer's Office. See the extract in Dr. Henry's British History, vol. vi. Appendix, No. V. 7 From another MS. in the same office. Ibid. • See the next chapter, under the account of the joculators. Leland's Collectanea, pp. 61. 99. 10 See p. 189. XXIV.-MINSTRELS SOMETIMES DANCING MASTERS. It has already been observed, that the name of minstrels was frequently applied to instrumental performers, who did not profess any other branch of the minstrelsy. In an old morality called Lusty Juventus, it is said, Who knoweth where is ere a mynstrel? By the Masse, I would fayne go daunce a fit.1 This passage calls to my memory a circumstance recorded by Fauchet, which proves that the minstrels were sometimes dancing masters. "I remember," says he, "to have seen Martin Baraton, an aged minstrel of Orleans, who was accustomed to play upon the tambourine at weddings, and on other occasions of festivity. His instrument was silver, decorated with small plates of the same metal,2 on which were engraved the arms of those he had taught to dance." 1 Garrick's Collection of Old Plays. "Un tabourin d'argent semé de plaques aussi d'argent." Origine de la Longue et Poësie Françoise, lib. i. cap. viii. fol. 72 CHAPTER IV. 1. The Joculator.--II. His different Denominations and extraordinary Deceptions.— III. His Performances ascribed to Magic.-IV. Asiatic Jugglers.-V. Remarkable Story from Froissart.-VI. Tricks of the Jugglers ascribed to the Agency of the Devil; but more reasonably accounted for.-VII. John Rykell, a celebrated Tregetour.-VIII. Their various Performances.-IX. Privileges of the Joculators at Paris.-The King's Joculator an Officer of Rank.-X. The great Disrepute of modern Jugglers. I. THE JOCULATOR. THE joculator, or the jugglour of the Normans, was frequently included under the collective appellation of minstrel. His profession originally was very comprehensive, and included the practice of all the arts attributed to the minstrel; and some of the jugglers were excellent tumblers. Joinville, in the Life of St. Louis and Charpentier, quotes an old author, who speaks of a joculator, qui sciebat tombare. He was called a gleeman in the Saxon era, and answers to the juggler of the more modern times. In the fourteenth century, he was also denominated a tregetour, or tragetour, at which time, he appears to have been separated from the musical poets, who exercised the first branches of the gleeman's art, and are more generally considered as minstrels. II.-DIFFERENT DENOMINATIONS OF THE JOCULATOR, and his EXTRAORDINARY DECEPTIONS. The name of tregetours was chiefly, if not entirely, appropriated to those artists who, by slight of hand, with the assistance of machinery of various kinds, deceived the eyes of the spectators, and produced such illusions as were usually supposed to be the effect of enchantment; for which reason they were frequently ranked with magicians, sorcerers, and witches; and, indeed, the feats they performed, according to the descriptions given of them, abundantly prove that they were no contemptible practitioners in the arts of deception. Chaucer, who, no doubt, had frequently an opportunity of seeing the tricks exhibited by the tregetours in his time, says, 'There 1 Supplement to Du Cange. I sawe playenge jogelours, magyciens, trageteours, phetonysses, charmeresses, olde witches, and sorceresses," &c. He speaks of them in a style that may well excite astonishment: "There are," says he, "sciences by which men can delude the eye with divers appearances, such as the subtil tregetours perform at feasts. In a large hall they will produce water with boats rowed up and down upon it." In the library of Sir Hans Sloane, at the British Museum, is a MS.2 which contains "an experiment to make the appearance of a flode of water to come into a house." The directions are, to steep a thread in the liquor produced from snakes' eggs bruised, and to hang it up over a basin of water in the place where the trick is to be performed. The tregetours, no doubt, had recourse to a surer method. Chaucer goes on to say, "Sometimes they will bring in the similitude of a grim lion, or make flowers spring up as in a meadow; sometimes they cause a vine to flourish, bearing white and red grapes; or show a castle built with stone; and when they please, they cause the whole to disappear." He then speaks of "a learned clerk," who, for the amusement of his friend, showed to him "forests full of wild deer, where he saw an hundred of them slain, some with hounds and some with arrows; the hunting being finished, a company of falconers appeared upon the banks of a fair river, where the birds pursued the herons, and slew them. He then saw knights justing upon a plain;" and, by way of conclusion, "the resemblance of his beloved lady dancing; which occasioned him to dance also." But, when "the maister that this magike wrought thought fit, he clapped his hands together, and all was gone in an instante."3 Again, in another part of his works, the same poet says, There saw I Coll Tregetour, Upon a table of sycamour, III.-THE JOCULATORS' PERFORMANCES ASCRIBED TO MAGIC. Chaucer attributes these illusions to the practice of natural magic. Thus the Squire, in his Tale, says, An appearance made by some magyke, 1 Chaucer, House of Fame, book iii. Frankeleyn's Tale. 2 No. 1315. House of Fame, book iii. And again, in the third book of the House of Fame, And clerkes eke which conne well All this magyke naturell. Meaning, I suppose, an artful combination of different powers of nature in a manner not generally understood; and therefore he makes the Devil say to the Sompner in the Friar's Tale, "I can take any shape that pleases me; of a man, of an ape, or of an angel; and it is no wonder, a lousy juggler can deceive you; and I can assure you my skill is superior to his." I need not say, that a greater latitude was assigned to what the poet calls natural magic in his days, than will be granted in the present time. IV.-ASIATIC JUGGLERS. Sir John Mandevile, who wrote about the same period as Chaucer, speaks thus of a similar exhibition performed before the Great Chan: "And then comen jogulours, and enchauntours, that doen many marvaylles;" for they make, says he, the appearance of the sun and the moon in the air; and then they make the night so dark, that nothing can be seen; and again they restore the day-light, with the sun shining brightly; then they "bringen-in daunces, of the fairest damsels of the world, and the richest arrayed;" afterwards they make other damsels to come in, bringing cups of gold, full of the milk of divers animals, and give drink to the lords and ladies; and then "they make knyghts jousten in armes fulle lustily," who run together, and in the encounter break their spears so rudely, that the splinters fly all about the hall. They also bring in a hunting of the hart and of the boar, with hounds running at them open-mouthed; and many other things they do by the craft of their enchantments, that are "marvellous to see." In another part he says, " And be it done by craft, or by nicromancy, I wot not." 2 V.-REMARKABLE STORY FROM FROISSART. The foregoing passages bring to my recollection a curious piece of history related by Froissart, which extends the practice of these deceptions far beyond the knowledge of the modern 1 The original runs thus: "And they runnen togidre a great randoum; and they frunchen togidre full fiercely, and they breken thare speres so rudely, that the tronchouns flen in sprotes and peces alle about the halle.' Mandevile's Travels, p. 265. I have modernized the English in many places, for sometimes it is hardly intelligible. • Ibid. |