47 48 NORMAN STRELS. these professions or accomplishments.46 We find that CHAP. even those meant to be scholars, occasionally re- III. nounced the serious studies of the ecclesiastical ANGLOseminaries for the pleasures and business of jonglery." The jongleurs were at times so clever as to AND MINcompose poems themselves, and even to be raised to the dignity of knighthood. As society advanced to larger improvements and wiser mind, the jongleur became less necessary to the amusement of mankind, or less compatible with their other occupations. They became also too numerous for their general benefit,50 and some of the Troubadours en 49 46 Hugues de Pena was one of these. 'He became a joglar and sang well, and could sing many songs of other persons.' MS. Roy. 159; and v. 5. p. 22. 47 The Provençal MS. mentions this of Hugues de St. Cyr, His friends wished to make him a clerc, and sent him to the school of Montpellier; but when they thought he was learning letters, he learnt songs and verses; sirventes, tensons and couplets, and the feats of valiant men and of applauded ladies, and devoted himself to joglari.' Raym. v. 5. p. 223; and v. 2. p. 159. His dialogue with his patron the count of Rhodes, shewed that he had profited by the profession, but with some question as to his gratitude. Hugues said to the count, Be not afraid, have not come to you now to ask any thing of you; I have as much as I want; but I see that you are in need of money, and that it would be a great charity to give you some.' The count answered, I have seen you here naked and miserable, and I am very sorry that I send you away wealthy. You have cost me more than two archers and two knights would have done. Yet if I were now to give you a palfrey, I am sure you are the very man who would take it.' S. Palaye Troub. v. 2. p. 175. 48 Thus the Provençal MS. remarks of Pistoleta, He was cantaire of Arnaud de Marnoil, and then became Trobaire and made songs and pleasing airs.' So Aimeri de Saerlat: He made himself a joglar, and was very subtle in declaiming and understanding poems, and became Trobaire.' MS. Raym. 7225. v. 2. p. 160. The same MS. notices this elevation of Perdigons, 'He became joglar, and knew well to play on the viol and to trobar. The dauphin of Auvergne made him his knight and gave him land and rents.' Raym. 160. -So when the marquis of Mountserrat, after taking Constantinople in 1204, formed the kingdom of Thessalonica out of his portion of the spoil, he made his joglar Rambaud de Vaqueiras a knight, 'fets lo cavallier,' and gave him large lands and rents in his kingdom of Salonica.' MSS. 7614. Raym. 161. 50 Thus Pierre d'Auvergne satirizes Eleaz Gaumas, because from being a knight he chose to make himself a jongleur. Evil be to him that gave him the green garments. It would have been better to have burnt VOL. IV. HISTORYOF 51 BOOK deavored to depreciate them. Hence, before the VI. thirteenth century closed, their general popularity LITERARY began to lessen. The great withdrew their patronage, or applied it to persons and subjects which had become more beneficial and more reputable. The later Troubadours and jongleurs felt, lamented, and reviled this change of taste, but could not arrest the mutation. In 1270, one of them exclaims, "Is a song obscure and highly valuable, few understand it; is it perspicuous, it is not valued. The profession is treated as a folly; and I cannot think it otherwise, when I see it so little honored. Cursed be he that taught me the art of verse!"" They sometimes severely satirized each other. While the mass of society was ignorant, they were at the head of its intellectual cultivation, and assisted to educate their countrymen; as the general mind improved, their defects and vices became more visible and more repulsive. Mental occupation of a superior order improved the leisure of the great and studious. The minstrel became more degenerate as he was less valued, until at last he was proscribed as a useless and corrupting vagabond. Attempts were made to rouse them to aim at moral him, because there are near a hundred who have taken up that trade.' S. Pal. Troub. v. 2. p. 24. From the satire of the Moine de Montaudon, we learn that a bourgeois se fit jongleur,' and yet carried on trade, v. 3. p. 172. 51 The fourth is Breval Limousin. Of all the bad jongleurs between this place and Beneventim, he is the least so.-But he resembles a sick pilgrim, who sings to please the mob.-I almost pity him.' Ib. v. 23. 59 Giorgi a Troubadour, in one of his Sirventes, p. 361. 53 See Pierre d'Auvergne's Sirvente against 12 Troubadours, 2 Hist. Troub. 22-25. Some one returned him the compliment: Pierre d'Auvergne sings like a frog in a marsh, and yet goes about boasting that he has no equal. He ought to have some one to explain his verses, for no one can understand them.'-Ib. 26. III. NORMAN utility"—the object most worthy of a thinking being, CHAP. compatible with the finest taste and the truest pleasures, and giving to these a meaning and a sanction ANGLOwhich both hallow and redouble them; but the minstrel and the jongleur were not found to be improvable beings, and therefore the world hailed and encouraged the cultivation of their most intellectual qualities by another order of men, whom we next proceed to notice, and who have created or revived for modern society, that species of composition which seems to be the most connected with refinement of taste, true sensibility, elegant recreation, and high cultivation of mind and manners. Such are the effects of genuine poetry. It civilized Greece-it has polished Europe-it may yet, from the lyre of some future Shakspeare or Milton, moralize the world. But to produce this noble effect, it must itself be moral. And why should genius at any time forget, that the poetry which elegant taste, virtuous feeling, and enlightened reason, must condemn, and which for the improvement and happiness of mankind must be exploded, is one of the worst enemies of human society; and the surest, tho insidious, destroyer of national greatness, by the depravation of the individual minds whose soundness, energy and rectitude, are wanted to uphold it? 55 See Giraud Riquier's Supplication au Roi de Castile un nom des jongleurs, 2 Hist. Troub. 357; and the king Alphonso's interesting answer, p. 364-372. 55 Mr. Warton has collected several instances of the payments made to minstrels, for their performances on the chief Saint days and other festivals at the Augustine Priory of Bicester, in Oxfordshire, in 1431; at Mactoke, in Warwickshire, during Henry VI.; and at Winchester College, between 1464 and 1484. Vol. 1, p. 93-5. The MINSTRELS seem to have stood high in the opinion of Henry V. if we may judge from his remuneration given to one of them, as his inducement or reward for accompanying him on his French expedition. To John Clyff, one of the king's BOOK LITERARY minstrels, security by indenture for his wages, 3. Hen. 5. in his war against France. A reading desk of silver over gilt; the foot of it in the fashion of a tabernacle, standing on four feet. Two ewers of silver gilt; one enamelled with the arms of England and France, the other with hearts. A table with sundry relics therein, standing on two lions, weighing together 26 lb. 3 oz.; value of the lb. 40s. One great bowl, 3 candlesticks, with 3 pipes, a great silver spoon, a skimmer, and other plate, weighing together 19lb.; value the lb. 30s. Redeemed from his executors, 12 Hen. 6.' Nicolas. Agincourt, 53. CHAP. IV. History of the Anglo-Norman Vernacular Poetry-Philippe du Than-Sanson-Wace-Gaimar-Beneoit. NORMAN VERNA POETRY. THE HE origin of vernacular poetry in Europe, must ANGLObe ascribed to its itinerant minstrels. Among their diversified companies, which in their various classes CULAR comprised all the amusive powers, popular feelings, and cultivated talent of the day, some must have been capable of better things than mechanical repetitions of favorite airs or fantastic mummery. The dull or vulgar jongleurs may have been but jesters, mountebanks or fiddlers; but they who could compose songs and satires, and "tell faire gestes and tales both of weeping and of game," must have cultivated the talents of invention and composition. At first indeed the composer sang and played, and the songster composed; but as the art improved, the musician became separated from the poet. As they aimed to please, and lived by pleasing, Univertheir topics were always the most popular of the day. the minsality of In the barbarous ages of eternal battle, war and strel lays. rapine were their themes. When religion became cultivated, the praises of the saints were added.* Love-songs, tales of all sorts, legends, lies, histories, 1 As the songs of the Northern scalds, so often quoted by Snorre ; and the poems of Aneurin, Llywarch Hen, Meilyr, Gwalchmai, and Cynddelw, printed in the Welsh Archaiology, vol. 1. 2 Ord. Vit. mentions of a St. William, that vulgo canitur a joculatoribus de illo cantilena. p. 598. |