The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-28

tie birth and high renown; we may fancy
what tricks their undistinguished COM
rades used to get a tribe.
Those In regular employment, as one
may say-attaehed TO the king or the
great barons-received good salary. Ed
ward l paid his MINISTRIES seven and six
pence and upwards each. But such as pre-
ferred Independence devoted much of their
poetry to the description of their wretch
edness in order to extract contributions.
Rotebeuf was so fashionable that many of
his songs have been preserved. Again and
again, he protests with such iteration
that at last we are sadly bored, that he Is
cold and hungry. has no linen, only straw
for his bed, and so forth. Another, equal
ly renowned, complains that he has I'D
died all day before great lord In his no
tel and received nothing. not even his
wages. But they mostly confess, also,
that their earnings are spent in the tav-
ern, drinking and gambling. But these
were the respectable members Of the pro-
fessIon. who had the entree to palaces;
the lower class were simply cheats and
rWfians. And they swarmed. A proclaim
alton of Edward II denounces the host of
idle persons who obtain admittance TO
the dwellings of his subjects under cover
of minstrelsy and exact meat and drink.
Therefore, 1t ordalns that no more than
three or four 'minstrels OF honor at
the IllOSl SudlA WISH Nnf HOuS1S VI EINat
people In one day--and to meaner dwell
ings none at all may come unless invited.
Even these must hold themselves COZ
tented with meat and drink and such
courtesy as the master shall show them
of his own good viii, without asking"
Evidently these tramps forced their way
into house. and "blackguarded' the
owner II he failed to satisfy them In
fact they were much like organ grinders
of the present day, but Infinitely more Of
fensive-for the matter, some of them
actually did use a hurdy-gurdy; the in
strumeht is represented In st. Johns
church, Cirencester That clause which
forbids more than three or four "minstrels
of honor to visit a house In a single day
suggests the multitude OF ordinary vaga-
bonds,
But stll we picture the minstrel 'inhrm
and old, whose withered cheeks and
tresses gray seemed TO have known a bet
ter day" provided with a harp which
kings had loved to hear. Doubtless Sir
Walter Scott was very well aware that
he perpetrated an anachronlsm. 1t Is not
impossible that worthy old man who had
been In the service of the Plantagenets
might survive till the date of Flodden.
but very improbable that he performed
upon the harp. That instrument had been
forgotten for centuries in England We
do not find it even In the orchestra" OF
the Beverly minStrelS-the very interesting
guild established in that town-a hundred
years before the date In question. But
Sir Walter claimed poetic license, and we
willingly grant It. As n matter OF fact,
the harp was falling into disuse as early
as the reign of John When Eustace the
Monk disguised himself as q minstrel he
took a fiddle. About the same time John
de Raunpagne equipped himself with ia
Dor, harp. fiddle and citiole, under like
circumstances.
1t may be said that all masters Of the
art whose names have come down 20 us
used the fiddle. But before they had passed
away towards the end OF the thirteenth
| century, the growing deterlora ton of the
| class condemned the fiddle in its turn
| those elders assigned the change to the
| vulgar taste Of the public, but we may
suspect that the new generation of min
| strels would not trouble themselves 10
| learn a difficult instrument. The pipe and
tabor succeeded. A French trouvere wrote
| a vigorous protest against them, which
has been published. He says that when a
| shepherd comes n from the fields, piping
| and drumming, he is summoned to enter
tainments rather than gentleman who
hddles to perfection. II Is all over with
| good minstresy Heaven send a mischief
| 20 the wretch who invented the tabor, for
| Il Is q cursed thing which no rich man
self with the assurance that the Blessed
Virgin did not allow the horrid thing al
| her marriage. But li~nents and imprecau-
tions were equally useless. The pipe and
| tabor ruled supreme in few years. Had
| Sir Walter stuck to the facts, he would
| have provided his Last Minstrel with
| these instruments.