“Men lykyn jestis for to here And romans rede in divers manere.”
At their games and feasts and over their ale men were wont to hear tales and verses.[437] The tale-tellers were usually professional wayfaring entertainers: “japers and ‘mynstralles’ that sell ‘glee,’” as the scald sang his lays before King Hygelac and roused Beowulf to slay Grendel--
“Gestiours, that tellen tales Bothe of weping and of game.”[438]
Call hither, cries Sir Thopas, minstrels and gestours, “for to tellen tales”--
“Of romances that been royales, Of popes and of cardinals, And eek of love-lykinge.” (ll. 2035-40).
Rhymers and poets had these entertainments in mind when they wrote--
“And red wher-so thou be, or elles songe, That thou be understonde I god beseche,”
cries Chaucer.[439] Note also the preliminary request for silence and attention at the beginning of _Sir Thopas_--
“Listeth, lordes, in good entent, And I wol telle verrayment Of mirthe and of solas [solace]; Al of a knyght was fair and gent [gallant] In bataille and in tourneyment, His name was Sir Thopas.”
At the beginning of his metrical chronicle of England Robert Mannyng of Brunne begs the “Lordynges that be now here” to listen to the story of England, as he had found it and Englished it for the solace of those “lewed” men who knew not Latin or French.[440]
References to these minstrels are common--
“I warne you furst at the beginninge, That I will make no vain carpinge [talk] Of dedes of armys ne of amours, As dus mynstrelles and jestours, That makys carpinge in many a place Of _Octoviane_ and _Isembrase_, And of many other jestes, And namely, whan they come to festes; Ne of the life of _Bevys of Hampton_, That was a knight of gret renoun, Ne of _Sir Gye of Warwyke_.”[441]
The monks of Hyde Abbey or New Minster paid an annuity to a harper (1180). No less a sum than seventy shillings was paid to minstrels hired to sing and play the harp at the feast of the installation of an abbot of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury (1309). When the bishop of Winchester visited the cathedral priory of St. Swithin or Old Minster, a minstrel was hired to sing the song of Colbrond the Danish giant--a legend connected with Winchester--and the tale of Queen Emma delivered from the ploughshares (1338). Payments to minstrels were commonly made by monks: at Bicester Priory, for example (1431), and at Maxstoke, where _mimi_, _joculatores_, _jocatores_, _lusores_, and _citharistae_ were hired. A curious provision occurs in the statutes of New College, Oxford (1380). The founder gives his permission to the scholars, for their recreation on festival days in the winter, to light a fire in the hall after dinner and supper, where they could amuse themselves with songs and other entertainments of decent sort, and could recite poems, chronicles of kingdoms, the wonders of the world, and such like compositions, provided they befitted the clerical character. At Winchester College--where minstrels were often employed--and Magdalen College the same practice was followed. Commonly minstrels formed a regular part of the household of rich men.[442]