The harp has always been the instrument of the Celtic race, and harpists were held in peculiar veneration. For many a long year harpists traveled from one castle to another, sure always of a welcome and seat in a warm corner. In return they not only amused the company with their songs, but brought the news, and isolated and remote families often heard from the outer world by such uncertain means as these. For centuries the English harpers were protected in many ways, and no one has taken advantage of such a picturesque class with the skill of Sir Walter Scott. The most renowned one he introduced as a character was Blondel de Nesle, in the "Talisman," that wonderful picture of the days of the Crusades. The first greeting to the youth when he appeared at Richard's camp shows the estimation in which these knights of the harp were held.
"Blondel de Nesle!" Richard exclaimed joyfully "welcome from Cyprus, my king of minstrels! Welcome to the King of England, who rates not his own dignity more highly than he does thine.... And what news, my gentle master, from the land of the lyre? Anything fresh from the trouveurs of Provence? Anything from the minstrels of merry Normandy? Above all, hast thou thyself been busy?"
It is also said that Richard Coeur de Lion's place of confinement in Germany on his return from the Holy Land was discovered when Blondel sung beneath the Tower Tenebreuse a tenson which they had jointly composed, and to which the king replied.
Edward I. and his Queen were fond of music and encouraged musicians, as the following entries in their accounts of the household expenditures show:
"To Melioro, the harper of Sir John Mantravers, for playing on the harp when the king was bled, twenty shillings; likewise to Walter Luvel, the harper of Chichester, whom the King found playing on his harp before the tomb of St. Richard at Chichester Cathedral, six shillings and eight pence."
Henry V. was a performer on the harp at an early age, and his wife, Catherine of Valois, shared his taste, as an entry in the Issue Rolls reads:
"By the hands of William Menston was paid £8 13_s_ 4_d_, for two new harps purchased for King Henry and Queen Catherine."
These harps were tuned with a key like the more modern instruments, and the player improvised his words to suit the taste of the company in which he found himself. Harpists were employed much at courts, and in 1666 Pepys says that for want of pay to the household--