It is well known that on the Continent, whence our Norman nobles came, the bard who composed, the harper who played and sang, and even the dancer and the mimic, were all considered as of one community, and were even all included under the common name of Minstrels". I must therefore be allowed the same application of the term here, without being expected to prove that every singer composed, or every composer chanted, his own song; much less that every one excelled in all the arts which were occasionally exercised by some or other of this fraternity

IV. After the Norman conquest, the first occurrence which I have met with relating to this order of men is the founding of a priory and hospital by one of them: scil. the Priory and Hospital of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, London, by Royer or Raherus, the King's Minstrel, in the third year of King Henry I., A. D. 1102. He was the first Prior of his own establishment, and presided over it to the time of his death (r2).

In the reign of King Henry II. we have upon record the name of Galfrid, or Jeffrey, a harper, who in 1180 received a corrody, or annuity, from the abbey of Hide, near Winchester; and, as in the early times every harper was expected to sing, we cannot doubt but this reward was given to him for his music and his songs; which, if they were for the solace of the monks there, we may conclude would be in the English language (u).

Under his romantic son, King Richard I., the minstrel profession seems to have acquired additional splendour. Richard, who was the great hero of chivalry, was also the distinguished patron of poets and minstrels. He was himself of their number, and some of his poems are still extants. 7 See notes (B) and (AA).

8 See a pathetic Song of his in Mr. Walpole's Catalogue of Royal Authors, vol. i. p. 5. The reader will find a translation of it into modern French, in Hist. Littéraire des Troubadours, 1774, 3 tom. 12mo. See vol. i. (p. 58), where some more of Richard's poetry is translated. In Dr. Burney's Hist. of Music, vol. ii. p. 238, is a poetical version of it in English.

They were no less patronized by his favourites and chief officers. His Chancellor, William Bishop of Ely, is expressly mentioned to have invited singers and minstrels from France, whom he loaded with rewards; and they in return celebrated him as the most accomplished person in the world (v2). This high distinction and regard, although confined perhaps in the first instance to poets and songsters of the French nation, must have had a tendency to do honour to poetry and song among all his subjects, and to encourage the cultivation of these arts among the natives; as the indulgent favour shown by the monarch or his great courtiers to the Provencal Troubadour, or Norman Rymour, would naturally be imitated by their inferior vassals to the English Gleeman or Minstrel. At more than a century after the Conquest, the national distinctions must have begun to decline, and both the Norman and English languages would be heard in the houses of the great (u 3); so that probably about this era, or soon after, we are to date that remarkable intercommunity and exchange of each other's compositions, which we discover to have taken place at some early period between the French and English minstrels; the same set of phrases, the same species of characters, incidents, and adventures, and often the same identical stories, being found in the old metrical romances of both nations (v).

The distinguished service which Richard received from one of his own minstrels, in rescuing him from his cruel and tedious captivity, is a remarkable fact, which ought to be recorded for the honour of poets and their art. This fact I shall relate in the following words of an ancient writer9.

“The Englishmen were more than a whole yeare without hearing any tydings of their King, or in what place he was

9 Mons. Favine's Theatre of Honour and Knighthood, translated from the French. Load. 1623, fol. tom. ii. p. 49. An elegant relation of the same event (from the French of Presid. Fauchet's “Recueil," &c.) may be seen in **Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, by Anna Williams, Lond. 1766" 410. p. 46. It will excite the reader's admiration to be informed, that most of the pieces of that collection were composed under the disadvantage of a total deprivation of sight.

kept prisoner. He had trained up in his court a Rimer or Minstrill10, called Blondell de Nesle, who (so saith the manuscript of Old Poesies1, and an auncient manuscript French Chronicle,) being so long without the sight of his Lord, his life seemed wearisome to him, and he became confounded with melancholly. Knowne it was that he came backe from the Holy Land; but none could tell in what countrey he arrived. Whereupon this Blondel, resolving to make search for him in many countries, but he would heare some newes of him: after expence of divers dayes in travaile, he came to a towne 2 (by good hap) neere to the castell where his maister King Richard was kept. Of his host he demanded to whom the castell appertained, and the host told him that it belonged to the Duke of Austria. Then he enquired whether there were any prisoners therein detained or no; for alwayes he made such secret questionings wheresoever he came. And the hoste gave answer, there was one onely prisoner, but he knew not what he was, and yet he had bin detained there more than the space of a yeare. When Blondel heard this, he wrought such meanes, that he became acquainted with them of the castell, as Minstrels doe easily win acquaintance any where3; but see the King he could not, neither understand that it was he. One day he sat directly before a window of the castell, where King Richard was kept

10 Favine's words are, "Jongleur appellé Blondiaux de Nesle." (Paris, 1620, 4to. p. 1106.) But Fauchet, who has given the same story, thus expresses it, "Or ce roy ayant nourri un Menestrel appellé Blondel," &c. liv. ii. p. 92. "Des anciens Poëtes François." He is however said to have been another Blondel, not Blondel (or Blondiaux) de Nesle; but this no way affects the circumstances of the story.

1 This the author calls in another place "An ancient MS. of old Poesies, written about those very times."- From this MS. Favine gives a good account of the taking of Richard by the Duke of Austria, who sold him to the emperor. As for the MS. chronicle, it is evidently the same that supplied Fauchet with this story. See his "Recueil de l'Origine de la Langue et Poesie Françoise, Ryme, et Romans," &c. Par. 1581.

2 Tribales."Retrudi eum præcepit in Triballis: a quo carcere nullus ante dies istos exivit." Lat. Chron. of Otho of Austria: apud Favin.

3 "Comme Menestrels s'accointent legerement." Favine. (Fauchet expresses it in the same manner.)

Percy. I.

3

prisoner, and began to sing a song in French, which King Richard and Blondel had sometime composed together. When King Richard heard the song, he knew it was Blondel that sung it; and when Blondel paused at halfe of the song, the King began the other half, and completed it. Thus Blondel won knowledge of the King his maister, and returning home into England, made the Barons of the countrie acquainted where the King was.' This happened about the year 1193.

The following old Provençal lines are given as the very original song 5; which I shall accompany with an imitation offered by Dr. Burney, ii. 237.

The access which Blondel so readily obtained in the privileged character of a Minstrel, is not the only instance upon

4 I give this passage corrected; as the English translator of Favine's book appeared here to have mistaken the original:- Scil. "Et quant Blondel eut dit la moitie de la Chanson, le Roy Richart se prist a dire l'autre moitie et l'acheva," Favine, p. 1106. Fauchet has also expressed it in nearly the same words. Recueil, p. 93.

5 In a little romance or novel, entitled, "La Tour Tenebreuse, et les Jours Lumineux, Contes Angloises, accompagnez d'Historiettes, & tirez d'une ancienne Chronique composee par Richard, surnomme Cœur de Lion, Roy d'Angleterre," &c. Paris, 1705. 12mo. In the preface to this romance the editor has given another song of Blondel de Nesle, as also a copy of the song written by King Richard, and published by Mr. Walpole, mentioned above (in note 8, page xxxi.); yet the two last are not in Provençal like the sonnet printed here; but in the old French, called Langage Roman.

record of the same nature (v 2). In this very reign of King Richard I., the young heiress of D'Evreux, Earl of Salisbury, had been carried abroad and secreted by her French relations in Normandy. To discover the place of her concealment, a knight of the Talbot family spent two years in exploring that province, at first under the disguise of a Pilgrim; till having found where she was confined, in order to gain admittance he assumed the dress and character of a Harper, and being a jocose person, exceedingly skilled in "the Gests of the antients 6," (so they called the romances and stories which were the delight of that age,) he was gladly received into the family. Whence he took an opportunity to carry off the young lady, whom he presented to the king; and he bestowed her on his natural brother, William Longespee, (son of fair Rosamond,) who became in her right Earl of Salisbury (v3).

The next memorable event which I find in history reflects credit on the English minstrels; and this was their contributing to the Rescue of one of the great Earls of Chester, when besieged by the Welsh. This happened in the reign of King John, and is related to this effect?.

Hugh, the first Earl of Chester, in his charter of foundation of St. Werburg's Abbey in that city, had granted such a privilege to those who should come to Chester fair, that they should not be then apprehended for theft or any other misdemeanour, except the crime were committed during the fair. This special protection occasioning a multitude of loose people to resort to that fair, was afterwards of signal benefit to one of his successors. For Ranulph, the last Earl of Chester, marching into Wales with a slender attendance, was constrained to retire to his castle of Rothelan, (or Rhuydland,) to which the Welsh forthwith laid siege. In

6 The words of the original, viz. "Citharisator homo jocosus in GESTIS antiquorum valde peritus," I conceive to give the precise idea of the ancient Minstrel. See note (v2). That Gesta was appropriated to romantic stories, see note (1) part iv. (1.)

7 See Dugdale (Bar. i. 42, 101), who places it after 13 John, A. D. 1212. See also Plot's Staffordsh. Camden's Britann. (Chesnire.)