Gild above mentioned: yet this Alexander Carlile is not one of the eight minstrels to
whom that Charter is directed.[53]
The same Charter was renewed by King Henry VIII. in 1520, to John Gilman,
his then Marshal, and to seven others his minstrels:[54] and on the death of Gilman,
he granted in 1520 this office of Marshal of his Minstrels to Hugh Wodehouse,[55]
whom I take to have borne the office of his Serjeant over them.[56]
VI. In all the establishments of royal and noble households, we find an ample
provision made for the Minstrels, and their situation to have been both honourable and
lucrative. In proof of this it is sufficient to refer to the Houshold-Book of the Earl of
Northumberland, A.D. 1512 (CC). And the rewards they received so frequently recur
in ancient writers, that it is unnecessary to crowd the page with them here (CC2).
The name of Minstrel seems, however, to have been gradually appropriated to
the Musician only, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; yet we
occasionally meet with applications of the term in its more enlarged meaning, as
including the Singer, if not the Composer, of heroic or popular rhymes.[57]
In the time of King Henry VIII. we find it to have been a common
entertainment to hear verses recited, or moral speeches learned for that purpose, by a
set of men who got their livelihood by repeating them, and who intruded without
ceremony into all companies; not only in taverns, but in the houses of the nobility
themselves. This we learn from Erasmus, whose argument led him only to describe a
species of these men whodid not singtheir compositions; but the others thatdid,
enjoyed, without doubt, the same privileges (DD).
For even long after, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was usual "in places of
assembly" for the company to be "desirous to heere of old adventures and valiaunces
of noble knights in times past, as those of King Arthur and his knights of the round-
table, Sir Bevys of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, and others like," in "short and
long meetres, and by breaches or divisions (sc. FITS)[58], to be more commodiously
sung to the harpe," as the reader may be informed, by a courtly writer, in 1589.[59]
Who himself had "written for pleasure, a little brief Romance or historicall Ditty...
of the Isle of Great Britaine," in order to contribute to such entertainment. And he
subjoins this caution: "Such as have not premonition hereof" (viz. that his poem was
written in short metre, &c., to be sung to the harp in such places of assembly) "and
consideration of the causes alleged, would peradventure reprove and disgrace every
Romance, or short historical ditty, for that they be not written in long meeters or
verses Alexandrins," which constituted the prevailing versification among the poets of
that age, and which no one now can endure to read.
And that the recital of such romances, sung to the harp, was at that time the
delight of the common people, we are told by the same writer,[60] who mentions that
"common Rimers" were fond of using rhymes at short distances, "in small and
popular Musickes song by these Cantabanqui" [the said common rhymers,] "upon
benches and barrels' heads," &c., "or else by blind Harpers, or such like Taverne
Minstrels, that give a FIT of mirth for a groat; and their matter being for the most part
stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Bevis of Southampton,
Guy of Warwieke, Adam Bell and Clymme of the Clough, and such other old
romances, or historicall rimes," &c.; "also they be used in Carols and Rounds, and
such like or lascivious Poemes, which are commonly more commodiously uttered by
these Buffons, or Vices, in Playes, then by any other person. Such were the rimes of