- JOGELER (Lat Joculator) was a very ancient name for a Minstrel. Of what nature
the performance of the Joculator was we may lern from the Register of St. Swithin's
Priory at Winhester (T.Warton i. 69.) "Et cantabat JOCULATOR quidam nominee
Herbertus Canticum Colbrondi, necnon Gestum Emme regine a judico ignis liberate,
in aula Prioris." His instrument was sometimes the FYTHELE, or Fiddle, Lat.
Fidicula: which occurs in the Anglo-Saxon lexicon. On this subject we have a curious
passage from an MS. of the Lives of the Saints in metre, supposed to be earlier than
the year 1200 (T. Warton's Hist. i. p. 17), viz.
Christofre him served longe
The kinge loved melodye much of fithele and of songe
So that his Jogeler on a day beforen him gon to play faste
And in a tyme he nempned in his song the devil at laste."
- Le Compte.
- Sornette. [A gibe, a jest, or flouting]
- Janglerie, babillage, raillerie.
- If the twenty-four songs in what is now calledRobin Hood's Garland, many are so
modern as not to be found in Pepys's Collection, completed only in 1700. In the folio
MS. are ancient fragments of the following, viz.-- Robin Hood and the Beggar.--
Robin Hood and the Butcher.-- Robin Hood and Fryer Tucke.-- Robin Hood and the
Pindar.-- Robin Hood and Queen Catharine, In two parts.-- Little John and the four
Beggars, and "Robin Hode his Death" This last, which is very curious, has no
resemblance to any that have been published; and the others are extremely different
from the printed copies; but they unfortunately were in the beginning of the MS.,
where half of every leaf hath been torn away.
- That the French Minstrel was a singer and composer, &c., appears from many
passages translated by M. le Grand, in Fabliaux et Contes, &c. See tom i. p. 37, 4; ii,
306, 313 et seq.; III. 266, &c. Yet this writer, like other French critics, endeavours to
reduce to disctinct and separate classes the men of this profession, under the precise
names ofFablier, Conteur, Menetrier, Menestrel, andJongleur, (tom. i. Pref. p.
xcvii.),whereas his own Tales confute all these nice distinctions, or prove at least that
the title ofMenetrier, or Minstrel, was applied to them all.
- The fondness of the English (even the most illiterate) to hear tales and rhymes, is
much dwelt on by Rob. de Brunne, in 1330. (Warton, i. p. 59, 65, 75.) All rhymes
were then sung to the harp: evenTroilus and Cresseide, though almost as long as the
Æneid, was to be "redde or else songe." -- 1. ult. (Warton, i. 388).
- GESTS at length came to signify adventures or incidents in general. So in a
narrative of the Journey into Scotland, of Queen Margaret and her attendants, on her
marriage with King James IV. in 1503 (in Appendix to Leland. Collect. iv. p. 265.)
we are promised an account "of their Gestys and manners during the said voyage."
- The Romance ofRichard Cœur de Lion(No. 25.) I should judge to be of English
origin from the names Wardrewe and Eldrede, &c. vol. ii. p. 176. As is also Eger and
Grime, (No. 12) wherein a knight is named Sir Gray Steel, and a lady who excels in
surgery is calledLoospaine, orLose-pain: these surely are not derived from France.
- See the Romance of Sir Isenbras (vol. ii. No. 14. p. 99), sign. a.
"Harpers loved him in Hall
With other Minstrels all."
