Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 09:10:25 -0500 (EST)
From: mn13189@WCUVAX1.WCU.EDU
Subject: Re: minstrel: Bardic, Period, and assorted rantings...
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19981010075258.00c49e74@mail.swbell.net>
To: Rex Deaver <rdeaver@swbell.net>
Cc: Minstrel Mailing List <minstrel@pbm.com>
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On Sat, 10 Oct 1998, Rex Deaver wrote:

> >I already stated (with documentation) in an earlier post, the term
> >minstrel (in Anglo-Norman Britian at least) was used to mean
> >"instrumentalist" generically.  
> No, milord, it was only used that way in a specific context.
>[snip] 
> But overall, the most sustained usage of the word was as a member of an
> entertainment guild, student of the art, professional.  Natural equivalent
> of the bards, skalds & scops.  Went *back* to school most years during Lent
> to brush up the old and learn new.
> *That* is what it meant to be a minstrel for most of 3 centuries.
> 
> I am sure you can find loads of evidence of the *word*, but it's definition
> varied wildly.  I can find the word "car" going back to most ancient times,
> but the only thing they have in common with what we call cars is wheels.:-)

Yes, the exact meaning of the term minstrel varied widely from place to
place, time to time,and I suspect from indivisual to individual.  I don't
quite get what you are trying to prove here.  Are you saying that the term
"minstrel" was not applied to instrumental musicians in our period?  I
have yet to see you put forth any evdence of that.  Your car analogy
realy has no bearing.  I can prove that a "yard" in Henry VIII's time was
three feet, just like a "yard" in our time.  But it would not have a thing
to do with minstrels.

"Minstrel" seemed to bea generic term for a performer of vocal or
instrumental music in the British Isles for a very long period. 
The term seemed to be introduced by the Normans, who came with their
"minnistrallus".  During the Anglo-Norman time period following teh
invasion (11th, 12th, 13th, and 13th centuries) "minstrel" applied to
wandering performers as well as trained musicians.  A minstrel who was
liscened and protected by either a church or a town or a court of some
srot was denied the law of the land.  Macbeth made such a decree against
unliscensed minstrels in 1058.  In ireland, in 1327, Lionel Duke of
Clarence made it a penal offence to harbor "minstrels, rhymers, and
newstellers."  A similar law was passed in Wales in 1402.  These laws were
not applicable to "professional" minstrels.

This continued even into the 15th and 16th centuries.  We know
professional minstrels were treated better because of laws passed such as
the Scottish law of 1471 that forbade the wearing of silk *except for*
"knichtes, minstrelles, and heraulds," and landed gentry.  The music
historian George Farmer, who wrote _A History of Music in Scotland_ is
emphatic in stating that in this later period the term "minstrel" was
applied mostly to instrumentalists.  He states that this included even
wandering minstrels.

In Scotland at this time every town had a "toun minstrellis" whose main
duties usually included piping and drumming.

Farmer also states that when the printing press began to influence things
in the 16th century, the wandering minstrel tended to die out, and the
minstrel's activities were reduced mainly to instrumental work in teh
courts and towns.

The schools and guilds you mention existed all over Btritain, even in the
"barbaric north" (i. e. Scotland).  These were controlled by Church and
town and taught not only music but writing, arithmatic, reading, manners,
etc.  But these schools demanded high tuitions and only upper-class and
higher could afford them.  The majority of musicians did not attend such
schools and you certainly did not have to attend one to be called
"minstrel."

Aye,
Eogan


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