others, to the harp, the vielle, viol, cymbal, and other instruments, danced to the tabour, played tricks of legerdemain and buffoonery; and, in short, accommodated themselves to every mode of inspiring festivity and mirth, so that they were everywhere welcome, and everywhere rewarded. The courts of France abounded with them; and during the reign of our Norman princes, they seem to have been no less numerous in England." Mr Ritson, however, was in error in denying, as he unscrupulously did, the existence of any class of men to whom the term " English minstrel" was applicable. Although the French minstrels largely intermingled with the latter, as long as the English monarchs retained any portion of their possessions in France, and with the Scotish minstrels to a much greater extent, in consequence of our long continued and intimate connexion with that country,-the profession was too lucrative, and too well patronized, not to be extensively practised at home. Mr Tytlera says, "there can be little doubt that in Scotland, as in France and England, the profession of a minstrel combined the arts of music and recitation, with a proficiency in the lower accomplishments of dancing and tumbling;" and that "in the reign of David I. at the Battle of the Standard, which was fought in 1138, minstrels, posture-makers, and female dancers, accompanied the army." Farther, he relates, that during the royal progresses through the kingdom, it was customary for minstrels and singers to receive the sovereign at his entrance into the different towns, and to accompany him when he took his departure. The country, he says, from a very early period, "maintained a privileged race of wandering minstrels, who eagerly seized on the prevailing superstitions and romantic legends, and wove them in rude but sometimes very expressive versification into their stories and ballads-who were welcome guests at the gate of every feudal castle, and fondly beloved by the great body of the people."

Mr Tytler also observes, that the harper was to be found amongst the officers who composed the personal state of the sovereign. This is strictly true.

Dr Percya gives an extract from Domesday Book, showing that the Joculator Regis, or King's Minstrel, who he says was a regular and stated officer of the court of the Anglo-Saxon kings, had lands assigned to him for his maintenance. On turning to Robertson's Index of the Record of Charters, we find several royal grants in favour of harpers or Citharista. One in the reign of Robert II. to " Thomas Citharist of the forfalture of Gilloc de Camera-the lands of Gilloc within the burgh of Haddington." Another by David II. to "Patrick Citharist de Carrick, of lands in the county of Carrick." Another to "Ade Chichariste, (for Citharist,) of lands in Forfar." Another by David II. to "Nicholas Chicharist of the forfaultrie of Alexander Cruiks in Constabulario de Linlithgow." As several of these were forfeitures, they may be regarded as substantial proofs of the royal munificence to this class of persons.b Grants of lands in behalf of bards and minstrels were common also on the part of our feudal nobility. Jones, in his Welsh Bards, has instanced the lands of Tulli-barden, from which the Marquis of Tullibardine derives his title; and mentions that the Earl of Eglintoun had informed him that he had a portion of land near Eglintoun Castle, called the Harpersland, which used to be allotted by his ancestors to the bard of the family. Could this be the lands described in the Index of Charters as follows?" A charter of the lands of Harperland, in the barony of Kyle, in favour of Sir John Foulerton, son and heir of Ade de Foulerton in Ayrshire, 5 March, 2nd year of the reign of Robert II." (1371.)

From the Lord High Treasurer's accounts, extracts of which we have furnished in the Appendix, some idea may be formed of the band of instrumental performers kept by the Scotish sovereign for about fifty years, from the beginning of the 16th century. Besides those in regular and

Vol. i. Introduction, p. 64.

It is right to state, however, that the word "Citharist," like "Harper," may here have been employed as a proper name, though originally used as designative of the profession, and although this is precisely the manner in which, as a musician, the individual would have been designed, see infra, p. 89. The particular sense in which it was here used we have no means of determining with certainty.

c

• Several of these allotments of land by Highland nobles and chieftains are specified by Mr Gunn in his Enquiry into the Performance of the Harp in the Highlands, pp. 45, et seq.

An eminent antiquary has politely handed us two extracts from the Exchequer Rolls relative

K

stated attendance, musicians seem to have been collected, upon particular occasions, from the private establishments of the nobility, and all quarters whence they could be procured. In 1507, on the first day of the new year, payments were made to "divers menstrales, schawmeris, trumpets, taubroneris, fithelaris, lutaris, harparis, clarscharis, piparis,"-in all, to the number of sixty-nine persons; and among the performers, we see mention of Italians, French, English, Irish, as well as Scots. There is also a Moorish musician, called "The More taubroner." Another of these "taubroners," of whom there is a notice in the accounts for 1548, under the name of "Stewyn tabronar," was probably the person to whom the following anecdote in John Knox's History relates. We should premise that all "tabourers" went under the denomination of " minstrels," a word which, at this period, seems to have been used in the same sense with the generic term "musician," at the present day. "During the Queenis absence, the Papists of Edinburgh went down to the chapell to heir mess; and seeing thare was no punischment, they waxit more bold: some of thame, thinking thareby to pleise the Quene, upoun a certane Sunday, in February, [1565,] they maid an Even-song of thair awin, setting two priests on the one syde of the quire, and one or two on the uther syde, with Sandy Stevin, menstrall, (baptizing thair children and making marriages,) who, within eight dayes efter, was convinced of blasphemy, alledging, That he wald give no moir credit to the New Testament, then to a tale of Robin Hood, except it wer confirmed by the doctours of the church."

From the entries of ordinary fees and yearly pensions of 1538 and 1542, although we scarcely think that the enumeration here had included the whole, there seem, about this time, to have been fifteen musicians more immediately connected with the Royal household-viz. five Italian

to "minstrels." One, dated 2d May 1398, is a payment entered as follows:-" Et duobus menstrallis de gratia auditorum ad præsens, xx. ;" another, 3d July 1402, a similar payment to "Fulope menstrallo tempore Scaccarii ex gratia auditorum ad præsens." As Balfour, in his Practics, p. 136, mentions, that the Auditors of Exchequer, and none others, were "judges competent in all actions and controversies anent allowances and accounts concerning the King's household," the above had most probably been sums awarded to these minstrels by the Auditors in their judicial capacity.

minstrels, four violists, two performers on the "swesch talburn,” (probably the kettle-drums,) and four players on military trumpets or trumpets of war, as they are there called. The particular instruments, played by the Italians, are not mentioned; they were perhaps accomplished musicians, whose skill was not confined to any single instrument, and who were capable of taking a general direction of the whole. They formed a regular part of the establishment for many years, and in one of the entries, that for 30th December 1515, their names are given as follows: "Vincent Auld, Juliane Younger, Juliane, Anthone, and Bestiane (i.e. Sebastian) Drummonth."b

Upon the decease of one of these Julians, about the year 1524, we observe that his place was filled up by one Henry Rudeman, whose appointment is entered in the Privy Seal Register in the following terms :"Preceptum litere Henrici Rudeman tubicinis, dando et assignando eidem, Henrico locum quondam Juliani Richert, Italiani tubicinis, et ordinando eundem Henricum adjungendum fore reliquis Italianis histrionibus et tubicinibus, et regi cum eisdem servire in loco quondam Juliani, durante tempore vite ipsius Henrici; pro quo servitio, dominus rex dat sibi durante vita sua, omnia feoda, stipendia, et devoria solita et consueta, etc. Apud Edinburghe x° Septembris anno etc. Ve xxiiiio.” (1524.)

On the margin is written in an old hand, opposite to "tubicinis," musician, as if to indicate that "tubicen" was not here meant to imply "trumpeter," its primitive and more limited signification, but "min

"Ane thousand hagbuttis gar schute al at anis,

With swesche-talburnis and trumpettis awfullie."

Sir David Lyndsay's Testament of Squyer Meldrum. Chalmers, in his edition of Lyndsay's Works, translates swesche "roar, or rather clatter." Jamieson, in his Dictionary, defines it, a trumpet." Mr Pitcairn, however, in his Criminal Trials, vol ii. p. 30, by a variety of entries from the Treasurer's books, has satisfactorily shown, that "swesch" means "drum," and nothing but "drum." One of these, in 1576, is a payment of sixpence for "tua stickis to the swasche."

There seem to have been a similar set of Italians among the musicians of the household of Edward VI. They are called the four brethren Venetians, viz. John, Antonye, Jasper, and Baptiste." Burney's Hist., vol. iii. p. 5.

Vol. vii. p. 95.

strel." Another expression, in this document, it may be still more necessary to explain. This Henry Rudeman is conjoined with the Italian "Histriones;" from which it might be supposed that these gentlemen had figured in a dramatic capacity, but for this idea there is no foundation. "It is observable," says Dr Percy,a" that our old monkish historians seldom use the words cantator, citharædus, musicus, or the like, to express a minstrel in Latin, but either mimus HISTRIO joculator, or some other word that implies gesture." In another place," he says, "Histrionia in middle Latinity only signifies the minstrel art." There is also a charter to appoint a king of the minstrels, a copy of which will be found in Blount's Law Dictionary, v. King, where the French word "ministraulx" is expressed by the Latin "histriones."

The words "feoda, stipendia, et devoria," may be translated "fees, salaries, and dues," although, at first sight, it might appear as if the word "feoda" was meant to signify heritable property. But, although the musicians of the chapel royal, (founded by James III. and extended by James IV.) as members of an ecclesiastical institution, were amply provided in benefices, annualrents, and teinds, we are not aware of any public endowments which were ever granted in behalf of the secular musicians of the royal household. The charters above specified would seem to show that their services were sometimes repaid grants of land from the sovereign, with whom, particularly with the Jameses, whose love of music was not one of the least remarkable features in their character, they had the best opportunities of ingratiating themselves. James III., in particular, was notoriously lavish in his attentions to minstrels and artists of every kind, and it may be to this that we are to ascribe an enactment by which certain escheats and fines are appointed to be given to the minstrels along with the heralds. This is contained in a statute which was passed during the reign of the last mentioned prince, in 1471. It is one of the sumptuary laws of which there

a

Percy's Reliques, vol. i. Introduction, p. 42; also pp. 70, 72.

b Ibid. p. 54.

C 1471, ch. 46.