University of Virginia Library

OF ANCIENT AND MODERN STREET BALLAD
MINSTRELSY.

Mr. Strutt, in his "Sports and Pastimes of
the People of England," shows, as do other
authorities, that in the reigns subsequent to the
Norman Conquest the minstrels "were per-
mitted to perform in the rich monasteries, and
in the mansions of the nobility, which they
frequently visited in large parties, and especi-
ally upon occasions of festivity. They entered
the castles without the least ceremony, rarely
waiting for any previous invitation, and there
exhibited their performances for the entertain-
ment of the lord of the mansion and his guests.
They were, it seems, admitted without any
difficulty, and handsomely rewarded for the
exertion of their talents."

Of the truth of this statement all contempo-
rary history is a corroboration. The minstrels
then, indeed, constituted the theatre, the opera,
and the concert of the powerful and wealthy.
They were decried by some of the clergy of
that day, — as are popular performers and opera
singers (occasionally) by some zealous divine
in our own era. John of Salisbury stigmatizes
minstrels as "ministers of the devil."

"The large gratuities collected by these
artists," the same antiquarian writer further
says, "not only occasioned great numbers to
join their fraternity, but also induced many
idle and dissipated persons to assume the
characters of minstrels, to the disgrace of the
profession. These evils became at last so noto-
rious, that in the reign of King Edward II. it
was thought necessary to restrain them by a
public edict, which sufficiently explains the
nature of the grievance. It states, that many
indolent persons, under the colour of minstrelsy,
intruded themselves into the residences of the
wealthy, where they had both meat and drink,
but were not contented without the addition of
large gifts from the householder. To restrain
this abuse, the mandate ordains, that no person
should resort to the houses of prelates, earls,
or barons, to eat, or to drink, who was not a
professed minstrel; nor more than three or
four minstrels of honour at most in one day
(meaning, I presume, the king's minstrels of
honour and those retained by the nobility),
except they came by invitation from the lord
of the house."

The themes of the minstrels were the triumphs,
victories, pageants, and great events of the day;
commingled with the praise, or the satire of
individuals, as the humour of the patron or of
the audience might be gratified. It is stated
that Longchamp, the favourite and justiciary
of Richard Cœur-de-lion, not only engaged
poets to make songs and poems in his, Bishop
Longchamp's, praise, but the best singers and
minstrels to sing them in the public streets!

In the ninth year of the reign of Edward IV.
another royal edict was issued, as little favour-
able to the minstrels as the one I have given
an account of; and those functionaries seem to

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have gradually fallen in the estimation of the
public, and to have been contemned by the
law, down to the statute of Elizabeth, already
alluded to, subjecting them to the same treat-
ment as rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars.
A writer of the period (1589) represents the
(still-styled) minstrels, singing "ballads and
small popular musickes" for the amusement
of boys and others "that passe by them in the
streete." It is related also that their "matters
were for the most part stories of old time; as the
tale of Sir Topas, Bevis of Southampton, Guy
of Warwick, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the
Clough, and such other old romances or histo-
rical rhymes, made purposely for the recreation
of the common people at Christmas dinners and
bride ales, and in tavernes and alehouses, and
such other places of base resort."

These "stories of old time" are now valuable
as affording illustrations of ancient manners,
and have been not unfertile as subjects of anti-
quarian annotation.

Under the head of the "Norman Minstrels,"
Mr. Strutt says: "It is very certain that the
poet, the songster, and the musician were
frequently united in the same person."

From this historical sketch it appears evident
that the ballad-singer and seller of to-day is the
sole descendant, or remains, of the minstrel of
old, as regards the business of the streets;
he is, indeed, the minstrel having lost caste, and
being driven to play cheap.

The themes of the minstrels were wars, and
victories, and revolutions; so of the modern
man of street ballads. If the minstrel cele-
brated with harp and voice the unhorsings, the
broken bones, the deaths, the dust, the blood,
and all the glory and circumstance of a tour-
nament, — so does the ballad-seller, with voice
and fiddle, glorify the feelings, the broken bones,
the blood, the deaths, and all the glory and
circumstance of a prize-fight. The minstrel
did not scoff at the madness which prevailed in
the lists, nor does the ballad-singer at the
brutality which rules in the ring. The minstrels
had their dirges for departed greatness; the
ballad-singer, like old Allan Bane, also "pours
his wailing o'er the dead" — for are there not the
street "helegies" on all departed greatness? In
the bestowal of flattery or even of praise the
modern minstrel is far less liberal than was his
prototype; but the laudation was, in the good old
times, very often "paid for" by the person whom
it was sung to honour. Were the same measure
applied to the ballad-singer and writer of to-
day, there can be no reason to doubt that it
would be attended with the same result. In his
satire the modern has somewhat of an advantage
over his predecessor. The minstrel not rarely
received a "largesse" to satirize some one
obnoxious to a rival, or to a disappointed man.
The ballad-singer (or chaunter, for these re-
marks apply with equal force to both of these
street-professionals), is seldom hired to abuse.
I was told, indeed, by a clever chaunter, that he
had been sent lately by a strange gentleman to
sing a song — which he and his mate (a patterer)
happened at the time to be working — in front
of a neighbouring house. The song was on the
rogueries of the turf; and the "move" had
a doubly advantageous effect. "One gentle-
man, you see, sir, gave us 1s. to go and sing;
and afore we'd well finished the chorus, some-
body sent us from the house another 1s. to go
away agin." I believe this to be the only
way in which the satire of a ballad-singer is
rewarded, otherwise than by sale to his usual
class of customers in the streets or the public-
houses. The ancient professors of street min-
strelsy unquestionably played and sung satirical
lays, depending for their remuneration on the
liberality of their out-of-door audience; so is
it precisely with the modern. The minstrel
played both singly and with his fellows; the
ballad-singer "works" both alone (but not
frequently) and with his "mates" or his
"school."

In the persons of some of these modern street
professionals, as I have shown and shall fur-
ther show, are united the functions of "the
poet, the songster, and the musician." So in
the days of yore. There are now female ballad-
singers; there were female minstrels, or glee-
women. The lays which were poured forth in
our streets and taverns some centuries back,
either for the regalement of a miscellaneous
assemblage, or of a select few, were sometimes
of an immoral tendency. Such, it cannot be
denied, is the case in our more enlightened days
at our Cyder-cellars, Coal-holes, Penny Gaffs,
and such like places. Rarely, however, are
such things sung in the streets of London; but
sometimes at country fairs and races.

In one respect the analogy between the two
ages of these promoters of street enjoyment does
not hold. The minstrel's garb was distinctive.
It was not always the short laced tunic, tight
trousers, and russet boots, with a well plumed
cap, — which seems to be the modern notion of
this tuneful itinerant. The king's and queen's
minstrels wore the royal livery, but so altered
as to have removed from its appearance what
might seem menial. The minstrels of the
great barons also assumed their patron's live-
ries, with the like qualification. A minstrel of
the highest class might wear "a fayre gowne
of cloth of gold," or a military dress, or a
"tawnie coat," or a foreign costume, or even
an ecclesiastical garb, — and some of them went
so far as to shave their crowns, the better to
resemble monks. Of course they were imitated
by their inferiors. The minstrel, then, wore a
particular dress; the ballad-singer of the pre-
sent day wears no particular dress. During the
terrors of the reign of Henry VIII., and after
the Reformation, a large body of the minstrels
fell into meanness of attire; and in that respect
the modern ballad-singer is analogous.

It must be borne in mind that I have all
along spoken — except when the description is
necessarily general — of the street, or itinerant,
minstrel of old. The highest professors of the

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art were poets and composers, men often of
genius, learning, and gravity, and were no more
to be ranked with the mass of those I have been
describing than is Alfred Tennyson with any
Smithfield scribbler and bawler of some Newgate
"Copy of Verses."

How long "Sir Topas" and the other "old
stories" continued to be sung in the streets
there are no means of ascertaining. But there
are old songs, as I ascertained from an intelli-
gent and experienced street-singer, still occa-
sionally heard in the open air, but more in the
country than the metropolis. Among those still
heard, however rarely, are the Earl of Dorset's
song, written on the night before a naval engage-
ment with the Dutch, in 1665:

I give the titles of the others, not chronolo-
gically, but as they occurred to my informant's
recollection — "A Cobbler there was, and he
liv'd in a Stall" — Parnell's song of "My Days
have been so wond'rous Free," now sung in the
streets to the tune of Gramachree." A song
(of which I could not procure a copy, but my
informant had lately heard it in the street) about
the Cock-lane Ghost —

the "Children in the Wood" and "Chevy-
chase." Concerning this old ditty one man said
to me: "Yes, sir, I've sung it at odd times and
not long ago in the north of England, and I've
been asked whereabouts Chevy-chase lay, but
I never learned."

"Barbara Allen's selling yet," I was told.
"Gilderoy was a Bonnie Boy," is another song
yet sung occasionally in the streets.

"The ballad," says a writer on the subject,
"may be considered as the native species of
poetry of this country. It very exactly answers
the idea formerly given of original poetry, being
the rude uncultivated verse in which the popu-
lar tale of the time was recorded. As our
ancestors partook of the fierce warlike character
of the northern nations, the subjects of their
poetry would chiefly consist of the martial ex-
ploits of their heroes, and the military events of
national history, deeply tinctured with that pas-
sion for the marvellous, and that superstitious
credulity, which always attend a state of igno-
rance and barbarism. Many of the ancient
ballads have been transmitted to the present
times, and in them the character of the nation
displays itself in striking colours."

The "Ballads on a Subject," of which I shall
proceed to treat, are certainly "the rude uncul-
tivated verse in which the popular tale of the
times is recorded," and what may be the cha-
racter of the nation as displayed in them I leave
to the reader's judgment.