1 See F. Ll. Harrison, ‘Tradition and Innovation in Instrumental Usage 1100–1450’, Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music, ed. Jan LaRue, London, 1967, pp. 319–35, esp. pp. 328 ff.Google Scholar

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3 See especially E. A. Bowles, ‘Were Musical Instruments used in the Liturgical Service during the Middle Ages?’, The Galpin Society Journal, x (1957), 40–56, and Robert Donington's reply, ibid., xi (1958), 85–87.Google Scholar

4 E. K. Chambers (The Medieval Stage, Oxford, 1903, ii. 262 f.) quotes the three genera of minstrels according to Thomas de Cabham (Bishop of Salisbury, d. 1313).Google Scholar

5 The Pardoner's Tale, ll. 19–20. On the use of minstrelsy by prostitutes, see Woodfill, W. L., Musicians in English Society, Princeton, New Jersey, 1953, pp. 129 f.; also John Stevens, Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court, London, 1961, p. 253.Google Scholar

6 See Stevens, John, ‘Music in Mediaeval Drama’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, lxxxiv (1957–58), 82 ff.Google Scholar

7 Greene, R. L., The Early English Carols, Oxford, 1935, p. cxxi. On the friars' use of music, see Manfred F. Bukofzer, ‘Popular and Secular Music in England’, The New Oxford History of Music, iii (London, 1960), 117 ff.Google Scholar

8 Robert Mannyng de Brunne, Handlyng Synne, ed. F. J. Furnivall (Early English Text Society, cxix, cxxiii), London, 1901 and 1903, i. 153.Google Scholar

9 On the medieval ‘estates’, see Huizinga, Johan, The Waning of the Middle Ages, London, 1924, pp. 47 f.Google Scholar

10 See Bowles, E. A., ‘Musical Instruments in the Medieval Corpus Christi Procession’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, xvii (1964), 251 ff.; Thomas Sharp, Dissertation on the Pageants … at Coventry, Coventry, 1825, passim; and Joseph Toulmin Smith, English Gilds (Early English Text Society, xl), London, 1870, pp. 148 ff.Google Scholar

11 The shepherds' singing in the Wakefield and York plays, for example: see Carpenter, NanCooke, ‘Music in the Secunda Pastorum’, Speculum, xxvi (1951), 696–700; and John Stevens, ‘Music in Mediaeval Drama’, loc. cit.Google Scholar

12 J. Payne Collier, The History of English Dramatic Poetry, 2nd edn., London, 1879, i. 18.Google Scholar

13 Handlyng Synne, ed. Furnivall, ii. 283; see also i. 36 and i. 156 f.Google Scholar

14 It is appropriate here to record my gratitude to Dr. Ian Bent and Dr. Brian Trowell. Both had collected much information about minstrels in the course of their own researches, and this they generously handed over to me for my own use.Google Scholar

15 British Museum, Add. MS 7965 (25 Ed I), ff. 55 (May) and 55^v (June). Wardrobe Books referred to in this paper are accounts of the king's household unless it is otherwise stated.Google Scholar

16 Manchester, John Rylands Library, Latin MS 235 (queen's household, 5 Ed III), ff. 17 (April) and 19 (October).Google Scholar

17 British Museum, Add. MS 38006, f. 8; Public Record Office, E101.386.7, f. 7 (both accounts of Eleanor's household, 6 Ed III). See Safford, E. W., ‘An Account of the Expenses of Eleanor …’, Archaeologia, lxxvii (1928), 111–140; also Mary Remnant, ‘Rebec, Fiddle and Crowd in England’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, xcv (1968–69), 26.Google Scholar

18 British Museum, Cotton MS Nero C VIII (8–11 Ed III), f. 270^v (anno 9).Google Scholar

19 Public Record Office, E101.396.11 (43 Ed III), f. 19. Both items are calendared in Edith Rickert, Chaucer's World, New York and London, 1948, p. 260.Google Scholar

20 Public Record Office, E101.397.5 (45–47 Ed III), f. 45 (probably anno 45).Google Scholar

21 Offerings were made at the shrine of a saint in both Christ Church and St. Paul's. For the oblations made by the Lady Eleanor in 1332, see Safford, ‘An Account of the Expenses of Eleanor …’, loc. cit., p. 116; for those of the king in 1369, see Rickert, Chaucer's World, pp. 259 f.Google Scholar

22 Richard Rastall, ‘The Minstrels of the English Royal Households’, R.M.A. Research Chronicle, iv (1964), temp. Edward III.Google Scholar

23 See Bowles, E. A., ‘Haut and Bas: the Grouping of Musical Instruments in the Middle Ages’, Musica Disciplina, viii (1954), 115–40.Google Scholar

24 Alfonso [X] el Sabio, Cantigas de Santa Maria, ed. Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto, Marqués de Valmar, Madrid, 1889, i. 15–16. For reproductions of the illuminations, see José Guerrero Lovillo, Las Cantigas: Estudio Arqueolagico de sus Miniaturas, Madrid, 1949, Plate XI.Google Scholar

25 Handlyng Synne, i. 158. For the specific symbolisms of the harp and psaltery, see Bowles, E. A., ‘The Role of Musical Instruments in Medieval Sacred Drama’, The Musical Quarterly, xlv (1959), 76 f. and notes 44, 46 and 47.Google Scholar

26 This distinction is shared with the households of the queen and queen mother. Throughout the Middle Ages a noble's status is reflected in the number of his trumpeters: a noble would not employ more trumpeters than a noble of higher rank. British Museum, Add. MS 9951 (14 Ed II), f. 20, records a gift to Walter le Cornour, minstrel of the Bishop of Exeter, in 1321: Walter was probably a bas minstrel who played a cornett.Google Scholar

27 The Account-Rolls of Durham Priory, ed. J. T. Fowler (Surtees Society, xcix, c, ciii), Durham, 1898–1901, iii. 585.Google Scholar

28 British Museum, Cotton MS Nero C VIII (3–5 Ed II), f. 84^v; Add. MS 17362 (13 Ed II), f. 31.Google Scholar

29 Thomas Warton, History of English Poetry, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, London, 1871, ii. 97.Google Scholar

30 Ibid. In the Maxstoke accounts ‘mimus’ is the word used for a minstrel.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., ii. 96, iii. 118, ii. 98.Google Scholar

32 The Coventry Leet Book, ed. Mary Dormer Harris (Early English Text Society, cxxxiv, cxxxv, cxxxviii, cxlvi), London, 1907–13, i. 335.Google Scholar

33 See John H. Harvey, ‘The Last Years of Thetford Cluniac Priory’, Norfolk Archaeology, xxvii (1941), 1–27.Google Scholar

34 The Account-Rolls of Durham Priory, i. 129, ii. 531, 559, 562 f., 574, iii. 599.Google Scholar

35 Warton, History of English Poetry, ii. 97.Google Scholar

36 Account-Rolls of Durham Priory, ii. 565.Google Scholar

37 Warton (op. cit., ii. 97) quotes the priory register: ‘Et cantabat Joculator quidam nomine Herebertus canticum Colbrondi, necnon Gestum Emme regine a judicio ignis liberate, in aula prioris’.Google Scholar

38 Ibid., iii. 119: ‘Dat. sex Ministrallis de Bokyngham cantantibus in refectorio Martyrium septem dormientium in Festo epiphanie, iv s.’Google Scholar

39 Warton, op. cit., ii. 97; Account-Rolls of Durham Priory, iii. 592.Google Scholar

40 Account-Rolls of Durham Priory, ii. 528, 538. f. Warton (op. cit., ii. 98) states that one Jeffrey the Harper received in 1180 a corrody from the abbey of Hide, near Winchester, in payment for his minstrelsy on certain occasions; and Warton considered that the Welsh abbeys of Conway and Stratfleur also kept their own harpers at that time.Google Scholar

41 Bowles (‘Were Musical Instruments used …’, Galpin Society Journal, x (1957), 45 ff.) cites the Synod of Chartres (1358) and other occasions when clergy were forbidden to consort with minstrels.Google Scholar

42 See Donington's reply to Bowles, ibid., xi (1958), 85–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Op. cit., p. 52.Google Scholar

44 Andre Pirro, La Musique à Paris sous le règne de Charles VI, Paris, 1930, p. 14. On the Continent, silver trumpets had a special significance in processions and other religious ceremony: see E. van der Straeten, Les Ménéstrels aux Pays-Bas, Brussels, 1878, pp. 34 f.Google Scholar

45 British Museum, Add. MSS 35291 (28 Ed I), f. 140^v; 7966A (29 Ed I), f. 151^v; 8835 (32 Ed I), f. 127^v. I am grateful to Dr. Ian Bent for drawing my attention to these.Google Scholar

46 In 1346: Register of Edward, the Black Prince (Public Record Office calendar), London, 1930–33, i. 30. The Prince paid the considerable sum of 19 marks (£12. 6s. 8d.) for these trumpets: evidently they were not for everyday minstrelsy.Google Scholar

47 Yvonne Rokseth, ‘Instruments à l'église au xv^e siècle’, Revue de Musicologie, xiv (1933), 206–8. By about 1500 the custom was growing (on the Continent, but not yet in England) of supporting singers with cornetts and sackbuts: see G. van Doorslaer, ‘La Chapelle musicale de Philippe le Beau’, Revue belge d'archéologu et d'histoire de l'art, iv (1934), 50 ff., for example. It is unlikely that this was the case around 1480.Google Scholar

48 Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. H. T. Riley, London, 1867–9, i. 520, quoted in Harrison, Music in Medieval Britain, p. 206 and note 3.Google Scholar

49 Matthew of Westminster, Flares Historiarum, London, 1570, p. 458.Google Scholar

50 Dugdale, W., History of St. Paul's, 3rd edn., London, 1818, p. 32, cited by Harrison, op. cit., p 217.Google Scholar

51 Ordinale Exon, ed. J. N. Dalton (Henry Bradshaw Society, xxxvii, xxxviii, lxiii, lxxix), London, 1909–40, ii. 535.Google Scholar

52 Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, ed. J. G. Nichols (Camden Society, liii), London, 1852, p. 80. I am indebted to Dr. Anthony Langford for this reference.Google Scholar

53 Chambers, The Medieval Stage, ii. 309. and ii. 15; also Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle Ages, London, 1941, pp. 194–5.Google Scholar

54 The York Missal, ed. W. G. Henderson (Surtees Society, lix, lx), Durham, 1874, i. 151. I am indebted to Mr. J. E. Maddrell for this reference.Google Scholar

55 Hardin Craig, Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays, 2nd edn. (Early English Text Society, extra series lxxxvii), London, 1957, p. 45.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., p. 52.Google Scholar

57 The Towneley Plays, ed. G. England and A. W. Pollard (Early English Text Society, extra series lxxi), London, 1897, p. 184.Google Scholar

58 For a lucid discussion of chime-bells, see J. Smits van Waesberghe, Cymbala (Bells in the Middle Ages) (American Institute of Musicology, Studies and Documents, i), Rome, 1951.Google Scholar

59 British Museum, MS Harley 2804 (twelfth-century German Bible), ff. 3^v–4: see Millar, E. G., Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, series iv (British Museum publication), London, 1928, Plate XI. Bibliothèque de Dijon, Bible of St. Stephen Harding (eleventh century): see The New Oxford History of Music, iii, Plate V.Google Scholar

60 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 366 (the Ormesby Psalter, c.1325), f. 109.Google Scholar

61 An exception is the David-page of Cambridge, St. John's College, MS B.18 (twelfth century), where there are seven bells although there is space for more: see The New Oxford History of Music, ii (London, 1954), frontispiece.Google Scholar

62 Glasgow, Hunterian Library, MS 229 (psalter, c. 1270), f. 1^v: reproduced in The New Oxford History of Music, iii, Plate VII.Google Scholar

63 British Museum, MS Harley 2804, ff. 3^v-4, marks the bells from left to right C D E F G a b b; Waesberghe (Cymbala, p. 17) gives this as a common tuning.Google Scholar

64 Public Record Office, E101.369.6 (34 Ed I), printed in Manners and Household Expenses of the 13th and 15th Centuries, ed. Beriah Botfield (Roxburghe Club, lvii), London, 1841, pp. 141–5.Google Scholar

65 Waesberghe, Cymbala, p. 18 and Plate IV.Google Scholar

66 Cymbala, p. 19. Harrison (Music in Medieval Britain, p. 206) calls the sequence ‘an outburst of praise, when not only the voices and the organ but also the bells joined in the festive sound’. He has a peal in mind, of course.Google Scholar

67 ‘Una pulsantur omnia signa.’ See above, note 53.Google Scholar

68 Harrison, op. cit., p. 206.Google Scholar

69 A late fourteenth-century missal shows the rope only of a single tolling-bell: see Rickert, Margaret, The Reconstructed Carmelite Missal, London, 1952, Plate I.Google Scholar

70 Matthew of Westminster, Flores Historiarum, p. 4.58.Google Scholar