exception of Le Convoiteux et l’Envieux, Le Bourgeois d’Abbeville, and Le Lai du Palefroi vair, the authors of which were Jean Bedel, Bernier and Huon le Roi respectively, and of these authors all that we know is their names. They were probably either trouvères or jongleurs, two classes of men between which some distinction must however be made. The trouvères were for the most part men of gentle birth, but of small means, whose talent for poetry made them welcome guests at the court and in the castles of the more powerful and wealthy nobles. Some were in holy orders, and a few seem to have belonged to the bourgeoisie. Their poems were sung by itinerant musicians called jongleurs, or « jugglers » (Lat. ioculatores, « jesters » or « jokers » ), who travelled from castle to castle, receiving generous presents of money, jewellery, fine linen or cloth, and who seem, on the whole, to have formed a fairly prosperous corporation. They frequently boasted high-sounding and martial names, such as Break-head, Kill-ox, Cut-rib or Cut-iron, and it is worthy of remark that it may be one of these who first assumed the name, and founded the family of Shake-spear.
The jongleur usually sang or chanted in a species of monotone, to the accompaniment of a rude viol or fiddle which he held in an upright position, and occasionally, if he were a man of importance, he would have a harpist and a fiddler with him. After entertaining the audience in the hall to a mixed programme, he would condescend to repeat his more homely and more mirth-provoking tales « below stairs, » and on a Sunday afternoon, in the square between the church
