The recitation of these stories seems to have been a peculiarly popular profession. Our ‘Rhymers’ oftentimes showed their skill in the art of rhythmical narration by weaving the exploits they described into extempore verse.[313] The ‘Juggler’ or ‘Joculator,’ originally a minstrel or ‘jester,’ something akin to the clown of later days, became by-and-by more celebrated for his skill in legerdemain than loquacity, and now little else is understood by the word. Almost every baron, and even the king himself, had his favourite jester; but it was an art put to the most corrupt purposes, and ‘Jagge the Jogelour’ is set in very low company by Piers Plowman. Certainly his jokes were of the lewdest description, even for the rough times in which he lived. His voice, too, was sufficiently elevated, if we may trust the account given in the ‘Romance of Alexander,’ for— No scholde mon have herd the thondur, For the noise of the taboures, And the trumpours, and the jangelours. The ‘Dissour,’ the old Norman ‘diseur,’ similar in character to the rhymer and the juggler, seems to have left no memorial, saving it be in our ‘Dissers;’[314] neither can I trace ‘le Tregetour’ later than the fifteenth century. Every footprint of his professional existence, indeed, is now faded from our view. And yet there was the day when none could be more familiar than he. The Hundred Rolls record not merely ‘Symon le Tregetor,’ but ‘William le Tregetur’ also, while ‘Maister John Rykele’ is spoken of by Lydgate as ‘sometime Tregitour of noble Henrie, King of Engleland.’ Chaucer, too, mentions sciences By which men maken divers apparences, Such as these subtil tregetoures play. For oft at feasts have I wel heard say That tragetoures, within an halle large Have made come in a water and a barge And in the halle rowen up and down: while in another place he speaks of seeing Coll Tragetour Upon a table of sicamour Play an uncouth thing to tell; I saw him carry a wind-mill Under a walnut-shell; with other equally marvellous feats. Thus we see that the art of legerdemain was not neglected at this time.