Wherever his fellows collected together in numbers, at courtly residences and tournaments, or in churchyards at great saints' feasts, he quickly pitched his tent and booth by the side of those of traders and pedlers, and began his arts; rope-dancing, jongleur exercises, sham-fights, dramatic representations in masks, shows of curiosities, songs, masked artistic dances, and playing for dances and festive processions. In the churchyard itself, or within the boundaries of some castle, were heard the sounds of noisy pleasure; and the sun-burnt women of the band slipped secretly through side doors into the castle or the priests' house. Only some of the practices of these vagrants deserve special mention. The influence which these musicians exercised on the progress of epic and lyrical popular poetry, has been already mentioned; it is even now discerned in heroic poetry, for the players often endeavoured to introduce fellows of their own class into the old poetry, and took care that they should play no contemptible rôle. Thus in the Nibelungen, the brilliant form of the hero Volker the fiddler, is the representation of a musician; similar figures, grotesque in appearance, but rougher and coarser, hectored in the later poems and popular legends, as for example the monk Ilsan in the Rosengarten. But it was not only in the German epos, that the strollers smuggled in, beautiful copies of their own life; despised as they were, they contrived, with all the insolence of their craft, to introduce themselves into the nave and choir of the church, though almost excluded from its holy rites. For even in the first strict ecclesiastical beginnings of the German dramas, they crept into the holy plays of the Easter festivals. Already in the beginning of the middle ages the history of the crucifixion and resurrection had assumed a dramatic colouring; alternate songs between Christ and his disciples, Pilate and the Jews, were sung by the clergy in the church choir; a great crucifix was reverently deposited in an artificial grave in the crypt, and afterwards there was a solemn announcement, on Easter morning, of the resurrection, songs of praise by the whole congregation, and the consecration of psalms. They began early to bring forward more prominently, individual rôles in dramatic songs, to put speeches as well as songs into their mouths, and to distinguish the chief rôles by suitable dress and particular attributes. On other Church festivals the same was done with the legends of the saints, and already in the twelfth century whole pieces were dramatically performed in the German churches, first of all in Latin, by the clergy in the choir. But in the thirteenth century the German language made its way into the dialogue; then the pieces became longer, the number of rôles increased, the laity began to join in it, the dialogues became familiar, sometimes facetious, and contrasted wonderfully with the occasional Latin songs and responses,