Clerical censors of manners during the Middle Ages frequently denounce the dissoluteness of minstrels, and the minstrels take their revenge by lampooning the vices of the clergy. Like all sweeping censures of whole classes of men, the accusations on both sides must be received cautiously. However, it is certain that the minstrels were patronised by the clergy. We shall presently find a record of the minstrels of the Bishop of Winchester in the fourteenth century; and the Ordinance of Edward II., quoted at p. 296, tells us that minstrels flocked to the houses of prelates as well as of nobles and gentlemen. In the thirteenth century, that fine sample of an English bishop, Grostête of Lincoln, was a great patron of minstrel science: he himself composed an allegorical romance, the Chasteau d'Amour. Robert de Brunne, in his English paraphrase of Grostête's Manuel de Peches (begun in 1303), gives us a charming anecdote of the Bishop's love of minstrelsy. "Y shall yow telle as y have herde, Of the bysshope seyut Robérde, Hys to-name ys Grostet. Of Lynkolne, so seyth the gest He loved moche to here the harpe, For mannys witte hyt makyth sharpe. Next hys chaumber, besyde his stody, Hys harpers chaumbre was fast therby. Many tymes be nyght and dayys, He had solace of notes and layys. One askede hym onys resun why He hadde delyte in mynstralsy? He answered hym on thys manere Why he helde the harper so dere. The vertu of the harpe, thurghe skylle and ryght, Wyl destroy the fendes myght; And to the croys by gode skylle Ys the harpe lykened weyle. Tharfor gode men, ye shul lere Whan ye any gleman here, To wurschep Gode al youre powére, As Dauyde seyth yn the sautére." We know that the abbots lived in many respects as other great people did; they exercised hospitality to guests of gentle birth in their own halls, treated them to the diversions of hunting and hawking over their manors and in their forests, and did not scruple themselves to partake in those amusements; possibly they may have retained minstrels wherewith to solace their guests and themselves. It is quite certain at least that the wandering minstrels were welcome guests at the religious houses; and Warton records many instances of the rewards given to them on those occasions. We may record two or three examples.