Many beautiful melodies still heard by the traveller in Brittany, Normandy, Provence, or the rural sections of Germany, date from the Middle Ages. Their charm and their vitality are such that they have survived the onslaught of advancing civilization for eight centuries or more. They take us back to the time when agriculture was the one great pursuit of man, when in solitude song lightened his labor and in company song cheered his rest; when every custom, ceremonial, occupation, had its songs; when music was a solace to all alike; when that terrible distinction between the lettered and unlettered did not exist. 'For neither in Greece nor in the Middle Ages did it exist; the same poetry pleased all, the prince and the burgher, the knight and peasant.’ 'In certain Breton provinces,’ says Tiersot, 'following an old feudal law, established in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, certain revenues were paid in song. In one place the prior exacted the tax of “nuptial song” from the newly married on the Sunday after the wedding; in another, every new bride was obliged to perform a song and dance, whereupon the lord would decorate the bride with a flower bonnet, while all the women married during the year danced and sang a song--eloquent testimony indeed of the love of music among our early forefathers. C. S. III We have had occasion to mention the vagrant musicians, that singular adjunct to Middle-Age society, which appeared in every country of Central Europe, in Germany as _Fahrender_, in France as _fableor_ or _contraire_ and later as _jongleur_ or _ménétrier_, in England as minstrel. Gustav Freytag has speculatively traced their origin back to the Roman gladiators, actors, and performers mentioned above, a despised race, who were, like their supposed posterity, beyond the pale of the law. When the Germanic hordes swept away the degenerate opulence of Rome, this class may well be supposed to have scattered among the barbarian conquerors. As once in the arena, they now stood before the huts of Frankish chieftains, performing their tricks and piping strange tunes. To the populace of the Middle Ages they were welcome guests, for they provided the one means of artistic entertainment outside the church.