alleged to have thought it ‘hard that the devil should have all the good tunes’; but already in the Middle Ages religious words were being set to secular music, and graced with the secular imagery of youth and spring[187]. But if the minstrels were on the one hand a force among the people, on the other they had the ear of kings. The English court to judge by the payments recorded in the exchequer books, must have been full of them[188]. The fullest and most curious document on the subject dates from the reign of Edward I. It is a roll of payments made on the occasion of a Whitsuntide feast held in London in the year 1306, and a very large number of the minstrels recorded are mentioned by name[189]. At the head of the list come five minstrels with the high-sounding title of _le roy_[190], and these get five marks apiece. A number of others follow, who received sums varying from one mark upwards. Most of these have French names, and many are said to be in the company of this or that noble or reverend guest at the feast. Finally, two hundred marks were distributed in smaller sums amongst the inferior minstrels, _les autres menestraus de la commune_, and some of these seem to have been of English birth. Below the _roys_ rank two minstrels, Adam le Boscu and another, who are dignified with the title of _maistre_, which probably signifies that they were clerks[191]. The other names are mainly descriptive, ‘Janin le Lutour,’ ‘Gillotin le Sautreour,’ ‘Baudec le Taboureur,’ and the like; a few are jesting stage names, such as the inferior performers of our music halls bear to-day[192]. Such are ‘Guillaume sanz Maniere,’ ‘Reginaldus le Menteur,’ ‘le Petit Gauteron,’ ‘Parvus Willielmus,’ and those of the attractive comedians Perle in the Eghe, and Matill’ Makejoye. The last, by the way, is the only woman performer named. The resources of Edward I could no doubt stand the strain of rewarding with royal magnificence the entertainers of his guests. There is plenty of evidence, however, that even on secular grounds the diatribes of the moralists against the minstrels were often enough justified. To the lavish and unthrifty of purse they became blood-suckers. Matilda, the wife of Henry I, is said to have squandered most of her revenues upon them[193]; while the unfortunate Robert of Normandy, if no less a chronicler than Ordericus Vitalis may be believed, was stripped by these rapacious gentry to the very skin[194]. Yet for all the days of honour and all the rich gifts the minstrel life must have had its darker side. Easily won, easily parted with; and the lands and laced mantles did not last long, when the elbow itched for the dice-box. This was the incurable ruin of the minstrel folk[195]. And even that life of the road, so alluring to the fever in the blood, must have been a hard one in the rigours of an English climate. To tramp long miles in wind and rain, to stand wet to the skin and hungry