The floor of a mediaeval court, thronged with minstrels of every degree, provided at least as various an entertainment as the Roman stage itself[274]. The performances of the mimes, to the accompaniment of their despised tabor or wry-necked fife, undoubtedly made up in versatility for what they lacked in decorum. There were the _tombeors_, _tombesteres_ or _tumbleres_, acrobats and contortionists, who twisted themselves into incredible attitudes, leapt through hoops, turned somersaults, walked on their heads, balanced themselves in perilous positions. Female tumblers, _tornatrices_, took part in these feats, and several districts had their own characteristic modes of tumbling, such as _le tour français_, _le tour romain_, _le tour de Champenois_[275]. Amongst the _tombeors_ must be reckoned the rarer _funambuli_ or rope-walkers, such as he whom the Corvei annals record to have met with a sorry accident in the twelfth century[276], or he who created such a _furore_ in the thirteenth by his aerial descent from the cathedral at Basle[277]. Nor are they very distinct from the crowd of dancers, male and female, who are variously designated as _saltatores_ and _saltatrices_, ‘sautours,’ ‘sailyours,’ ‘hoppesteres.’ Indeed, in many mediaeval miniatures, the daughter of Herodias, dancing before Herod, is represented rather as tumbling or standing on her head than in any more subtle pose[278]. A second group includes the jugglers in the narrower sense, the _jouers des costeax_ who tossed and caught knives and balls[279], and the practitioners of sleight of hand, who generally claimed to proceed by _nigremance_ or sorcery[280]. The two seem to have shared the names of _prestigiatores_ or _tregetours_[281]. Other mimes, the _bastaxi_, or _jouers des basteax_, brought round, like the Punch and Judy men of our own day, little wooden performing puppets or marionettes[282]. Others, to whom Thomas de Cabham more particularly refers, came in masked as animals, and played the dog, the ass or the bird with appropriate noises and behaviour[283]. Others, again, led round real animals; generally bears or apes, occasionally also horses, cocks, hares, dogs, camels and even lions[284]. Sometimes these beasts did tricks; too often they were baited[285], and from time to time a man, lineal descendant of the imperial gladiators, would step forward to fight with them[286]. To the gladiatorial shows may perhaps also be traced the fight with wooden swords which often formed a part of the fun[287]. And, finally, whatever the staple of the performance, there was the _parade_ or preliminary patter to call the audience together, and throughout the ‘carping,’ a continuous flow of rough witticism and repartee, such as one is accustomed to hear Joey, the clown, in the pauses of a circus, pass off on Mr. Harris, the ring-master[288]. Here came in the especial talents of the _scurra_, _bordeor_ or _japere_, to whom the moralists took such marked exception.