The popular stage, as has been said, had its farcical elements, but did not, in England, arrive at any notable development of the farce. Nor is any marked influence of the overseas habit even now to be traced. The name is not used in England, although it is in Scotland, where at the beginning of the sixteenth century the relations with France were much closer[599]. Whether directly or indirectly through French channels, the farce is perhaps the contribution of minstrelsy to the nascent interlude. That some dramatic tradition was handed down from the _mimi_ of the Empire to the _mimi_ of the Middle Ages, although not susceptible of demonstration, is exceedingly likely[600]. That solitary mediaeval survival, the _Interludium de Clerico et Puella_, hardly declares its origin. But the farce, in its free handling of contemporary life, in the outspokenness, which often becomes indecency, of its language, in its note of satire, especially towards the priest and other institutions deserving of reverence, is the exact counterpart of one of the most characteristic forms of minstrel literature, the _fabliau_. These qualities are reproduced in the interludes of John Heywood, who, though possibly an Oxford man, began life as a singer and player of the virginals at court, and belonged therefore to the minstrel class. He grew quite respectable, married into the family of Sir Thomas More and John Rastell the printer, and had for grandson John Donne. He was put in charge of the singing-school of St. Paul’s, the boys of which probably performed his plays. Of the six extant, _Wit and Folly_ is a mere dialogue, and _Love_ a more elaborate disputation, although both are presented ‘in maner of an enterlude.’ But the others, _The Pardoner and the Friar_, _The Four P’s_, _The Weather_, and _John, Tib and Sir John_ are regular farces. And with them the farce makes good its footing in the English drama.