The professional assistance of the minstrels, although not called in for the acting, was welcome for the music. This was a usual and a considerable item in the expenses. At the Chelmsford performance just mentioned the waits of Bristol and no less than forty other minstrels were employed. There is no sign of a musical accompaniment to the dialogue of the existing plays, which was spoken, and not, like that of their liturgical forerunners, chanted. But the York and Coventry texts contain some noted songs, and several plays have invitations to the minstrels to strike up at the conclusion or between the scenes. Minstrels are also found accompanying the proclaimers of the banns or preliminary announcements of plays. These banns seem to have been versified, like the plays themselves. They are often mentioned, and several copies exist. Those of Chester were proclaimed by the city crier on St. George’s day; those of the Croxton play and the _Ludus Coventriae_ were carried round the country-side by _vexillatores_ or banner-bearers. Minstrelsy was not the only form of lighter solace provided for the spectators of the plays. Two of those in the Digby manuscript were accompanied with dances. At Bungay a ‘vyce’ was paid ‘for his pastyme before the plaie, and after the plaie.’ There were ‘vices’ too at Chelmsford, and ‘fools,’ by which is meant the same thing[407], at Heybridge and New Romney. But these examples are taken from the decadence of the miracle-play, rather than from its heyday.