(_From a Drawing in a Ninth Century Psalter illustrating Psalm CL._)]
The term minstrel, or, in Norman-French, _ministraulx_, came into use in England soon after the Conquest, at which time it is believed that the class of minstrels and jesters grew much more numerous. The general language of France in the ninth century was the _langue d'Oc_, which closely resembled the dialects of the Catalonian. The language of the north, or _langue d'Oil_, varied but little from it. At this period the flowing accents of the southern tongue were wedded to music by minstrels, who were called troubadours in the southern provinces, and trouveres in the north.
[Illustration: HARP OF THE NINTH CENTURY.
These poets became known throughout Europe for their songs of love and war, in which they celebrated the beauty of women and the achievements of the brave. The minstrels enjoyed many privileges, and travelled from place to place, in time of war as well as of peace, in perfect safety. Their persons were held sacred, and they were received wherever they went with the warmest welcome and hospitality.
In England the professors of the minstrel's art were of various classes, which were distinguished by the several names of singers, relaters of heroic actions, jesters, balancers, jugglers, and story-tellers. At this period every great baron kept a jester as a part of his household establishment.
The word jester, in its original sense, did not necessarily mean joker, or buffoon, but teller of tales, which might be of a kind to excite either laughter or pity. The jesters, however, were usually employed at feasts and in the hours of conviviality, and they found the tales of merriment so much more popular at such times, that it is probable the more serious part of their vocation fell into disuse. In later times the jesters and japers became mere merry-andrews, whose business it was to excite mirth by jokes and ludicrous gesticulations.
In olden times the number of musical instruments was considerable, but their names were still more numerous, because they were derived from the form and character of instruments which varied according to the caprice of the maker or the musician. Each nation had its peculiar instruments of music, and as these were described in each language by names appropriate to their qualities, the same instrument was frequently known by many names, while the same names sometimes applied to several instruments. The Romans, after their conquests, were in the habit of carrying back with them the music and the instruments which they found among the conquered nations, and thus it happened that, at a certain epoch, all the musical instruments of the known world were collected in the capital of the empire. At the fall of Rome, many of these fell into disuse and were forgotten; they were no longer needed to celebrate the festivals of pagan deities, or to add gaiety to the ovations to the emperors in the capitol. A letter of St. Jerome to Dardanus (_de diversis generibus musicorum instrumentorum_) gives an account of those instruments which remained in existence in the fifth century. St. Jerome enumerates the organ, various kinds of trumpets, the cithara, in the form of a Greek delta ([Greek: D]), with twenty-four strings; the _psalterium_, a small harp of a square form, with ten strings; the _tympanum_, or hand-drum, and several others.