"[2]
[2] MS. Reg. 17, C, viii. f. 2; cited in Skeat's Chaucer, v. 194.
The monks of Hyde Abbey or New Minster paid an
annuity to a harper (1180). No less a sum than seventy
shillings was paid to minstrels hired to sing and play the
harp at the feast of the installation of an abbot of St.
Augustine's, Canterbury (1309). When the bishop of
Winchester visited the cathedral priory of St. Swithin or Old
Minster, a minstrel was hired to sing the song of Colbrond the
Danish giant--a legend connected with Winchester--and
the tale of Queen Emma delivered from the ploughshares
(1338). Payments to minstrels were commonly made by
monks: at Bicester Priory, for example (1431), and at
Maxstoke, where mimi, joculatores, jocatores, lusores, and
citharistae were hired. A curious provision occurs in the
statutes of New College, Oxford (1380). The founder gives
his permission to the scholars, for their recreation on festival
days in the winter, to light a fire in the hall after dinner
and supper, where they could amuse themselves with songs
and other entertainments of decent sort, and could recite
poems, chronicles of kingdoms, the wonders of the world,
and such like compositions, provided they befitted the
clerical character.
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