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28 ENGLISH MINSTRELSY RESUMED. |
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and I do not" think it can be dated later than 1300. Dr. Crotch remarks:— " The abundance of appoggiaturas in so ancient a melody, and the number of bars in the phrases, four in one and five in another—nine in each part, are its most striking peculiarities. It is formed on an excellent design, similar to that of several fine airs of different nations. It consists of three parts, resembling each other excepting in the commencement of their phrases, in -which they tower above each other with increasing energy, and is altogether a curious and very favorable specimen of the state of music at this very early period."
The omission of the eighth bar in each phrase would make it strictly in modern rhythm.
CHAPTER HI. English Minstrelsy from 1270 to 1480, and the gradual extinction
OF THE OLD MlNSTREL.
Edward the First, according to the Chronicle of Walter Hemmingford, about the year 1271, a short time before he ascended the throne, took his harper with him .to the Holy Land, who must have been a close and constant attendant on his master, for when Edward was wounded at Ptolemais, the harper (Citharseda suus), hearing the struggle, rushed into the royal apartment, and, striking the assassin on the head with a tripod or trestle, beat out his brains.
" That Edward ordered a massacre of the Welsh bards," says Sharon Turner, " seems rather a vindictive tradition of an irritated nation than an historical fact. The destruction of the independent sovereignties of Wales abolished the patronage of the bards, and in the cessation of internal warfare, and of external ravages, they lost their favorite subjects, and most familiar imagery. They declined because they were no longer encouraged." The Hon. Daines Barrington could find no instances of severity against the Welsh in the laws, &c. of this monarch," and that they were not extirpated is proved by the severe law wThich we find in the Statute Book, 4 Henry TV. (1402), c. 27, passed against them during the resentment occasioned by the outrages committed under Owen Glendour. In that act they are described as Rymours and Ministralx, proving that our ancestors could not distinguish between them and our own minstrels.
In May, 1290, was celebrated the marriage of Queen Eleanor's daughter Joan, surnamed of Acre, to the Earl of Gloucester, and in the following July, that of Margaret, her fifth daughter, to John, son of the Duke of Brabant. Both ceremonies were conducted with much splendour, and a multitude of minstrels flocked from all parts to Westminster: to the first came King Grey of England, King Caupenny from Scotland, and Poveret, the minstrel of the Mareschal of Champagne. The nuptials of Margaret, however, seem to have eclipsed those of her sister. Walter de Storton, the king's harper, distributed a hundred pounds, the gift of
■ See his observations on the Statutes, 4to. 4th Ed. |
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