Minstrels :: essays research papers

Minstrels     Minstrels, or traveling thespians, thrived throughout Europe in mediaevaltimes. The term minstrel referred to a professional entertainer of any kindfrom the twelfth century to the 17th century. Minstrels were instrumentalist, butwere also often jugglers, acrobats, and storytellers. Although minstrels no prolonged exist, they vie an important role in medieval history and, at one time,could be found, in one form or another, throughout the entire continent ofEurope.     Different countries had different names for minstrels. In Germany, theywere called minnesingers. In France, they were cognize as troubadours andjoungleurs. The Scandinavian minstrels were called skalds. The Irish calledtheir minstrels bards, while the English minstrels were referred to as scops.     Minstrels were primarily singers and musicians. These wanderingperformers were also story tellers, jugglers, clowns, and tumblers. Oftenminstrels w ere an important lift off of prominent house holds providingentertainment for the upper class of society. Those minstrels who were not routineof a nobles homestead, traveled from township to town providing entertainment not solitary(prenominal) to noble classes but also to common village folk as well.     There were not many forms of entertainment, nor was there a means for citizenry to learn about news events. There was no television or radio in medievaltimes. Even books were very scarce. Minstrels served to entertain the public.They do up songs, stories, and repeated ballads and folk tales popular duringthis time. Traveling from town to town minstrels were also a source of news.This would share information with the townspeople of the village. Thetownspeople would share this news with the minstrels who would then share thisnews with the townspeople in the next village in which they performed.     Each country in medieval Europe had their own type of minstrel. Each,while similar in their oecumenic role of entertainer, they were different in manyways. Troubadours, French minstrels, flourished in from the eleventh centurythrough the 13th century. Troubadours were found in the southern piece of France.The troubadours were among the first minstrels to use their native tonguerather than Latin. The Latin linguistic communication was considered the literary language ofthe middle ages. There were approximately 400 troubadours who were known tohave lived. The majority of them were nobles and some were even kings(Microsoft Encarta 96 Encyclopedia.)     Originally troubadours sing their poems, later they were accompanied byjongleurs who played musical instruments. The musical instruments the jongleursplayed were the fiddle and the lute. The subject of their songs were based ontopics such as make do ,politics, religion, war, and death. Approximately 400melodies and 4000 poems have been preserved from med ieval troubadours (Microsoft