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Constance Bullock-Davies.
A Register of Royal and Baronial Domestic Minstrels 1272-1327.
Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1986.
ISBN 085115431X.
Hardback, stitch bound.
161x239x23mm.
xvi,227pp.
English.
Dustjacket ragged and the edges and rather grubby; pages starting to yellow, but otherwise the book in overall good condition.This item £8.50
[Publisher's price £40.00/$80.00]
540g.
This book is a compilation of entries drawn from 13th- and early 14th-century manuscripts, covering the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, and translated from the Latin and Anglo-French of the Exchequer clerks. Its purpose is to provide a nucleus for further studies on the subject in the hope that scholars will be able to extend the range of documents examined and hence the period for which such information is available.
Although the material is prosaic, being nothing more than Wardrobe cash accounts, it supplies a surprising amount of information. It clarifies the enormous difference that existed between the domestic minstrel of royal and baronial households and the wandering one so often portrayed in story; it provides details of contracts of employment, status in hall, hours of work, yardage and colour of twice-yearly outfits, duties, provision of victuals and drink, of candles and bedding, of rates and methods of pay, even the colour and cost of horses provided. In the cases of some of the most important minstrels it is possible to piece together the pattern of their existence: where they lived, the names of their wives and children, when they fell sick, how long they were in office, how well-off they were or how indigent in old age, what property they held and what private business they carried on in the City. All these are facts, not speculations: the picture of the minstrels that emerges is incontestably true.
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