hired pugilists to kill each other without penance, like stray dogs; or
what was almost worse, they granted to the injured vagrant only the
mockery of a sham penance. If a stroller was struck by a sword or
knife, he could only return the thrust or blow upon the shadow of his
injurers on the wall.

This ignominious treatment contrasted strongly with the favour which
these strollers generally enjoyed. Singly, or in bands, they went
through the country, and streamed together by hundreds at the great
court and Church fetes. Then, it was the general custom to distribute
among them food, drink, clothes, and money. It was thought advisable to
treat them well, as they were well known to be tale-bearers, and would
publish in satirical songs throughout the whole country the scandalous
conduct of the niggardly man, with a vindictiveness which was sharpened
by the feeling that such revenge was the best means of making
themselves feared. It was rarely that a prince like Henry II., or a
pious bishop, ventured to send away these bands from their fetes
without a reward. Almost everywhere, till quite into the fifteenth
century, they were to be found wherever a large assemblage of men
sought for amusement. They sang ballads, satirical songs and love
songs, and related heroic tales and legends from foreign lands, on the
stove-bench of the peasant, in tins ante-room of the burgher, or the
hall of the castle. From the latter its lord is absent perhaps on a
crusade, and his wife and servants listen anxiously to the fables and
lies of the wandering player. To-day he is the narrator of foreign
tales of marvel, and to-morrow the clandestine messenger betwixt
two lovers; then he again enters for a time the service of knightly
minne-singers, whose minne-songs he accompanies with his music, and
undertakes to spread them through the country, as a journal does now;
or he dresses himself up more strikingly than usual, takes his bauble
in his hand, places a fool's cap on his head, and goes as travelling
fool to some nobleman, or follower of some distinguished ecclesiastic.

Wherever his fellows collected together in numbers, at courtly
residences and tournaments, or in churchyards at great saints' feasts,
he quickly pitched his tent and booth by the side of those of traders
and pedlers, and began his arts; rope-dancing, jongleur exercises,
sham-fights, dramatic representations in masks, shows of curiosities,
songs, masked artistic dances, and playin