Minstrel

a musician, especially one who sings or recites to the accompaniment of a musical instrument. In the Middle Ages the word minstrel, brought into England by the Normans, was used to designate a musician who devoted himself to the entertainment of the nobility, going from castle to castle singing ballads, often of his own composition, to the music of harp or lute, telling stories, and sometimes accompanying song and story with gesture and mimicry. Sometimes a band of minstrels would travel about together. Again a minstrel would attach himself to the service of a particular lord, following him to war and sharing with him the dangers and honors of whatever exploits he might be engaged upon. The minstrel in the service of a lord was sometimes called a minstrel-squire. The old Anglo-Saxon name for him was scop, while the wandering minstrel was called a gleeman. The Welsh called their wandering singers bards. The Scandinavians used the word skalds. The social importance of minstrels gradually declined in England until, in the sixteenth century, they were classed with rogues and vagabonds. See Rhapsode; Bard