Minster
the church of an abbey or priory; but often applied, like the German "Münster," to cathedral churches without any monastic connection.
MINSTREL (Old French menestrel, menestral), a singer and performer on musical instruments. Minstrels in the Middle Ages were a class of men who lived by the arts of poetry and music.
The minstrels or jongleurs only recited or chanted poems, but did not write or invent them; or perhaps accompanied on some instrument the troubadour, who sang his own compositions. It was not an unusual thing for a troubadour to have several minstrels or jongleurs in his service. The minstrels in later times formed a separate guild, uniting for the purposes of mutual protection and support. With the decline of chivalry, the and eventually sank so low that they are classed among vagabonds and beggars in statutes in the reign of Elizabeth.
In the United States a term used to describe a negro stage singer of Southern negro songs, or a white singer blacked up to sing such songs.