word minstrel had had a separate history before it became synonymous (as in the Catholicon Anglicum of 1483) with gesticulator, histrio, joculator, and other names for strolling entertainers. Derived from the Low Latin ministralis, it was originally applied to those retainers whose business it was to play upon musical instruments for the entertainment of their lords. In Chaucer's Squire's Tale, the “minstralles” play before King Cambuscan as he dines in state “biforn him at the bord deliciously,” and the “loude minstralcye” precedes him when he rises and withdraws to the ornamented chamber,
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Ther as they sownen diuerse instrumentz,
That it is lyk an heuen for to here.
But even in Chaucer's time there were less respectable musicians than those of the king's household—strolling musicians, players on trumpets, clarions, taborets, lutes, rebecks, fiddles, and other instruments. These also were known by the generic name of minstrels, whether because many of them had learnt their art in noble households before they took to a vagabond life, or because the more respectable of them affected to be in the service or under the patronage of powerful nobles, as later on companies of strolling players figured as the “servants” of distinguished patrons. All the allusions to minstrels in literature from Langland's time to Spenser's point to them as strolling musicians. Some of them may have sung to the harp verses of their own composing, and some of them may have composed some of the ballads that now charm us with their fresh and simple art; but the profession of the “minstrel,” properly so-called, was much less romantic than Bishop Percy painted it. It was not merely “the bigots of the iron time” that “called their harmless art a crime”; in a repressive Act passed by Henry IV. they appear with “westours, rymours, et autres vacabondes” among the turbulent elements of the community.
In a passage in Malory's Morte Darthur, the word minstrel is applied to a personage who comes much nearer the ideal of the Provençal joglar. When Sir Dinadan wished to infuriate King Mark, he composed a satirical song, and gave it to Elyot a harper to sing through the country, Tristram guaranteeing him against the consequences. When King Mark took him to task for this, the harper's answer was, “Wit you well I am a minstrel, and I must do as I am commanded of these lords that I bear the arms of.” And because he was a minstrel King Mark allowed him to go unharmed. The service done by Elyot the harper in the old romance is a good illustration of the political function of the itinerant mediæval joculator; but even he did not sing verses of his own composing, and he was not a “minstrel” in the sense in which the word was used by romantic poets after the publication of Percy's Reliques.
(w. m.)
MINT. The mint is the place where the coinage of a country is manufactured, and whence it is issued by sovereign authority, under special conditions and regulations. The privilege of coining has in all ages and countries belonged to the sovereign, and has, in England at least, been rarely delegated to any subject, and in any case in a restricted form, the crown always reserving the right of determining the standard, denomination, and design of the coins.
At a very early stage of civilization it was found necessary to have some definite medium of exchange, in order to avoid the great inconvenience arising from the system of payment in kind, which was the primitive and natural method. It was not long before metal came to be used as such a medium, probably from its durability and portability, and in the case of gold and silver on account of their intrinsic value. The less liable the value of a metal is to change the better is it suited for a standard of value.
Though historians assure us that metals were found in Britain at a very early period, there does not appear to be any evidence that the mines were worked until considerably later than the time at which the use of metal as a medium of exchange was introduced. It is probable therefore that the metals for exchange were imported into Britain long before the native mines were developed.
The metals chiefly used were silver and brass, which were at first simply exchanged by weight for commodities of all kinds. As commercial transactions became more numerous and more complicated, this system of payment grew troublesome, and it was found convenient to divide the mass of metal into small parts, which soon took the form of rough coins. But the principle of payment by weight was retained through many centuries, and is perpetuated, though in name only, in the word “pound.”
Records of attempts to organize the coinage of England are found as far back as the Anglo-Saxon period, and it is known that on the dissolution of the Heptarchy the mints were regulated by laws framed in the witenagemot. The first monarch who appears to have dealt successfully with the organization of the coinage was Athelstan, who framed laws for the regulation of the mints, and appointed officers whose titles and duties are then first recorded. The only officers connected with the coinage of whom mention is found before this time are the “moneyers,” who appear to have been alone responsible for the manufacture of the coin; but it is probable that even then there existed some officer who had authority over them. In early Saxon and Norman times the number of moneyers was considerable, mints being established in almost every important town, as might be expected at a period when communication between distant places was extremely difficult. They appear to have been the officers who actually performed the work of making the coin, the mint master in later times contracting with them, at a high rate, for the work. They were responsible for the purity and perfection of the coins produced, as appears from the fact that it was they who were punished (as traitors) in the case of any deficiency in weight or fineness. They had prescriptive rights in the coinage, and in modern times (even so late as 1850) claimed to have corporate privileges; but it is clear, on the authority of Ruding, that they never were a “corporation” separate from other officers of the mint.[1] The number of mints was greatly reduced after the Norman Conquest, but continued to be considerable until the reign of Richard I., when the work of coining for the whole kingdom was concentrated in the mint in the Tower of London. Only one provincial mint (Winchester) remained till a later date.
in 1325 under Edward II., the regulations then framed for the manufacture and issue of the coins forming the basis of those still in force. The principal officers under these regulations were—master, warden, comptroller, king's assay master, king's clerks, and cuneator. The office of cuneator was one of great importance at a time when there existed a multiplicity of mints, since he had the sole charge of all the dies used not only at the mint in the Tower of London but also in the provinces. He chose the engravers and presented them to the barons of the exchequer in order that they might take the oath of fidelity; he superintended their work, and was generally answerable for the perfection of the dies before they were issued for use in the various mints of the country. The office, which was hereditary, ceased to exist when the provincial mints were suppressed.
In its place was instituted the office of clerk of the irons,
- ↑ Among the special privileges which they undoubtedly enjoyed was exemption from local taxation, as appears in a writ of Henry III., which commands the mayor of London not to disturb them “by exacting tallages contrary to their privileges.” Sometimes also houses were allowed to them rent free.
