_Where does this idle Minstrel stay?_--p. 5. l. 13.
It appears that female minstrels were not uncommon, as one is mentioned
in the Romance of Richard Coeur de Lion, without any remark on the
strangeness of the circumstance.
A goose they dight to their dinner
In a tavern where they were.
King Richard the fire bet;
Thomas to the spit him set;
Fouk Doyley tempered the wood:
Dear abought they that good!
When they had drunken well, a fin,
A minstralle com theirin,
And said, "Gentlemen, wittily,
Will ye have any minstrelsy?"
Richard bade that she should go;
That turned him to mickle woe!
The minstralle _took in mind_,[1]
And said, "Ye are men unkind;
And, if I may, ye shall _for-think_[2]
Ye gave me neither meat ne drink.
For gentlemen should bede
To minstrels that abouten yede,
Of their meat, wine, and ale;
For _los_[3] rises of minstrale."
She was English, and well true,
By speech, and sight, and hide, and hue.
_Ellis's Specimens of early English Metrical Romances_.