Note 289 — Chapter I · HERBALISTS, CHARLATANS, MINSTRELS, JUGGLERS, AND TUMBLERS

Performing animals or wild ones in cages enjoyed a popularity which proved more constant than that of minstrels, since it has continued unabated from the early middle ages to the present time. Ursinarii frequently appear in the accounts of the Shrewsbury corporation quoted by Chambers who gives, e.g. this noteworthy entry: “In regardo dato ursinario domini Regis pro agitacione bestiarum suarum ultra denarios tunc ibidem collectos. . . .” (Mediæval Stage, ii. 251; year 1517). The English kings, as is well known, had their ménagerie in the Tower, as the French ones had theirs in Paris. St. Louis sent, “as a great gift,” in 1255, an elephant to Henry III; “and we do not believe any had been seen before in England,” wrote Matthew Paris who, good draughtsman as he was, painted the portrait of the wondrous beast. The miniature in MS. Nero D I, in the British Museum, fol. 169, is by him, according to Madden, “Historia Anglorum,” Rolls, Preface.