Note 1127 — APPENDIX I. AN ESSAY ON THE ANCIENT MINSTRELS IN ENGLAND. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Jogeler (Lat. joculator) was a very ancient name for a minstrel. Of what nature the performance of the joculator was, we may learn from the register of St. Swithin's Priory at Winchester (T. Warton, i. 69): "Et cantabat Joculator quidam nomine Herebertus Canticum Colbrondi, necnon Gestum Emme regine a judicio ignis liberate, in aula Prioris." His instrument was sometimes the fythele, or fiddle, Lat. fidicula: which occurs in the Anglo-Saxon lexicon. On this subject we have a curious passage from a MS. of the Lives of the Saints in metre, supposed to be earlier than the year 1200 (T. Warton's Hist. i. p. 17), viz.:
"Christofre him served longe The kynge loved melodye much of fithele and of songe: So that his Jogeler on a day beforen him gon to pleye faste, And in a tyme he nemped in his song the devil at laste."