Note Bb3 — APPENDIX I. AN ESSAY ON THE ANCIENT MINSTRELS IN ENGLAND.

The statute 4 Hen. IV. (1402) c. 27, runs in these terms: "Item, pur eschuir plusieurs diseases et mischiefs qont advenuz devaunt ces heures en la terre de Gales par plusieurs westours rymours, minstralx et autres vacabondes, ordeignez est et establiz qe nul westour, rymour ministral ne vacabond soit aucunement sustenuz en la terre de Gales pur faire kymorthas ou coillage sur la commune poeple illoeques." This is among the severe laws against the Welsh, passed during the resentment occasioned by the outrages committed under Owen Glendour; and as the Welsh bards had excited their countrymen to rebellion against the English government, it is not to be wondered that the act is conceived in terms of the utmost indignation and contempt against this class of men, who are described as rymours, ministralx, which are apparently here used as only synonymous terms to express the Welsh bards with the usual exuberance of our acts of parliament; for if their ministralx had been mere musicians, they would not have required the vigilance of the English legislature to suppress them. It was their songs exciting their countrymen to insurrection which produced "les diseases & mischiefs en la terre de Gales."