Note 166 — Chapter III · THE MINSTREL LIFE

See especially Le Tombeor de Notre Dame (Romania, ii. 315). Novati (Rom. xxv. 591) refers to a passage quoted by Augustine, de Civ. Dei, vi. 10, from the lost work of Seneca, de Superstitionibus, ‘doctus archimimus, senex iam decrepitus, cotidie in Capitolio mimum agebat, quasi dii libenter spectarent quem illi homines desierant.’ Somewhat similar are Don Cierge qui descendi au Jougleour (Gautier de Coincy), Miracles de Nostre Dame (†1223, ed. Poquet, 1859), and Le Harpeor de Roncestre (Michel, Roms., Contes, Dits, Fabl. ii. 108). Saint Pierre et le Jongleur (Montaiglon Raynaud, v. 117) is a witty tale, in which a minstrel, left in charge of hell, loses so many souls to St. Peter at dice, that no minstrel has been allowed there since. B. Joannes Bonus (Acta SS. Oct. ix. 693) was a minstrel in his youth, but the patron saints of the minstrels were always St. Genesius the mime (cf. p. 10), and St. Julian Hospitator (Acta SS. Jan. iii. 589), who built a hospital and once entertained an angel unawares.