Note 238 — Chapter III · THE MINSTREL LIFE
Reading edition
Gautier, ii. 158. Strutt, 195, quotes from Cott. MS. Nero, c. viii a payment of Edw. III ‘ministrallo facienti ministralsiam suam coram imagine Beatae Mariae in Veltam, rege praesente.’ Chaucer’s pilgrims had no professional minstrels, but the miller did as well:
‘He was a janglere and a goliardeys, ... ... A baggepype wel koude he blowe and sowne, And therwithal he broghte us out of towne.’
It was in the absence of regular minstrels that the pilgrims fell to telling one another stories.