Note 259 — Chapter III · THE MINSTREL LIFE

In the first edition of his Reliques (1765), Percy gave the mediaeval minstrel as high a status as the Norse scald or Anglo-Saxon scôp. This led to an acrid criticism by Ritson who, in his essay On the ancient English Minstrels in Ancient Songs and Ballads (1829), easily showed the low repute in which many minstrels were held. See also his elaborate Dissertation on Romance and Minstrelsy in his Ancient English Metrical Romances (1802). The truth really lay between the two, for neither appreciated the wide variety covered by a common name. On the controversy, cf. Minto in Enc. Brit. s. v. Minstrels, Courthope, i. 426-31, and H. B. Wheatley’s Introduction to his edition of Percy’s Reliques, xiii-xv. Percy in his later editions profited largely by Ritson’s criticism; a careful collation of these is given in Schroer’s edition (1889).