An itinerant poet or strolling minstrel (also known variously as a gleeman, circler, or cantabank) was a wandering minstrel, bard, musician, or other poet common in
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
Europe but extinct today. Itinerant poets were from a lower class than jesters or
jongleur
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer ...
s, as they did not have steady work, instead travelling to make a living.
Medieval performers
In Medieval England, a gleeman was a reciter of poetry. Like a
scop, a gleeman performed poetry to the accompaniment of a
harp or "
glee wood".
Gleemen occasionally attached themselves to a particular
court
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...
, but were most often ''wandering'' entertainers; this is unlike scops, who were more static. Gleemen were also less likely to compose or perform their own poetry and relied on the work of others for their material.
A source cited that the number of itinerant poets were augmented by disgraced
courtiers,
clairvoyants
Clairvoyance (; ) is the magical ability to gain information about an object, person, location, or physical event through extrasensory perception. Any person who is claimed to have such ability is said to be a clairvoyant () ("one who sees cl ...
, and even the deformed as these entertainers formed troupes and catered to the whims of individual
patrons.
An example of a notable itinerant poet was
Till Eulenspiegel, a fictional character famous in the 12th century.
These examples, however, do indicate that itinerant poets were merely
fools working to elicit laughter with their acts. There are those suggested as geniuses such as Scottish
bards
In Celtic cultures, a bard is a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or chieftain) to commemorate one or more of the patron's ancestors and to praise ...
and performers of the harp who were credited with composing and preserving "many fine old songs".
Ancient strolling songsters
Prior to the emergence of medieval itinerant poets, there were already strolling minstrels in
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...
. An account also identified these strolling songsters as
Rhapsodists during
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
's time. These were more than entertainers, with an account describing them as men who
recorded honorable feats and aristocratic
genealogies. They were thus supported by a culture of patronage. Even in ancient England, their skill was considered divine and their person as sacred. They were accorded honor and reward everywhere they performed. Both in Ireland and Scotland, every chief or ''Regulus'' had his own bard, who not only entertained but also served as an ambassador.
See also
*
Marx Augustin
References
Entertainment occupations
Performing arts
Medieval performers
Poets
{{Poetry-stub