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Mester de juglaría ("Ministry of
jongleur A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. The term 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 enterta ...
y") is a Spanish literature
genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...
from the 12th and 13th centuries, transmitted orally by "juglares" who made their living by reciting and singing these stories for the recreations of nobles, rulers, and the general public. These were people of humble origins, traveling comedians who also engaged in circus acts like juggling, tightrope walking, and acrobatics, or acted as clowns who told jokes or played simple instruments, or danced and sang versions of simple mime or puppet pieces, or, importantly, recited verses composed by other authors, called troubadours, either in public places (town squares, above all), or in castles of feudal lords for whom they were housed; much of the time they also supported themselves by the visual arts. According to
Ramón Menéndez Pidal Ramón Menéndez Pidal (; 13 March 1869 – 14 November 1968) was a Spanish philologist and historian."Ramon Menendez Pidal", ''Almanac of Famous People'' (2011) ''Biography in Context'', Gale, Detroit He worked extensively on the history of t ...
, in his study of the poetry of juglares and the origins of romantic literature (Madrid 1957), the word ''juglar'' comes from the Latin ''jocularis'', ''joculator'', and it signifes "joker, or man of jokes." The word ''mester'' is also said to derive from Latin ''ministerium'', meaning "minister" and, at that time, "official." There were two types of juglares: epic juglares, who recited narrative poetry, and lyrical juglares, who dedicated themselves to the cultivation of sentimental poetry and performed poetic compositions such as serenades, couplets, songs of troubadours, etc. From the 10th to 13th centuries, the former type were more numerous, whereas the latter half of the 13th century to the 14th century were dominated by the latter type. According to Menéndez Pidal, there were different specializations. There was the ''remedador'' who was dedicated to imitation; the ''cazurro'' who practiced the plebeian arts; the ''juglar de gesta'', the ''goliardo'', somewhere between student and vagabond, who understood musical instruments and how to compose for them. Also included in the word is the concept of a musician, the types of which were quite diverse, from tavern singers and the richly adorned ones who sang in palaces and accompanied nobles on voyages, to those who sang and played dramas in churches with all sorts of musical instruments (the flute, the dulcimer, the drum, and handheld stringed instruments like the
vihuela The vihuela () is a 15th-century fretted plucked Spanish string instrument, shaped like a guitar (figure-of-eight form offering strength and portability) but tuned like a lute. It was used in 15th- and 16th-century Spain as the equivalent of t ...
or the rabel). Although some composed their own lyrics, generally they repeated other people's texts. These anonymous stories were mostly cantar de gesta. Although versified to make it easier to memorize, juglares probably often changed the story a little bit as they passed it to others. There are more theories regarding the origin of these texts. The ''individualist theory'' states that these texts were the creation of one poet and they didn't change much. On the other hand, the ''traditionalist theory'' says that it is a collective work of the public and it was totally changed on its route. Compared to the Mester de Clerecía the authors weren't educated, treated popular topics, used simple language and the metrics of the verses is irregular. The most known examples of the works that can be classified as Mester de Juglaría is El
Cantar de Mio Cid ''El Cantar de mio Cid'', or ''El Poema de mio Cid'' ("The Song of My Cid"; "The Poem of My Cid"), is an anonymous '' cantar de gesta'' and the oldest preserved Castilian epic poem. Based on a true story, it tells of the deeds of the Castilian h ...
and Representación de los Reyes Magos. Medieval literature Chansons de geste Spanish literature {{Lit-genre-stub