Part 2 (2/2)

He obtained degrees at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where he proceeded to the high position of Professor of the University in the Chair of Music.

Leases of Crown lands were made to him, with grants of armorial bearings in some cases; indeed, there are evidences of many kinds to show that his calling was held in high esteem. With the ”musicians,” as they were called, or ”minstrels,” as they called themselves, things went from bad to worse. Doubtless reinforced again by cast-off camp-followers from the armies of the Wars of the Roses, they became, by the reign of Queen Elizabeth, not only a source of terror to the countryside, but a nuisance and a pest to the towns. Gosson writes, about 1580: ”London is so full of unprofitable pipers and fiddlers that a man can no sooner enter a tavern, than two or three cast of them hang at his heels, to give him a dance before he depart.”[5]

In 1597 a law was pa.s.sed in which they were cla.s.sed as ”rogues, vagabonds, and st.u.r.dy beggars,” and were threatened with severe penalties.

The War of the Rebellion probably brought them still another accession to their ranks, as, so far from being harmed by this threat, things must have got even worse, to judge by the following edict issued by Cromwell only a few years later:--

”Any persons commonly called fidlers or minstrels who shall at any time be taken playing, fidling, and making music in any inn, ale-house, or tavern, or shall be taken proffering themselves, or desiring, or intreating any to hear them play or make music in any of the places aforesaid, shall be adjudged and declared to be rogues, vagabonds, and st.u.r.dy beggars.”

It may be at once a.s.sumed that if they were able to evade the hands of Elizabeth, they were little likely to escape those of Cromwell, who may be said to have, at last, cleared the country of what had become a positive menace to the security of life, since under the guise of wandering minstrels, highwaymen and other criminals had long been wont to carry on their occupations with comparative immunity.

The age of Queen Elizabeth was one of transition, the Commonwealth marked the birth of the new era, and with it the final disappearance of the picturesque, even if somewhat depraved, English troubadour.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A country that has taken its music at the hands of the foreigner for three centuries can scarcely be called musical.

[2] In its original meaning, the term implied a cheerful and righteously joyful sense of living. Its popular significance after three centuries of Puritanism, rather inclines to alcoholic elation.

[3] The leading note is a semi-tone lower than the keynote, and is essential to the modern scales, both major and minor.

[4] More familiarly known as shawn.

[5] ”Short Apologies of the School of Abuse,” London.

CHAPTER II

MUSIC BEFORE AND DURING THE REFORMATION--(_continued_)

Secular music dating from the thirteenth century--Origin lost in antiquity--Earliest specimens, dance music--Morris dance traced to Saxon times--Dancing always a.s.sociated with singing--Gradual independence--Popularity of the month of May--The ballad and its antiquity--Popular specimens--”Parthenia,” a collection of pieces for virginals--Life in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth--Its happiness--Authority of Professor Thorold Rogers--Great men living at the time--Pageantry and the Queen--Her love of dancing and music--Her sympathy with the joys of her people--Queen Elizabeth as a musician--Sir James Melvil and his adventure--The masque--Its origin--Popularity--James I. and art--Masque forerunner of opera--The madrigal, catch, round and glee--Shakespeare and the catch--”Sumer is ic.u.men in,” a wonderful specimen of ancient skill and genius--The ”canon”--Instrumental music--Explanation of its late development--Purcell--Conclusion.

Authentic examples of secular music in England date from the thirteenth century. It is not from this fact, though, one must suppose that it did not exist prior to that period. On the contrary, music of some kind or other has, doubtless, been a source of solace as well as amus.e.m.e.nt for untold years.

For antiquity, vocal music stands pre-eminent. Ages must have pa.s.sed before instrumental music came to any position of efficacy at all correlative with it.

It must be remembered that music as we know it, is the gift that the ancient Church gave us centuries ago, and that the pangs of its birth were suffered in days of which all sense of record is lost.

That there were seculars, even in those remote days, whose ideas of musical progress would not be bound by the ties of ecclesiastical gravity may be taken for granted, and as the art progressed in the Church they would naturally take advantage of it to further their skill in the direction of a lighter and less serious type.

To seek for the earliest examples of dance music is simply to grope in the dark. As to its progress, all that can be suggested is that it fairly synchronises with that of sacred character.

This need be no matter for surprise, since seeing that the Church never did other than encourage the healthy outdoor life of the people, it may be a.s.sumed that the monks, who were responsible for the music in the Church, were as willing as able, to help in the advancement outside of it.

Research makes it certain that the first efforts at dancing were accompanied by singing, and only in its latest stages of advancement was it strong enough to dispense with this, and rely on the attraction of the rhythmic movements of the dancer.

From this it will be reasonably inferred that for countless centuries the two arts remained in combination, before the incentive genius of either proved too strong to longer brook the artificial ties that had bound them together.

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