1 - Continental Traditions of Narrative Performance

Summary

The Middle English romances do not stand in isolation; they participate in a shared entertainment tradition with French and Germanic works, both Insular and Continental. This broader European context illuminates references to music and minstrels in England, filling in gaps, clarifying distinctions, and rectifying interpretations. English terminology surrounding performers and performance follows patterns evident throughout Europe; the flexible descriptions of performers, the lack of distinction between drama and narrative, and the ubiquitous involvement of music in the culture indicate ways of conceiving of performance very different from our own. Within this understanding, the involvement of music in narrative and the defining participation of musical instruments in narrative performance may impel us to reinterpret records of minstrel activity in England.

Continental narrative texts themselves are a key source of information. Internal descriptions of minstrels, while potentially misleading, articulate a tradition of minstrel identification with protagonists, and they provide clear evidence of attitudes to performers and the role gender may have played in minstrel performance. Historical documents can corroborate where these references accurately describe the historical realities of minstrel performance of narrative, realities which may extend to England.

Metaperformance Dimensions of Romance – Harping about Harping

Tristan's identity as a minstrel is thematically central in Gottfried von Strassburg's early-thirteenth-century Middle High German poem. As a boy, Tristan modestly admits to an international education in instrumental music:

mich lêrten Parmenîen

videln und symphonîen.

harpfen unde rotten

daz lêrten mich Galotten,

zwêne meister Gâloise.

mich lêrten Britûnoise,

die wâren ûz der stat von Lût,

rehte lîren und sambjût.

(lines 3675-82)