Global Courant
Do you hear, do you hear!
A rare manuscript from the 15th century offers a glimpse of how minstrels entertained their audiences and that no matter one’s social status at the time, no one was safe from being the butt of a joke.
A study from the University of Cambridge published last month in the Review of English Studies describes several booklets with notes of comedy sketches and parodies from a mnemonic written by an unknown minstrel who performed in the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border in England.
Researcher James Wade says the writer, Richard Heege, who was a domestic clergyman and tutor, probably had an appreciation for comedy to transcribe the manuscript, unlike other literary experts who would have considered the content “low-brow”.
“Heege gives us the rarest glimpse of a medieval world rich in oral storytelling and popular entertainment,” Wade said in a statement. press release. “Manuscripts often contain remnants of high art. This is something different. It’s insane and insulting, but just as valuable.”
The Heege manuscript found in the National Library of Scotland contains nine booklets
The focus of the study on the first booklet describes a poem with a deadly rabbit, similar to a scene in Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Although the poem The Hunting of the Hare only contains a brief scene with a rabbit, it is a grotesque parody of how farmers trying to hunt a rabbit end up in a mass brawl among themselves and their wives end up cleaning up and patching up the dead . the wounded.
A nonsensical verse called The Battle of Brankonwet talks about Robin Hood, jousting bears, fighting bees and feasting pigs. The poem contains references to real villages at the time so that the audience can imagine strange happenings in their region.
Perhaps one of the most striking discoveries is the earliest reference to a red herring. In a mock sermon, the minstrel told the story of gluttony among the very wealthy in a sermon about three kings who ate so many oxen that their stomachs exploded and the oxen chopped each other into three red herrings.
“The footage is bizarre, but the minstrel must have known people were going to get this red herring reference,” Wade said. “Kings are reduced to mere distractions. What are kings good for? Gluttony. And what is the result of gluttony? Absurd pageantry that distracts, ‘red herrings’.”
The manuscript also included notes from the minstrel who created these original shows, detailing their chaotic thought process to keep up with the various absurd characters and gags they made, Wade theorizes. Nonsensical and raunchy as the jokes are, the manuscript revealed a time in history when, despite human struggles, attempts to let go and enjoy life were heavily borne by the minstrels of the time.
“What we find in these texts is a remnant of medieval life that was lived vividly: the good times are as good as they’ve ever been and probably ever will be,” the study states.
