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and hospitals of their time. The monks were in duty bound to 
practise the Gregorian music, but, as we might expect, their 
affection was not limited to that tuneless variety. 
About the year 1200, two itinerant priests knocked for 
admission at the gate of a monastery, and the monks thinking that 
the wanderers would be able to entertain them in the evening with 
minstrel arts, gave them a hearty welcome. When, however, they 
found that the needy ecclesiastics could at the best only administer 
spiritual consolation, they beat them and turned them out. 
Knowing as we do the character of the monks for hospitality, there 
is little doubt that these two misguided wayfarers paid the penalty 
of neglecting an important part of their education. 
We can have, perhaps, no better proof of the estimation in 
which music was held in the middle ages, than the price paid for 
its performance. When Henry V. went to France, fifteen minstrels 
accompanied him: the pay of each being 12d. per day. Now 
this 12d. would represent twelve to fifteen shillings of our money. 
Even at the end of the Plantagenet period, a fat goose could be 
bought for fourpence ; a fat sheep for one shilling and fourpence ; 
an ox for twelve shillings; and one hundred eggs cost only sixpence. 
On his return from France, after the glorious victory of Agincourt, 
Henry made a triumphal entry into London, but would allow no 
music to be used,—perhaps he had seen a copy of the words, 
highly spiced as it would be with flattery, or, let us hope that the 
omission was prompted by the humility of a true hero. 
In the next reign (Henry VI.), at the Feast of the Holy Cross 
at Abingdon, twelve priests received fourpence each, while the 
twelve minstrels had each (with diet and horse-meat) two shillings 
and fourpence,—a very marked difference. About ten years later, 
eight priests and half-a-dozen minstrels were hired from Coventry, 
and here we find that people then, as now, were willing to pay a 
good price for their amusement, for the priest got a net two 
shillings, while the minstrel was paid four shillings, and was 
bountifully entertained in the “Camera picta.” Nota bad night’s 
work for a minstrel ! 
