224 PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



was often employed for the like absurd purposes: &quot; these 

 same &quot; Skalds or bards &quot; were supposed to achieve this end 

 &quot; by force of certain songs which they knew how to com 

 pose.&quot; At the same time that these poets and musicians 

 of the ancient northern nations invoked the spirits of the 

 departed in verses which most likely lauded them, they 

 &quot; were considered as necessary appendages to royalty, and 

 even the inferior chieftains had their poets.&quot; The Celts 

 had kindred functionaries, whose actions were evidently 

 similar to those of the Greek priest-poets. Says Pelloutier, 

 basing his statement on Strabo, Lucan, and others : 



&quot;Les Bardes, qui faisoient [des] Hymnes, etoient Poetes et Musi- 

 ciens; ils composoient les paroles et 1 air sur lequel on les chantoit.&quot; 

 The use of the word &quot; hymnes &quot; apparently implying that 

 their songs had something of a sacred character. That the 

 connexion between poet and priest survived, or was re 

 established, after paganism had been replaced by Christian 

 ity, there is good evidence. In the words of Mills 



&quot; Every page of early European history attests the sacred considera 

 tion of the minstrel;&quot; his peculiar dress &quot;was fashioned like a 

 sacerdotal robe.&quot; 



And Fauriel asserts that 



&quot; Almost all the most celebrated troubadours died in the cloister and 



under the monk s habit.&quot; 



But it seems a probable inference that after Christianity 

 had subjugated paganism, the priest-poet of the pagans, who 

 originally lauded now the living chief and now the deified 

 chief, gradually ceased to have the latter function and be 

 came eventually the ruler s laureate. &quot;We read that 



&amp;lt; A Joculator, or Bard, was an officer belonging to the court of 

 William the Conqueror.&quot; 



&quot;A poet seems to have been a stated officer in the royal retinue 

 when the king went to war.&quot; 



And among ourselves such official laureateship still survives, 

 or is but just dying. 



While the eulogizer of the visible ruler thus became a 

 court-functionary, the eulogizers of the invisible ruler no 



