Minstrel

The Minstrels of Beverley. Woodcut of 16th-century English musicians. Left to right: pipe and tabor, fiddle, windcap instrument, lute, and shawm.

A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. The term originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who sang songs and played musical instruments.[1][2]

  1. ^ Southworth, John (1989). The English Medieval Minstrel. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 0-85115-536-7.
  2. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica, Entry "minstrel".