ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Noun. minstrel (plural minstrels) (also attributively) (historical) Originally, an entertainer employed to juggle, play music, sing, tell stories, etc.; a buffoon, a fool, a jester; later, a medieval (especially travelling) entertainer who would recite and sing poetry, often to their own musical accompaniment.

Detailed explanation-2: -An itinerant poet or strolling minstrel (also known variously as a gleeman, circler, or cantabank) was a wandering minstrel, bard, musician, or other poet common in medieval Europe but extinct today.

Detailed explanation-3: -A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It 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.

Detailed explanation-4: -A minstrel was a servant first employed as a travelling entertainer and then as a castle or court musician or Medieval Bard. The name ‘minstrel’ means a “little servant".

Detailed explanation-5: -They performed in taverns, market-places or any other place they could find an audience who were willing to pay them. Wealthy people in the Middle Ages employed minstrels to entertain them in their homes. Minstrels told stories, recited poems, sang ballads and played musical instruments. They were usually well paid.