30-594: Minstrelsy may refer to: The art of the medieval minstrel The 19th-century American minstrel show Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Minstrelsy . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Minstrelsy&oldid=1138809296 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
60-427: A minstrel disguise, 1805), Christabel Rose Coleridge 's Minstrel Dick (a choirboy turned minstrel becomes a courtier, 1891), Rhoda Power 's Redcap Runs Away (a boy of ten joins wandering minstrels, 1952), and A. J. Cronin 's The Minstrel Boy (priesthood to minstrelsy and back, 1975). Midlands The Midlands is the central part of England , bordered by Wales , Northern England , Southern England and
90-668: A performer who amused his lord with music and song. Following a series of invasions, wars, conquests, etc., two categories of composers developed. Poets like Chaucer and John Gower appeared in one category, wherein music was not a part. Minstrels, on the other hand, gathered at feasts and festivals in great numbers with harps, fiddles , bagpipes , flutes, flageolets , citterns and kettledrums . Additionally, minstrels were known for their involvement in political commentary and engaged in propaganda. They often reported news with bias to sway opinion and revised works to encourage action in favor of equality. The Heege Manuscript , transcribed in
120-574: A symbol of Mercia as early as the reign of Offa . By the 13th century, the saltire had become the attributed arms of the Kingdom of Mercia. The arms are blazoned Azure, a saltire Or , meaning a gold (or yellow) saltire on a blue field. The saltire is used as both a flag and a coat of arms. As a flag, it is flown from Tamworth Castle , the ancient seat of the Mercian kings . The flag also appears on street signs welcoming people to Tamworth ,
150-621: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Minstrel 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. Minstrels performed songs which told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish
180-822: Is furthest away from the coast than anywhere else in England, it typically receives mostly light winds, with warm days and cold nights. Sometimes the Midlands can have very cold nights such as a minimum of −18.7 °C (−1.7 °F) in Pershore on 20 December 2010. The previous day had a maximum of only −8.2 °C (17.2 °F), also in Pershore. Hot days are also possible, such as a maximum of 34 °C (93 °F) in Pershore on 19 July 2006. There can also be very mild winters nights, such as in Bidford-on-Avon when
210-422: Is no single definition for the Midlands. If defined as being made up of the statistical regions of East Midlands and West Midlands , it includes the counties of Derbyshire , Herefordshire , Leicestershire , most of Lincolnshire (with the exception of North and North East Lincolnshire ), Northamptonshire , Nottinghamshire , Rutland , Shropshire , Staffordshire , Warwickshire , Worcestershire and
240-615: Is often labelled as "Central England", typically used interchangeably with "the Midlands". Additionally, there are two informal regions known as the South Midlands and North Midlands , which are not NUTS statistical regions of the United Kingdom and their definition varies by using organisation. The former includes the southern parts of the East Midlands and northern parts of Southern England . The latter covers
270-542: Is roughly covered by the metropolitan county of the West Midlands (which also includes the city of Coventry ); with the related City Region extending into neighbouring areas of Shropshire , Staffordshire , Warwickshire and Worcestershire . Various parts of the Midlands, particularly Warwickshire and Leicestershire, are on occasion referred to as the Heart of England, especially in tourist literature given that
300-552: The Long Mynd , Clee Hills and Stiperstones ridge. Wenlock Edge , running through the middle of the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), is a long, low ridge, which extends for over 15 miles (24 km). The Peak District reaches heights of between 300 m (1,000 ft) and 600 m (2,000 ft); Kinder Scout is the highest point at 636 m (2,086 ft). Further south,
330-476: The Norman Conquest , the professional poet was known as a scop ("shaper" or "maker"), who composed his own poems, and sang them to the accompaniment of a harp . In a rank much beneath the scop were the gleemen , who had no settled abode, but roamed about from place to place, earning what they could from their performances. Late in the 13th century, the term minstrel began to be used to designate
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#1732775442435360-743: The North Sea . The Midlands correspond broadly to the early-medieval kingdom of Mercia , and later became important in the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. They are now split into two official regions, the West Midlands and East Midlands . The Midlands' biggest city, Birmingham , is the second-largest in the United Kingdom . Other important cities include Coventry , Derby , Leicester , Lincoln , Nottingham , Stoke-on-Trent , Wolverhampton , and Worcester . A saltire (diagonal cross) may have been used as
390-520: The southwest . The highest point of the hills is the Worcestershire Beacon at 425 m (1,394 ft) above sea level (OS Grid reference SO768452). The Cotswolds – designated an AONB in 1966. – extend for over 90 miles (140 km) through Oxfordshire , Gloucestershire , Wiltshire , Somerset , Warwickshire , and Worcestershire . They reach a highest point of 330 m (1,082 ft) at Cleeve Hill . Areas of lower hills, in
420-720: The "ancient capital of Mercia". It was also flown outside Birmingham Council House during 2009 while the Staffordshire Hoard was on display in the city before being taken to the British Museum in London. The cross has been incorporated into a number of coats of arms of Midlands towns, including Tamworth , Leek and Blaby . It was recognised as the Mercian flag by the Flag Institute in 2014. There
450-810: The Black Country conurbation at 271 m (889 ft) and the Wrekin just south of Wellington in Telford at 407 m (1,335 ft). Upland areas lie in the west and north of the region with the Shropshire Hills to the west, close to the England–Wales border and the Peak District area of the southern Pennines in the north of the region. The Shropshire Hills reach a height of 540 m (1,771 ft) at Brown Clee Hill and includes
480-501: The English Midlands around 1480 by Richard Heege, may offer a sample of the humor favored by some medieval minstrels at festivals. The music of the troubadours and trouvères was performed by minstrels called joglars (Occitan) or jongleurs (French). As early as 1321, the minstrels of Paris were formed into a guild . A guild of royal minstrels was organized in England in 1469. Minstrels were required to either join
510-697: The Midlands as the region is bordered by Wales to the west. It is also where the Midlands' lowest points can be found as some places fall below sea level, with the lowest points being near Thorpe Tilney in North Kesteven and Stickford in East Lindsey . The Midlands has a temperate maritime climate , with cold, cloudy, wet winters and comfortable, mostly dry, mostly sunny summers. The temperature usually ranges from −0.4 °C (31.3 °F) during winter nights to 24.1 °C (75.4 °F) during summer days. Due to its geographical location, which
540-659: The Welsh border reaches over 700 m (2,000 ft) high, at Twyn Llech (Black Mountain), which at 703 m (2,306 ft) is thus the highest point in Herefordshire . The Precambrian Malverns are formed of some of the oldest rock in England (dating from the Cryogenian period, at around 680 million years old) and extend for 8 miles (13 km) through two West Midlands counties ( Worcestershire and Herefordshire ) as well as northern Gloucestershire in
570-598: The West Midlands metropolitan boroughs. Other definitions include a slightly larger area and the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica describes Gloucestershire as "West Midland", Bedfordshire as "South Midland", and Huntingdonshire as "East Midland" counties respectively. Cheshire is also occasionally recognised as being in the Midlands, while a lot of what was historically part of southern Mercia ( Gloucestershire , Oxfordshire , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Hertfordshire , Huntingdonshire , and Cambridgeshire )
600-538: The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire, actually come under the Yorkshire and the Humber region and are therefore not in the officially recognised East Midlands region. The two regions of the Midlands have a combined population of 10,350,697 (2014 mid-year estimate), and an area of 11,053 sq mi (28,630 km ). The largest Midlands conurbation , which includes the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton ,
630-571: The early 20th century, and which has some continuity in the form of today's buskers or street musicians. Initially, minstrels were simply treats at court, and entertained the lord and courtiers with chansons de geste or their local equivalent. The term minstrel derives from Old French ménestrel (also menesterel, menestral ), which is a derivative from Italian ministrello (later menestrello ), from Middle Latin ministralis "retainer", an adjective form of Latin minister , "attendant" from minus , "lesser". In Anglo-Saxon England before
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#1732775442435660-623: The geographic centre of England is generally considered to lie within this arc. Different areas of the Midlands have their own distinctive character, giving rise to many local history and industrial heritage groups. Nottingham played a notable part in the English Civil War , which is commemorated in a number of place names (Parliament Terrace, Parliament Street, Standard Hill). Areas such as Derbyshire's Amber Valley and Erewash combine attractive countryside with industrial heritage and are home to historic canals and sites associated with
690-471: The guild or abstain from practising their craft. Some minstrels were retained by lords as jesters who, in some cases, also practised the art of juggling . Some were women or women who followed minstrels in their travels. Minstrels throughout Europe also employed trained animals, such as bears. Minstrels in Europe died out slowly, having gone nearly extinct by about 1700, although isolated individuals working in
720-535: The latter on 10 January 1982 around Newport in Shropshire where it dropped to a minimum of −26.1 °C (−15.0 °F). Due to being neither Northern England or Southern England , the Midlands have had cultural elements from both sides in the North–South divide , such as dialect (see also West Midlands English and East Midlands English ). A study has shown that some Midlands areas have traditionally had
750-427: The mining industry. The Black Country , broadly the boroughs of Dudley , Sandwell , Wolverhampton and Walsall , played an important part in the Industrial Revolution . The historic counties ceased to be used for any administrative purpose in 1899 but remain important to some people, notably for county cricket . The area is predominantly low-lying and flat apart from isolated hills such as Turners Hill within
780-541: The northern parts of the West and East Midlands, along with some southern parts of Northern England . The West Midlands and East Midlands regions are NUTS 1 statistical regions and were formerly constituencies of the European Parliament . Local government in the Midlands is as follows: The unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire (not shown), while classed as part of
810-618: The range 200 m (600 ft) - 300 m (1000 ft), include Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire , Cannock Chase in Staffordshire , and the Lincolnshire Wolds (100 m (300 ft) - 200 m (600 ft)); the latter having some prominence despite their modest altitude given their location in typically low-lying Lincolnshire near to the east coast. Lincolnshire is the only coastal county in
840-461: The temperature at 6 pm was as high as 15.2 °C (59.4 °F) on 9 January 2015. At 8 am the following morning the temperature was still at 13 °C (55 °F). Both the highest and lowest temperature ever recorded in England were in the Midlands, the former on 19 July 2022 around Coningsby in Lincolnshire where it reached a maximum temperature of 40.3 °C (104.5 °F), and
870-695: The tradition existed even into the early 19th century. Minstrelsy became a central concern in English literature in the Romantic period and has remained so intermittently. In poetry, The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) by Sir Walter Scott , Lalla Rookh (1817) by Thomas Moore , and The Village Minstrel (1821) by John Clare were three of many. Novels centring on minstrelsy have included Helen Craik 's Henry of Northumberland (1800), Sydney Owenson 's The Novice of St Dominick's (a girl using
900-422: The works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty and high society. As the courts became more sophisticated, minstrels were eventually replaced at court by the troubadours , and many became wandering minstrels, performing in the streets; a decline in their popularity began in the late 15th century. Minstrels fed into later traditions of travelling entertainers, which continued to be moderately strong into
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