THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

MINSTRELS

I was just sauntering out after tea when a couple of negro minstrels, with banjo and tambourine, came down the street, and struck up one of their liveliest songs. Instantly, and as if my magic, the narrow thoroughfare was thronged by a screeching swarm of children, who came running down all the steep alleys, and from nooks and doorways in the queerest places, followed by their fathers and mothers. I stepped up the slope and took a survey of the crowd as they stood grinning with delight at the black melodists.

White/Yorkshire

The Minstrels, roaming up and down the land singing bawdy ballads and furnishing music in taverns, at fairs, and at country wakes and feasts, were in very bad repute.  But at the same time they were very popular.  They commonly sold copies of the ballads which they sang, as Autolycus does, and like him they combined with their trade various kinds of roguery.

Aydelotte/Rogues