a bear feigning to be dead, a goat playing the harp, and dogs walking on their hind legs.”  We find the same grotesque figures on sculptures, on the capitals of churches, on the illuminated margins of manuscripts of theology, and on prayer-books, which seems to indicate that jugglers were the associates of painters and illuminators, even if they themselves were not the writers and illuminators of the manuscripts.  “Jugglery,” M. de Labedolliere goes on to say, “at that time embraced poetry, music, dancing, sleight of hand, conjuring, wrestling, boxing, and the training of animals.  Its humblest practitioners were the mimics or grimacers, in many-coloured garments, and brazen-faced mountebanks, who provoked laughter at the expense of decency.”

[Illustration:  Fig. 171.—­Jugglers exhibiting Monkeys and Bears.—­Fac-simile of a Manuscript in the British Museum (Thirteenth Century).]

At first, and down to the thirteenth century, the profession of a juggler was a most lucrative one.  There was no public or private feast of any importance without the profession being represented.  Their mimicry and acrobatic feats were less thought of than their long poems or lays of wars and adventures, which they recited in doggerel rhyme to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument.  The doors of the chateaux were always open to them, and they had a place assigned to them at all feasts.  They were the principal attraction at the Cours Plenieres, and, according to the testimony of one of their poets, they frequently retired from business loaded with presents, such as riding-horses, carriage-horses, jewels, cloaks, fur robes, clothing of violet or scarlet cloth, and, above all, with large sums of money.  They loved to recall with pride the heroic memory of one of their own calling, the brave Norman, Taillefer, who, before the battle of Hastings, advanced alone on horseback between the two armies about to commence the engagement, and drew off the attention of the English by singing them the song of Roland.  He then began juggling, and taking his lance by the hilt, he threw it into the air and caught it by the point as it fell; then, drawing his sword, he spun it several times over his head, and caught it in a similar way as it fell.  After these skilful exercises, during which the enemy were gaping in mute astonishment, he forced his charger through the English ranks, and caused great havoc before he fell, positively riddled with wounds.

Notwithstanding this noble instance, not to belie the old proverb, jugglers were never received into the order of knighthood.  They were, after a time, as much abused as they had before been extolled.  Their licentious lives reflected itself in their obscene language.  Their pantomimes, like their songs, showed that they were the votaries of the lowest vices.  The lower orders laughed at their coarseness, and were amused at their juggleries; but the nobility were disgusted with them, and they were absolutely excluded from