jongleur

Jongleurs were itinerant musicians. Whether they travelled alone or in groups, music wasn't their only source of income. They were all round entertainers, telling stories, preforming tricks, singing and playing instruments. They were at the bottom of the ladder of paid musicians.

jongleur (Fr., 'juggler'). Medieval Fr. mus. entertainer or wandering minstrel who sang, played an instr., and was juggler and acrobat.

troubadour

• accompanist.
• artist.
• balladeer.
• bard.
• crooner.
• jongleur.
• minnesinger.
• minstrel.

These performers could be found in various settings - royal courts, taverns, marketplaces, and religious festivals. While some jongleurs gained fame and patronage, living a life of relative luxury, others wandered as itinerant performers, always in search of a new audience and a fresh story to tell.

It is clear, for example from the poetry of Bertran de Born, that jongleurs were performers who did not usually compose. They often performed the troubadours' songs: singing, playing instruments, dancing, and even doing acrobatics.

noun,plural jon·gleurs [jong-glerz; French zhawn-glœr]. (in medieval France and Norman England) an itinerant minstrel or entertainer who sang songs, often of his own composition, and told stories.

juggler A juggler is someone who juggles in order to entertain people. a professional juggler.

In fact, the word jongleur also means "juggler," from the Latin ioculator, "jester, joker, or juggler." "Jongleur." Vocabulary.com Dictionary, Vocabulary.com, https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/jongleur. Accessed 29 Oct. 2023.

The Juggler of Notre Dame The story of "Le Jongleur de Notre Dame" (The Juggler of Notre Dame) is based upon the old medieval Miracle plays that flourished up to the middle of the Sixteenth Century and which consisted of a quaint admixture of the purely mundane, with the supernatural.

jongleur, professional storyteller or public entertainer in medieval France, often indistinguishable from the trouvère.

He called the group the Jongleurs de Dieu. Jugglers of God. Or perhaps jesters, acrobats, tumblers of God. Jongleurs were travelling entertainers, circus-like performers whose playful skills were in deliberate contrast to those they were very often partnered with, the troubadours.

Minstrels or jongleurs were secular professional musicians and entertainers. Secular song composition attained new sophistication in the works of the troubadours of southern France in the twelfth century, and this art passed to the trouvères in northern France and the Minnesinger in Germany.