NOVEMBER 1-5, 2010 AUSCHWITZ BEARING WITNESS RETREAT
To read descriptions and/or to register, please click here. This retreat includes Youth from Israel, Palestine, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, USA, and other countries.
This is a time of meeting each other and learning about the activities of Sangha Groups. Roshi Bernie will also give teachings and have dialogue with the attendees. It is also a time for schmoozing with members of the ZPS. Fee includes food and miscellaneous expenses. Starts Oct. 15 at 7:30pm and ends Oct. 17 at 1pm.
First Major Symposium for Western Socially Engaged Buddhism
August 9 to 14, 2010
at the Mother House of the Zen Peacemakers in Montague, MA
The Order of Minstrels (OM) was founded by Roshi Bernie Glassman to help bring mirth and joy to the
Zen Peacemakers. Members of OM join with the members of the Order of DisOrder to enliven
Zen Peacemaker programs.
If you are interested in joining the Order of Minstrels, please contact:
OM Coordinator: John Sprague.
MINSTRELS AND JONGLEURS
This document was originally published in The Drama: Its History,
Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 7. ed. Alfred Bates.
London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906. pp. 3-6.
The minstrel was one of the most picturesque figures of medieval life.
He seems to have inherited some features of the Roman histrions and
others of the bards of Gaul and Germany. In the summer, arrayed in
particolored costume, and with a harp or viol across his shoulders, he
ambled on a gaily-caparisoned mule from town to town and from castle to
castle. His song was introduced and followed by feats of agility and
legerdemain, and was accompanied with such crude music as he could
command. His themes were the miracles of the saints, the stories of
Scripture, or perhaps more frequently, the legends of later heroes. At
the country fairs and in the market places he gathered an appreciative
crowd, and in the feudal castles, whose monotony, except in actual
warfare, was broken only by tournaments, he was the most welcome. High
and low, old and young, glowed with enthusiasm as he sang of the
prowess of Christian warriors. Lords and ladies took delight in
rewarding him with substantial gifts. Kings and princes attached the
most skillful of his class to their retinue. Even bishops and abbesses
sought to retain their serviced permanently.
TROUVÉRES AND TROUBADOURS
Minstrels may be deemed as the mother of a literature which paved the
way for a revival of the drama. The accents of these versatile gleemen
aroused the Muses from their protracted sleep. In nearly all parts of
what is now known as France the "gay science" found more or less gifted
votaries among the well-born cultured. The trouvres and troubadours
successively took up the lyre, the former to the north of the Loire,
and the latter under the softer skies of the south, where the Langue
d'Oc, a tongue resembling Italian rather than French, was spoken.
Uninfluenced by ancient models, but not free, especially after the
first crusade, from a tinge of Oriental imagery and refinement, the
consequent efflorescence of poetry, viewed as a whole, presents a
striking picture of the thought and sentiment of the age which produced
it, the age when chivalry was gilding the darker features of feudalism
and the misery it wrought.
That the merits of minstrel literature obtained a wide acknowledgement
there can be no doubt. Once heard, a passage of noble poetry, with or
without the aid of music, could not be forgotten. "Many of your love
verses to me," writes HŽlšise to Abelard, "were so beautiful in their
language and melody that your name was incessantly in the mouths of
all, and even the most illiterate were charmed. You caused women to
envy me. Every tongue spoke of your HŽlšise; every street and every
house resounded with my name." In other words, the minstrels were more
sought after and recompensed than ever, and their social status
advanced. Making Paris their headquarters, those of the north formed
themselves into a corporation, acquired exclusive privileges, received
permission to style their chief Roi, and became so opulent that two
members of the fraternity alone could afford to build a church and a
hospital in the street they inhabited. While this may seem incredible,
it should be remembered that the purses which the jongleurs carried in
their belts as a part of their equipment were always well filled at the
mansions of the rich, where they were lavishly entertained, even the
poor also contributing freely of their means.
DECLINE OF MINSTRELS
The success and popularity of these jongleurs attracted unworthy
followers and imitators. These low fellows, unable to obtain entrance
to courts and baronial halls, donned grotesque dresses, stationed
themselves in market-place or village green and supplemented their
verses with coarse buffoonery, feats of legerdemain, tricks with
monkeys, and doggerel appealing to a vitiated taste. It was to no
purpose that Philip Augustus and Saint Louis banished them from the
country, or that the poets, finding the honored names of trouvre and
troubadour trailed through the dirt, angrily denounced them as
bastards, and ceased to provide them with verse. The contempt in which
they came to be held is clearly shown by the fact that jonglerie was
employed as a term for anything base, and a decree was issued
condemning them to imprisonment as rogues and vagabonds.