Well, a dictionary will tell you that the word jongleur is derived from middle French and refers to an itinerant medieval musician. This sounds straightforward enough. But if we read what the great Italian poet Petrarch said of jongleurs — "people of no great wit . . . and impudent beyond measure" — we get the idea that there may be more to jongleurs than is initially apparent.
Jongleurs, both men and women, first appeared in the tenth century. Often traveling in troupes among European cities, villages, and castles, they earned a bare bones existence through their singing, acrobatics, theatrical productions, and even trained animal acts. Actually, they seem to have foreshadowed Late Night with David Letterman, without the Top Ten List. If we explore a little more on the etymology of the word jongleur, we discover that one of its source words is jangleur (or jangleor) which means liar, gossip, or prattler. (We named a newsletter after these folks?)
Jongleurs were not complete scoundrels, however. Eventually, they formed guilds, achieved a certain respectability, and actually made significant contributions to the development of secular music in Europe. Massenet with his opera Le Jongleur de Notre Dame is among several composers who have written compositions concerned with jongleurs. Henri Queffelec's volume entitled Francois d'Assise; le Jongleur de Dieu (Francis of Assisi; the Jongleur of God) suggests that the term can be applied to more weighty subjects as well.
Although jongleurs may have participated in some unsavory behavior, readers should recognize that the title of this little newsletter pays tribute to the positive side of the jongleurs. Through the newsletter, our aim is to keep library users aware of activities and changes in the Music Library which may influence their use of the collections. We hope readers find The Jongleur helpful, and we anticipate that a twinkle of humor and lightheartedness may show through its pages from time to time as well. Finally, we promise never to lie, gossip, and only occasionally prattle.