Medieval Minstrelsy and Epic Poems: Origins & Evolution

Minstrelsy

El juglar's life combined visits to castles and wandering travels to aldeas. For money, they reported on current events to a public eager for news (informational function) and entertained to show a wide range of skills like circus games and acrobatics (role games). This was the most neglected and spontaneous art, which served both the clergy and the illiterate population, known as the mester de juglaría.

Epic Poems: First Manifestations

Epic poems: These are the first manifestations of the medieval epic (later in the Late Middle Ages they become fragmented and the romances arise). According to Menéndez Pidal, they have their origin in certain songs of the barbarians; these were sung before battles to instill encouragement and to evoke the feats of their antepasados. When the Visigoths settled in the peninsula, they retained the custom of singing. The recounting of facts and events—storytelling or recitation—was disseminated by the juglares. These, as providers of information and news, show one characteristic: realism.

Metric

Metric: The great epic poems are not structured in stanzas. The verses vary between 10 and 20 syllables (often divided into two hemistiches of about 6 to 8 syllables each). Long runs are grouped into long, monorrhymed series of variable and irregular length, usually with assonant rhyme.

Language and Style

Language and style: To recite poems, the minstrels used interchangeably traits of the epic (epic style) and features of oral literature transmission, with resources typical of spoken language (the so-called oral style form).

Evolution

Evolution: Four stages have been identified:

1. 1st — Primitive age (until c. 1140): From the origins to early short songs; the earliest forms were brief.
2. 2nd — Plenitude (c. 1140–1236): From the heyday up to 1236 (date of El Cid). The songs become longer, more perfected, and one can see the influence of the French epic.
3. 3rd — 1236–1350: Due to prosifications. As the heroic exploits were prosified, they became indispensable narrative sources for medieval historians; for that reason they were prosified.
4. 4th — c. 1350–1480: Decadence: A dual process affects the great epic poems: sometimes they become novel-like, sometimes fragmented, and this leads to the rise of the romance form.