jongleur

While challenging the truism that troubadour song was invented by noblemen, he gives short shrift to the wandering jongleurs who sang in medieval taverns and hostelries.

As a modern troubadour, mining the social perspective of the chansons réalistes, Aznavour was the inheritor of a French tradition that can be traced back to the entertainment of the medieval jongleur.

The jongleur looks up at him and grins.

The other difference is that Tagore wasn’t a jongleur, that is, a singer of his own songs, though he might well have wanted such a career among his several.

With what delighted applause must the unknown jongleur have been greeted by the monks or nobles, who first listened after dinner to this little masterpiece of humour.