[For the online reader's convenience, the list of Works Cited (pp. 135-36 in the printed
edition) appears at the end of the notes, where the page numbers are out of sequence.]
page 137
Notes
1. A search of the relevant literature reveals only four articles; see Joseph Bridge, John
C.
Brydson, John C. Coldewey, and George Stephens.
2. Lawrence M. Clopper, who uses waits and minstrels interchangeably,
as
did the original record keepers of Chester, writes: "Minstrels seem to have been present at every
ceremonial and social function in the city ... election days, meetings, dinners, and drinkings, on
feast days like Corpus Christi when there was a procession, and ... in the Whitsun Plays"
(REED Chester lix). The State Papers of Henry VIII include this entry: 1540-1, To the
Waytes or Mynstrelles At Chester ij s. (REED Chester 44) William Kelly writes: "Most of
the corporate towns also had their companies of minstrels, termed waits ... (125) possessed their
bands of minstrels or 'waits' ..." (131).
3. Alluded to in both primary and secondary sources, needing to be fully explained--but
unfortunately beyond the scope of this paper--is the entire world of waits, the waits of all
European towns as well as the waits of noble and royal households. For an overview of
Stadtpfeifer, the German town piper, see both the New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians and the article by Annaliese Downs. The REED documents and the
available household accounts are replete with mentions of payments to and entertainments by the
waits of other towns and of both royal and noble households.
4. I.e., by awaking people with soft music at their chamber doors; see Bridge (64).
5. The most comprehensive study of any waits is Stephens' article, "The Waits of the City
of Norwich through [F]our Centuries," which is available through Records of Early English
Drama, 85 Charles Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1K5. Coldewey writes that it is
clear from other
page 138
sources that the waits existed
during the first half of the fifteenth century. See Coldewey (41-41, 48, n.5).
6. Walter L. Woodfill based his chapter "The Waits of London" on manuscripts in the
archives of the city of London (33n.). See also REED York (135).
8. See Coldewey (41, 48, n. 10).
9. Bridge places the earliest Chester waits at 1484-5 and includes a listing, for Doncaster
waits at 1457. Lyndesay G. Langwlil has a listing for some eighty-two "first mentions" of waits in
various towns (Exeter in 1362, York in 1369), but he does not list his sources (Bridge 64;
Langwill 181), leaving us without convincing documentation.
10. REED Chester (43). The York records have a similar entry: House Books, 1
December 1570: ... it was ordryd & agreyd by the said presens / That the Common waites of
this Citie for dyvers good causes & considracions shall formehenseforth vse and kepe there
Mornyng Watche with there Instrumentes acustomyd every day in the weyke / excepte onely
Sondays in the mornyng and the tyme of the Crvstenmas / (REED York 362).
11. For a descriptive fist of Lord Mayors pageants in London, see John Gough Nichols
(93-122); an account of a Lord Mayor's show in Norwich can be found in Carole A. Janssen
(57-64).
12. Janssen states that around 1550, the waits of Norwich performed their Lord Mayor's
pageant upon a scaffold of their own build, which was designed to look like the "pavilion" of St.
Peter. There the. waits created a tableau vivant, in emblem-book fashion, reciting
epigrammatic mottoes, providing music at appropriate moments, and thus providing a link
between their own performance and subsequent Merchants' shows.
13. The REED documents provide us with innumerable examples of the waits'
involvement, for example: Carpenters' Account Book I 1454:
page
139
Item paid to Mynstrels for Corpus christi day Midsomer night & seint petir
nyghs ij s viij d. (REED Coventry 28); City Chamberlains' Books 1554: Item payd to the
waites for Rydyng & playng before St George and the play xx d. (REED York 318).
14. In their private and public celebrations, the waits proved to be composers not only of
music but of words to accompany the music as well. By connecting epideictic oratory with
contemporary Renaissance music, they drew upon a venerable bond: that between rhetoric and
poetics.
15. Given the information available at the time (1928), it is not surprising that Bridge
declared: "Although Chester was the home of one of our greatest series of Miracle plays, the
waits were not much employed as the city could draw on a large fraternity of minstrels and the
musicians form the monastery" (81). Bridge's conclusion has been corrected by new data,
specifically the REED Chester Volume, where we can see specific entries both to waits and
to "the minstrels" on Corpus Christi Days. In the York Volume, there is the following
entry: York Minster Fabric Rolls 1623: Item to the Waytes of Yorke for playinge in the quire 5
Services this yeare xxxiij s. iiij d (568). In addition, Woodfill lists the payments of Chester
Cathedral to the city waits in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (150); thus, Chester, like
many cathedrals of time, paid waits to support the music in the church. We must disregard, then,
Bridge's statement; a cathedral that could not supply itself with music could not be expected to
supply the town with music.
16. G.T. Salisbury, Street Life in Medieval England (Qxford, 1939) 135. Cited in
Bowles (91).
17. Scholars are divided on the colors and the cut of
page
140
the various liveries. For a full description of them, see Woodfill, Bridge, Langwill,
and the introduction to REED's Norwich.
18. For a complete description of the various silver collars, see Woodfill (89-90), Bridge
(75-76, 78), and Langwill (175-76).
19. For a full statement of this act, see G. M. Young and W. D. Handcock (190-93).
20. Bridge writes: 'lt is extraordinary to read of the proceedings of civic authorities of the
period. They seem to have lost their heads entirely .... In 1836 [Leicester] resolved that 'the true
dignity of the Mayoralty does not consist in antiquated pageantry,' and so they proceeded to sell
five maces, the silver plate, the waits' collars and other reliques. They were no worse than many
other towns however" (76, n. 22).
21. Among the eight groups of musicians and players accounted for in this record, for
example, are the following: Chamberlains' and Wardens' Account Book II, 4 December 1622:
Paid which was given to Sir Iohn dancing his wayte-players the xxiiijth of November. 1621. xijd.
Paid which was given to the Weightplayers of the Earle of Northampton the Nynth of August as
appeareth by Bill vnder Maister MaJores hand ij svjd. Paid which was given to the Weightes of
Nottingham the the vjth of August 1621. as appeareth by a Bill vnder Maister Maiores hand ijs vj
d. (REED Coventry 414)
22. Bridge refers to the Norwich waits as the "most celebrated of all" (83). Percival
Hunt,
on the other hand, writes that the "Waits of London were the best there were" (70). Drake's
voyage was a failure, for it accomplished little beyond the burning of Corunna, and the mortality
was enormous. Thus, the very fame of the Norwich waits was indirectly responsible for the death
of three of their own.
page 141
23. REED Norwich (133). In Chester and Newcastle, for example, provision was
made for children: Painters, Glaziers, Embroiderers, and Stationers' Records 18 October 1591:
Item deliuered to Robert waytes wief to helpe her child v s. (REED Chester 166).
Chamberlains' Account Book I week October 1596: paide and geuen in rewrde to robert askew
waite lyinge sick his wife and children commanded vjs viii d. (REED Newcastle 113)
24. When they finally lost their lease, for not taking care of their rented properties, each
of the Norwich waits was financially able to buy a house in the city.
25. The Worshipful Company of Musicians was established before 1500. For a
comprehensive discussion, see Woodfill (5) and Robert W. Wienpahl (153, n. 13). In exchange for
a granted monopoly, waits were often prevented from traveling abroad to other towns to earn
extra money; they were expected to remain in the service of their town.
26. The following entry from Norwich supports the notion that a wait is a "roguish
minstrel" only when he is not at home: Mayors' Court Books XV, 17 May 1617: Thomas Spratt
Minstrell havinge A wife in Colchester ys ordered forthwith to depart this Cytty & not
returne to make abode here at any tyme hereafter or to vse the roagishe life of Minstrelsey vpon
payne of being punished as A vagrant./(REED Norwich 150)
27. The common council ordered that the waits be admitted freemen of the fellowship of
minstrels without any charge. Until that ruling, the fellowship had forbidden the waits to occupy,
buy, or sell in the city because they were not admitted freeman in the minstrels' "craft." It was a
"Catch-22" situation: unless they were freemen, they would never be wealthy enough to buy their
freedom. See
page 142
Woodfill (40, n.9).
28. The following entry is representative of many attesting to the personal integrity of the
municipal Musicians: House Books, 25 June 1557: And now Robert Husthwait by this presens is
taken to ... be mete to remain one of the common waytes of this Citie vpon his good behaviour
& dyligens. (REED York 324)
page 135
Works Cited
Bowles, Edmund A. "Tower Musicians in the Middle Ages." Brass Quarterly Spring
1962: 91-103.
Bridge, Joseph C. "Town Waits and Their Tunes." Proceedings of' the Musical
Association's 54th Sess. Leeds: Whitehead, 1928.
Brydson, John C. "The Minstrels and Waits of Leicester." The Musical Times (May
1948): 142-44.
Chappell, W. Popular Music of the Olden Time. vols. I, II. London: Cramer,
1861.
Coldewey, John C. "Some Nottingham Waits: Their History and Habits. REED
Newsletter 1 (1982): 40-49.
Downs, Anneliese. "The Tower Music of a Seventeenth-Century Stadtpfeifer." Brass
Quarterly (Fall 1963): 3-33.
Hunt, Percival. Fifteenth Century England. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1962.
Janssen, Carole A. "The Waytes of Norwich and an Early Lord Mayor's Show."
RORD 22 (1979): 57-64.
Kelly, William. Notices Illustrative of the Drama; and Other Popular Amusements at
Leicester. London, 1865.
page 136
Kemp, William. Nine Daies Wonder. London, 1600.
Langwill, Lyndesay G. "The Waits." Music Book VII. Ed. Max Hinrichsen. London:
Hinrechsen, 1952. 170-83.
Myers, A.R., ed. The Household of Edward IV; The Black Book and the Ordinance of
1498. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1959.
Nichols, John Gough. London Pageants. London, 1837.
Noyes, Alfred. "Drake." Collected Poems. vol. I. New York: Stokes, 1913.
246-426.
REED. Chester. Ed. Lawrence M. Clopper. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1979.
---. Coventry. Ed. R.W. Ingram. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.
---. Newcastle Upon Tyne. Ed. J.J. Anderson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1982.
---. Norwich 1540-1642. Ed. David Galloway. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1984.
---.York. Ed. Alexandra F. Johnston and Margaret Rogerson. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1979.
"Stadtpfeifer." New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 1978 ed.
Stephens, George A. "The Waits of the City of Norwich through [F]our Centuries to 1790."
Norfolk Archaeology. XXV (1933): n.p.
"Wait." Oxford English Dictionary. 1971.
Ward, Ned [Edward]. The London Spy. 1698. London: Folio Society, 1955.
Weinpahl, Robert W. Music at the Inns of Court. N.p.: University Microfilms,
1979.
Woodfill, Walter L. Musicians in English Society from Elizabeth to Charles I.
Princeton: Princeton UP, 1953.
Young, G.M. and W.D. Handcock. English Historical Documents 1833-1874.
London: Eyre, 1956.
