Jim

Lloyd AL 'Folk Song in England' Paladin Edition, 1975. Pages 104 to 105.

Lloyd is quite clear that folk song arise from a "synthesis" of "peasant and minstrel, amateur and professional". That is precisely the point he makes on those pages.

Lloyd argues that the minstrels of the 14th century were 'sardonic, plebeian oriented, outrageously subversive' and that when manors were broken up the minstrels found themselves 'on the road', with a 'new set of patrons, the peasantry". This is when, he asserts, this synthesis resulting in folk music took place. He suggests that the influence of minstrels improved the music of the peasants.

I think that one the basis of Lloyd's arguments in this section, it is fair to comment that they put music originally made professionally at the heart of what we now know as 'folk music'.

Thank you for this interesting discussion.