Being an entertainer was considered one of the lowest professions, right above criminal.
Oh ?
So thats why nobles and knights became troubadours ? Because they didnt liked their high station in society and wanted to try out the opposite ?
I also wasnt aware about, say, Shakespeare's low station among his contemporaries until this moment.
Or Dante Aligheri, I can almost sense he must have been hardly above a criminal for his contemporaries, for sure !
What time and place exactly are you talking about where bards supposedly had a low social status ?
Premodern Europe.
While there absolutely were a few troubadours from the upper ranks of nobility, they, like the aforementioned Nero, had the political clout to get away with a bit of scandal and do what they wanted. The overwhelming majority of known troubadours were poor, landless knights, with few prospects. Musical talent allowed them to attach themselves to a court and find a patron.
In Roman to medieval Europe, to be an itinerant actor and traveling performer was considered a sinful and lowly profession.
Skaspeare is early modern, and maybe had a lot to do with raising the profile of performers a bit, but even still, being an entertainer didn’t become a semi-respectable profession until relatively recently in our history.
Dante was an author, poet and philosopher. I’m not sure if he was an entertainer or not, but if he was, exceptions don’t disprove rules.
