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.
There are differences. The common folk performer - yeah they weren't high regarded. They mostly played the hurdy hurdy ( my favourite instrument btw), backpipes and such and were mostly for entertaining the common folk. And they probably made the biggest group of performers in medieval times.
The troubadours often were highly regarded and had free food and sleeping commodities, while writing an epic play for a lord. They were also more writers who read their plays to the nobleborn.
Then there were the knights and highborn ladies, who are supposed to learn an instrument and dancing. They mostly played stringed instruments like lutes.
Shakespeare is often referred to as simply the bard, so I would see him as one. Even in DnD a bard can be a writer, historian etc.
And yes, Dante Alighieri was of high birth from an influential Florentine family. And I would consider him a bard too.
What I want to say is, that I totally can see Wyll as a Dante Alighieri kind of bard - he even could give very detailed descriptions of hell. A highborn writing about what he encountered ( the Divine Comedy has a lot of stuff about people, Dante knew and things he encountered).
A sword bard/ bladelock would fit him very well.
