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Because
the scop was the product of a preliterate society, our records of his
origins
are imprecise. The
earliest records
of the scop date from the fourth century.
These
references occur in early English poems which, although probably
written in
their extant forms after the invasion of these islands, date back in
substance
to the age when the Angles still dwelt in a continental home around the
base of
the Jutish peninsula (Chambers
28).
Because scops sometimes travelled from place to
place,
they are often grouped with a larger class of itinerant entertainers
ranging
from the jugglers and bear-keepers to acting troupes and musicians who
traversed
Europe in search of patronage and wealth
(Maclean 678) . This assumption is misleading
because the
scop was not simply a solo entertainer.
His was not a performance to produce pleasure, but
rather to produce
power. His
performance was a direct
appeal to the forces of power unmediated by a belief in a God
The scop's audiences were not passive entertainment
seekers but rather
aggressive participants in the merrymaking who were allowed through the
culturally accepted convention of boasting, their own turn to perform.
One by one, many of them would stand in front of
their lord and peers,
and proclaim their self-worth in a stylized solo declamation, which all
recognized as a beot or gilph
(boast).
The surface theatricality of these ceremonial
speeches of self-praise
belies their utter seriousness.
Boasts
launched men upon and held them to courses of action which had life and
death
consequences (Conquergood 24).
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