Scops: A Living History :: English Literature Dictionary Essays

Scops A lifespan History A scop is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as an Old English poet or minstrel. However, scops were simply so much more than that to the medieval world. They were the only means of entertain workforcet for the plenty of the time. There was no television or Internet to escape to, and books were non readily available. about medieval people in the eighth through twelfth centuries could not read or write,so the scops would tell amusing stories or tales of heroic whole kit and boodle to the music of their harps. The stories would be chanted, giving great honor to those mentioned in the oral examination recitations, and the scops song also provided a memory of the culture for those who would come after. tally to Kemp Malone, At an early date Germanic kings began to keep professional poets. (p.75) These scops would run low the kingdom, telling their stories and singing their songs. They would make up a harp or after ward a lute these were the tools of their trade. Creating worlds and places many Anglo- Saxons never saw because few people ever left the place they were born, scops were important fixtures to the medieval world. The scops opened up the outside world to medieval people and engaged the imagination too. In Beowulf, scops are mentioned in recounting Beowulfs deeds and amusing the men in the mead- halls. Like courtly fools, they would make their audience laugh. However, unlike the fools or court jesters, a scop was not there merely to entertain. They were a life history of the times and places of the past and present. Their ability to memorize many lines of poem or stories has kept them alive throughout the ages so that we still have them today. The stories were sometimes embellished and altered to be more interesting to the listeners. For example, in Beowulf, there is the story of our hero fighting sea monsters as he swims crossways an ocean and spending seven days and night in the ratty sea. The Wanderer is a tale that mostly likely would have been recited by a scop. The stories that the scops would tell often were elegies for the heroic dead.