The wandering minstrel?

I'm sure we are not the only medieval musicians to have had the experience of being hired as 'wandering minstrels' at an event, with a clear expectation that we are literally meant to play while continuously wandering around (to the extent of being asked, when we had been playing in one spot for a while, why we weren't moving). Apart from the fact that walking and playing at the same time is not generally conducive to good performance, and a bit unfair on anyone who is actually trying to listen, is there any historical basis for this popular (mis-)conception?

So yes, musicians did sometimes play while walking/moving - in the context of processions. Indeed,  playing in processions seems to have been a significant part of their activities. But it seems unlikely that they regularly performed spontaneous solo processions at otherwise static events.

With a bit more thought, most people might admit their image of the 'wandering minstrel' refers to an itinerant musician, going from castle to castle or town to town, and performing their music in the hope of subsequent reward. (But presumably, in any one place, expected to stand still while they perform...)

However the historical record suggests that, though such travelling performers might have existed, this was not the typical minstrel's life. An interesting insight is given in the book  Menestrellorum Multitudo: Minstrels at a Royal Feast (1978) by Constance Bullock-Davies. (I've just found that a number of examples from this and other contemporary records of payments to minstrels are also listed here: Edward II and minstrels, looks like an interesting website). The book presents and discusses the payment record for musicians performing at a major celebration in 1306, when Prince Edward, son of Edward I of England, was knighted along with 300 companions (the reason for the mass knighting was in preparation for another campaign against Scotland, where Robert the Bruce had just murdered his rival, John Comyn, and had himself declared King). The record includes payments to 26 harpists and 13 vielle players, the most numerous instruments. Interestingly the majority of these performers can be traced not as itinerant musicians but as regular members of the household of the court or visiting nobles.

For example one payment is to Guillotin, the Queen’s psaltery-player, and Bullock-Davies traces out further information about him from the records (there is even a surviving picture!). He was attached to the retinue of successive queens of England for at least 25 years - though he certainly travelled a lot, this was always in service of the queen. The payment record mentions only one lute player, John, but again it is clear he had a long and important connection with the King. From 1285 he appears in the wardrobe accounts, being paid regular wages, including summer and winter outfits, being given a complete exemption from paying taxes, and being supplied with a “pommely grey rouncy” (horse) worth 8 marks when travelling with the king, as well as two servants to carry his instruments.

It sounds like a better life than wandering.

(Update, the thesis by Richard Rastall, referred to on the above Edward II website, can be found online here: Secular Musicians in Late Medieval England)