Acord: Big Foot Bertha and the Minstrel King

Big-Foot Bertha & the Minstrel King

Part of a series of Sunday morning concerts of medieval music, readings and images, this Sunday concert centres on Big Foot Bertha, the mother of Charlemagne, and it is still a mystery as to why she acquired this unusual sobriquet. Also in the story is the King of the Minstrels, Adenet le Roi who wrote a fanciful story of B F Bertha.

Adenet le Roi was no ordinary minstrel. His epic poems, including Berte aus Grans Piés, Les Enfances Ogier and Cleomadès, abound in colourful details, and he engaged with a web of trouvères, minstrels and patrons in Flanders and from France and England.

Margaret Arnold : alto, organetto

Richard Excell : vielles, rebec, psaltery, gemshorn

Jerzy Kozlowski : bass

Sue Tweg : reader, alto

Carol Williams : harp, vielle, rebec, voice