an Anglo-Saxon minstrel, usually attached to a particular royal court, although scops also traveled to various courts to recite their poetry. In addition to being an entertainer who composed and performed his own works, the scop served as a kind of historian and preserver of the oral tradition of the Germanic peoples. The Old English poem “Widsith” (probably 7th century), a fictional biography of a scop, gives an idea of the status and role of the scop in society.