Think of someone who earns a living by standing up in front of a room: an instrument under the arm, songs and stories ready, a night's food and bed as the payment. That is the whole word — a paid performer, not a poet at a desk. Both meanings are people doing that job; what changes is the century they are doing it in, and what their act was made of.
From the word’s history
From Old French menestrel, and before that Late Latin ministerialis, a servant or retainer with a duty in a lord's household. The word began as 'someone employed in a household' and narrowed to the one whose job was to entertain.
這個字來自古法文 menestrel，再往上是晚期拉丁文 ministerialis：領主家裡「有職務在身的僕人」。所以它一開始的意思是「受雇在別人家做事的人」，後來才縮小成專指其中負責娛樂的那一個。這說明了為什麼核心畫面是「工作」，不是「浪漫」。
Wiktionary entry for 'minstrel' (kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:794178547): "from Anglo-Norman menestrel and Old French menestrel (artisan; servant; itinerant musician or poet; worker), from Late Latin ministerialis (official or retainer owing household and military service to a feudal lord)."
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