It was increasingly common during the fifteenth century for towns to include minstrels, also known as waits, among the lesser bureaucracy or to engage minstrels for particular occasions. This was an age when medieval urban ceremonialism reached a peak, as social stratification hardened and a need was felt to make and reinforce wealth-based social status in public settings. It was also an age when towns became increasingly caught up in the national political conflict, and felt it advisable to win the favour and support, or ward off the disfavour, of powerful and influential men by sending them presents, or hosting them at banquets which were often accompanied by musical entertainment.

In fact it was precisely those influential men who were the early employers of minstrels. From the 1330s the borough financial accounts from Lynn refer to payments to various visiting minstrel groups named for their employers, such as those of the Earl of Suffolk, Lord Bardolf, the Duke of Lancaster, the King of Scotland, Sir Robert Mortimer, and Lord Scales, or to the king's ministrels, as well as to solo artists playing gittern, harp, trumpet or other instruments; other minstrels paid had no identified affiliation with a patron. At an earlier date (1280s) the Merchant Gild accounts refer to small payments to minstrels. They were presumably rewards for performances given at Lynn, some of them specified as taking place on festive occasions such as Christmas and May Day. The employment of minstrels by the borough itself appears to have begun around the 1390s, although payments to men of the occupation or surname Wayte can be found earlier. Some of those earlier waits were employed as night-watchmen or gate-keepers, roles calling for good lungs, whether for crying out or for sounding the alarm on wind instruments. But the borough's employment of a small troupe of minstrels did not prevent it paying for engagements by visiting minstrels into at least the reign of Edward IV.

When employees of the city, minstrels were expected to wear some kind of uniform, or decoration, indicative of their status. Liveries of the Lynn waits are were paid for in the 1430s. In 1470 mention is made in Coventry records of a silver badge and silver collar as part of these accoutrements. They evidently received an annual fee from the city, along with the proceeds of a levy on householders, although the latter may have been difficult to collect: in 1459 the minstrels had to petition the leet to appoint an "honest man" from each ward to accompany them when they made the rounds to collect their quarterly wages.

Many minstrels were itinerant, earning their living through commissions wherever they could find them. As employees, Coventry's minstrels were expected to be available when needed, however. Thus, in 1467 they were instructed not to go out of the city to undertake private engagements, with the exception of those for abbots or priors whose houses were within a ten-mile radius of the city.