which the notation is represented by letters having above them the signs
of another kind of notation called _neumes_ (Fig. 154).
[Illustration: Fig. 154.--Lament composed shortly after the Death of
Charlemagne, probably about 814 or 815, and attributed to Colomban,
Abbot of Saint-Tron. (MS. de la Bibl. Imp., No. 1,154.)]
_Musical Notation expressed in Modern Signs, the Text and Translation of
the Lament on Charlemagne._
[Illustration: A so lis or tu us que ad oc ci du a Lit to ra ma ris plan
ctus pul sat pec to ra Ul tra ma ri na ag mi na tris]
[Illustration: ti ti a Te ti git in gens cum er ro re ni mi o Heu me do
lens plan go!
Fran ci Ro ma ni at que cun cti cre du li, Luc tu pun gun tur et mag na
mo les ti a in fan tes, se nes glo ri o si prin ci pes Nam clan git or
bis de trimentum Ka ro li Heu mi hi mi se ro!]
A solis ortu usque ad occidua
Littora maris, planctus pulsat pectora;
Ultra marina agmina tristitia
Tetigit ingens cum errore nimio.
Heu! me dolens, plango.
Franci, Romani, atque cuncti creduli,
Luctu punguntor et magna molestia,
Infantes, senes, gloriosi principes;
Nam clangit orbis detrimentum Karoli.
Heu! mihi misero!
From the East to the Western shores,
sorrow agitates every heart; and inland,
this vast grief saddens armies.
Alas! in my grief, I, too, weep.
French, Romans, and all believers are
plunged into mourning and profound
grief: children, old men, and illustrious
princes; for the whole world deplores the
loss of Charlemagne.
Alas! miserable me!
About the fourth century the _neumes_ were in use in the Greek Church;
they are spoken of by St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Certain modifications in
them were introduced by the Lombards and Saxons.
“They were specially in use from the eighth to the twelfth century,”
says M. Coussemaker, in his learned work, “Histoire de l’Harmonie au
Moyen Age,” “and consisted of two sorts of signs: some formed like
commas, dots, or small inclined or horizontal strokes, which represented
isolated sounds; others in the shape of hooks, and strokes variously
twisted and joined, expressing groups of sound composed of various
intervals.
“These commas, dots, and inclined or horizontal strokes were the origin
of the long notes, the breve and the semibreve, and afterwards of the
square notation still in use in the _plain-chant_ of the Church. The
hook-shaped signs and the variously twisted and joined strokes gave rise
to the ligatures and connections of notes.
“From the eighth to the end of the twelfth century--that is, during one
of the brightest periods of musical liturgy--the _neumes_ were the
notation exclusively adopted over the whole of Europe, both in
ecclesiastical singing and also in secular music. From the end of the
eleventh century, this system of notation was established in France,
Italy, Germany, England, and Spain.”
The chief modification to which the notation of music was subject at the
end of the eleventh century is due to the monk Guido, of Arezzo. In
order to facilitate the reading of the _neumes_, he invented placing
them on lines, and these lines he distinguished by colours. The second,
that of the _fa_, was red; the fourth, that of the _ut_, was green; the
first and the third are only traced on the vellum with a pen. In order
that the seven notes should be better impressed upon the memory, he gave
as an example the three first lines of the Hymn of St. John the Baptist,
in which the syllables _ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la_, corresponded to the
signs of the gamut:--
“_Ut_ queant laxis _Re_sonare fibris
_Mi_ra gestorum _Fa_muli tuorum,
_Sol_ve polluti _La_bii reatum,
Sancte Joannes.”
The choristers, in singing this hymn, slightly raised the intonation of
each of the italicised syllables, which were soon adopted for indicating
six of the notes of the gamut. To supply the seventh, which was not
named in this system, the barbarous theory of _muances_ (divisions) was
introduced, and it was not until the seventeenth century the term _si_
was applied in France.
But after the commencement of the tenth century many individuals, and
especially poets, had invented rhythmical songs, which were entirely
different from those of the Church. “Harmony formed by successions of
various intervals,” as we are told by the author whom we have before
quoted, “obtained in the eleventh century the name of _discantus_, in
old French _déchant_. Francon de Cologne is the most ancient author who
makes use of this word. During the whole course of the eleventh century
the composition of melody was independent of harmony, and henceforth the
composition of music was divided into two very distinct parts. The
people, and poets and persons in high life, constructed the melody and
the words; but being ignorant of the science of music, they resorted to
a professional musician to have their inspirations written down. The
first were very justly called _trouvères_ (_trobadori_), the others the
_déchanteurs_, or harmonisers. Harmony was then only adapted for two
voices--a combination of fifths, and of movements in unison.
“In the twelfth century, the construction of melody continued to be in
the hands of poets. The _déchanteurs_ or harmonisers were the
professional musicians. Popular songs became very numerous. Troubadours
multiplied all over Europe, and the greatest lords deemed it an honour
to cultivate both poetry and music. Germany had her ‘master-singers,’
who were in request at every court. In France, the Châtelain de Coucy,
the King of Navarre, the Comte de Béthune, the Comte d’Anjou, and a
hundred others acquired a brilliant reputation by songs, of which they
composed both the words and the melody. The most celebrated of these
_trouvères_ was Adam de la Halle, who flourished in 1260.”
In the fourteenth century, the name of _counterpoint_ was substituted
for that of _déchant_; and in 1364, at the coronation of Charles V. at
Rheims, a mass was sung which was written in four parts, composed by
Guillaume de Machault, poet and musician.
Among the ancients the number of musical instruments was considerable,
but their names were even still more numerous, because derived from the
shape, the material, the nature and character of the instruments, all of
which varied infinitely, according to the whim of the maker or the
musician. Added to this, every country had its national instruments; and
as each in its own language designated them by descriptive names, the
same instrument appeared under ten different denominations, and a
similar name was applied to ten instruments. However, having nothing but
monumental representation to guide us, and in the absence of the
instruments themselves, an almost inextricable confusion arises.
The Romans carried back to their own country, as the results of
conquest, specimens of most of the musical instruments they found in use
in the countries subdued by them. Thus Greece supplied Rome with nearly
all the soft instruments of the class of lyres and flutes. Germany and
the northern provinces, being inhabited by warlike races, gave to their
conquerors the taste for loud-sounding instruments, such as trumpets and
drums. Asia, and Judæa especially, which had multiplied various kinds of
metal-instruments for use in their religious ceremonies, were the means
of naturalising in Roman music deep-toned instruments of the class of
bells and tom-toms (a kind of drum). Egypt introduced into Italy the
timbrel along with the worship of Isis. Byzantium had no sooner invented
the first pneumatic organs than the new religion of Christ took
possession of them for exclusive consecration to its service, both in
the East and in the West.
All the musical instruments of the known world had therefore taken
refuge, as it were, in the capital of the Roman empire; but their fate
was only to disappear and sink into oblivion after they had played their
part in the last pomps of that falling empire, and in the final
festivals of the ancient mythology. In a letter in which he specially
treats of “various kinds of musical instruments,” St. Jerome, who lived
from 331 to 420, speaks of those which were in use in his time for the
requirements of religion, war, ceremonial, and art. He mentions, in the
first place, the organ, and describes it as composed of fifteen brazen
pipes, two air-reservoirs of elephant’s skin, and twelve large sets of
bellows, “to imitate the voice of thunder.” He next specifies, under the
generic name of _tuba_, several kinds of trumpets: that which called the
people together, that which directed the march of troops, that which
proclaimed the victory, that which sounded the charge against the enemy,
that which announced the closing of the gates, &c. One of these
trumpets, the shape of which is rather difficult to gather from his
description, had three brazen bells, and _roared through four
air-conduits_. Another instrument, the _bombulum_, which must have made
a frightful uproar, was, as far as we can conjecture from the text of
the pious writer, a kind of peal of bells attached to a hollow metallic
column which, by the assistance of twelve pipes, reverberated the sounds
of twenty-four bells that were set in motion by one another. Next come
the _cithara_ of the Hebrews, in the shape of a triangle, furnished with
twenty-four strings; the sackbut, of Chaldæan origin, a trumpet formed
of several movable tubes of wood, fitting one into the other; the
psaltery, a small harp provided with ten strings; and lastly, the
_tympanum_, also called the _chorus_, a hand-drum to which were fixed
two metal flute-tubes.
[Illustration: Fig. 155.--Concert; a Bas-relief, taken from a Capital in
Saint-Georges de Boscherville, Normandy. (A Work of the Eleventh
Century.)]
A nomenclature of a similar kind, applying to the ninth century, exists
in a history of Charlemagne, in Latin verse, by Aymeric de Peyrac. This
shows as that, during the lapse of four centuries, the number of
instruments had been nearly doubled, and that the musical influence of
Charlemagne’s reign had made itself felt in the revival and improvement
of several instruments which had been formerly abandoned. This curious
metrical composition enumerates all the stringed, wind, and pulsatile
instruments which celebrated the praise of the great emperor, the
protector and restorer of music. The number of instruments specified
are twenty-four in number, among which we find nearly all those
mentioned by St. Jerome.
[Illustration: Fig. 156.--Concert and Musical Instruments. From a
Miniature in a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century.]
The names, therefore, of musical instruments had passed through seven or
eight centuries without undergoing any kind of change than that
naturally resulting from variations in the language. But the instruments
themselves, during this long interval of time, had been often modified
to such extent that the primitive denomination not unfrequently appeared
to contradict the musical characteristics of the instrument to which it
still continued to be attached. Thus, the _chorus_, which had been a
four-stringed harp, and from its name seems to indicate a collection of
instruments, had become a wind-instrument.[22] So also the psaltery,
which was originally touched by a _plectrum_ (stick) or with the
fingers, now only gave forth its notes under the influence of a bow; an
instrument that had had twenty strings now only retained eight; another,
the name of which seemed to refer to a square shape, was rounded; those
primitively made of wood were now constructed of metal. There is reason
to believe that, generally speaking, these changes were made not so much
with the view of any musical improvement, properly so called, as with an
idea of gratifying the
[Illustration: Fig. 157.--The Tree of Jesse. The ancestors of Jesus
Christ are represented with Musical Instruments, and as forming a
Celestial Concert. (Fac-simile from a Miniature in a Manuscript Breviary
of the Fifteenth Century. Royal Library, Brussels.)]
fancy of the eye (Figs. 155 to 157). Scarcely any fixed rules for the
construction of musical instruments existed before the sixteenth
century, when learned musicians applied mathematical principles to the
theory of manufacture. Down to 1589 musical instruments were made in
Paris by workmen who were organ-makers, lute-makers, or even
coppersmiths, under the inspection and guarantee of the community of
musicians; but at this epoch the makers of musical instruments were
united in a trade corporation, and obtained, through the goodwill of
Henry III., certain privileges and special statutes.
As musical instruments have always been divided into three particular
classes,--stringed, pulsatile, and wind instruments,--we shall adopt
this natural division in passing under review the various kinds in use
during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. We shall not, however,
pretend to be always able to point out the precise musical value of
these instruments, for in several instances we have no knowledge of
them, except from representations more or less truthful.
The class of wind instruments comprised flutes, trumpets, and organs;
each of these was, however, subdivided into several very distinct kinds.
In the division of flutes alone, for instance, we find the straight
flute, the double flute, the side-mouthed or German flute, the Pandean
pipes, the _chorus_, the _calamus_, the bagpipes (_muse_ or _mousette_),
the _doucine_ or hautboy, the _flaïos_ or flageolet, &c.
The flute is the most ancient of musical instruments; even in the Middle
Ages no orchestra was considered complete which did not contain an
entire order of flutes, differing both in shape and tone. In principle,
the simple flute, or _flûte à bec_, consisted of a straight pipe of hard
and sounding wood, made in one piece, and pierced with four or six
holes. But the number of holes being successively increased to eleven,
and the pipe being enlarged to a length of seven or eight feet, the
result was that the fingers were unable to act simultaneously upon all
the openings; thus, in order to close the two holes farthest from the
mouthpiece, keys were attached to the body of the flute which the
instrumentalist acted on with his foot.
The simple flute, of greater or less length, is seen on the figured
monuments of every epoch. The double flute, which was equally in use,
had, as its name indicates, two pipes, generally of unequal lengths; the
_left-hand_ tube, which was the shortest and therefore called the
_feminine_, produced shrill sounds, while the _right-hand_, or
_masculine_, gave the low notes. Whether these two tubes were united or
were separate, this flute had always two distinct mouths,--although they
were often very close together--on which the musician played
alternately. The double flute (Fig. 158) was the instrument employed in
the eleventh century by the _jongleurs_ or jugglers as an
accompaniment.
The side-mouthed flute, which was at first very little used, owed its
celebrity in the sixteenth century to the improvements it received from
the Germans, hence it acquired the name of the _German flute_ (Fig.
160).
The _syrinx_ was nothing but the ancient Pandean pipes, composed
generally of seven tubes of wood or metal, gradually decreasing in
length; they were closed at the bottom, and at the top took the form of
a horizontal plane, which was touched by the lip of the musician as it
passed along (Fig. 159). In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the
syrinx, which must have produced very shrill and discordant music, was
generally made in the shape of a semicircle, and contained nine tubes in
a metallic case pierced with the same number of holes.
[Illustration: Fig. 158.--Double Flute, Fourteenth Century. (From
Willemin’s “French Monuments.”)]
[Illustration: Fig. 159.--Seven-tubed _Syrinx_, Ninth or Tenth Century.
(Angers MS.)]
The _chorus_, which in the time of St. Jerome was composed of a skin and
two tubes, one forming the mouth, the other the bell-end (Fig. 161),
must have presented a very great similarity to the modern bagpipes. In
the ninth century its shape had changed but little, except that we
sometimes find two bell-ends, and the membranous air-reservoir is in
some examples replaced by a kind of case made of metal or resonant wood
(_bois sonore_). Subsequently this instrument was transformed into a
simple dulcimer.
The _calamus_, called the _chalemelle_ or _chalemie_, which derived its
origin from the _calamus_ or reed-pipe of the ancients, became in the
sixteenth century a treble to the hautboy, the _bombarde_ being its
counter-bass and tenor, and the bass being executed on the _cromorne_.
There was, however, quite a group of hautboys. The _douçaine_ or
_doucine_, a soft flute, the great hautboy of Poitou played the parts of
tenor or of fifth. The length of the hautboy having been found
inconvenient, it was divided into pieces united in a movable cluster
(_faisceau_) known by the name of _fagot_. This instrument was
afterwards called _courtaut_ in France, and _sourdeline_ or _sampogne_
in Italy, where it had become a kind of bagpipe, like the _muse_ or
_estive_. The _muse de blé_ was a simple reed-pipe, but the _muse
d’Aussay_ (or _d’Ausçois_, district of Auch) was certainty a hautboy.
With regard to the bagpipes, properly so called, they generally bore the
name of _chevrette_, _chevrie_, or _chièvre_, on account of the skin of
which the bag was made. They were also designated by the names of
_pythaule_ and _cornemuse_, drone-pipe (Fig. 162).
[Illustration: Fig. 160.--German Musicians playing on the Flute and
Goat’s Horn. (Drawn and Engraved by J. Amman.)]
The _flaïos de saus_, or reed-flutes, were nothing but mere whistles,
such as village children are still in the habit of making in the spring;
but there were, says an ancient author, more than twenty kinds, “as many
loud as soft,” which were coupled by pairs in an orchestra. The
_fistule_, the _souffle_, the _pipe_, and the _fretiau_ or _galoubet_,
were all small flageolets played on by the left hand while the right
marked the time on a tambourine or with the cymbals. The _pandorium_,
which has been classed among the flutes without its shape and character
of tone being rightly determined, must have presented, at least at its
origin, some similarity of sound to the stringed instrument called
_pandore_ (_pandora_).
[Illustration: Fig. 161.--_Chorus_ with single Bell-end with Holes.
(Ninth Century, MS. of Saint-Blaise.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 162.--Bagpiper, Thirteenth Century. (Sculpture on
the Musicians’ Hall at Rheims.)]
Trumpets formed a much more numerous class than the flutes. In Latin
they were called _tuba_, _lituus_, _buccina_, _taurea_, _cornu_,
_claro_, _salpinx_, &c.; in French, _trompe_, _corne_, _olifant_,
_cornet_, _buisine_, _sambute_, &c. In most cases, however, they derived
their name either from their shape, the sound which they produced, the
material whereof they were made, or the use for which they were
specially intended. Thus, among military trumpets of copper or brass,
the names of some (_claro_, _clarasius_) indicating the piercing sound
which they produced; the names of others seem rather to refer to the
appearance of their bell-ends (Fig. 164), which imitated the head of a
bird, a horn, a serpent, &c. Some of these trumpets were so long and
heavy that a foot or stand was required to support them, while the
performer took the end in his mouth and blew through it with full power
of breath (Fig. 163.)
The shepherds’ horns, made of wood rimmed with brass, were a heavy and
powerful kind of speaking-trumpet, which in the eighth century the Welsh
herdsmen and those of the _landes_ of Cornouaille always carried with
them (Fig. 165.) When the barons or knights desired to convey any
signals rendered necessary either in war or hunting, they were in the
habit of using horns of a much more portable character, which were
suspended at their girdles; they used them, also, as drinking vessels
when occasion required. At first these instruments were generally made
of nothing but buffalo’s or goat’s horns; but when the fashion arose of
working delicately in ivory, they took the name of _olifant_, an
appellation destined to become famous in the old romances of chivalry,
in which the _olifant_ played a very important part (Fig. 166). To cite
only one example among a thousand, Roland, when overwhelmed by numbers
in the valley of Ronceveaux, sounded the _olifant_ in order to call
Charlemagne’s army to his aid.
[Illustration: Fig. 163.--Straight Trumpet with Stand. (Eleventh
Century. Cotton MS., British Museum.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 164.--Curved Trumpet. (Eleventh Century. Cotton MS.,
British Museum.)]
In the fourteenth century, according to a passage in a manuscript in the
Library of Berne, quoted by M. Jubinal, there were in bodies of troops
_corneurs_, _trompeurs_, and _buisineurs_, who played under certain
special circumstances. The _trompes_ sounded for the movements of the
knights, or men-at-arms; the _cornes_ for the movements of the banners
or the foot-soldiers, and the _buisines_, or clarions, when the entire
camp (_ost_) was to march. The heralds-at-arms, whose duty it was to
make the announcements or proclamations in the public ways, were in the
habit of using either long trumpets, called _à potence_, on account of
the forked stick whereon they were supported, or trumpets _à tortilles_
(serpentine), the name of which sufficiently indicates their shape.
Added to this, the sound of the trumpet or horn accompanied or
signalised the principal acts of the citizens both in public and private
life. During the meals of great men, the water, the wine, and the bread,
were heralded by sound of trumpet. In towns this instrument announced
the opening and closing of the gates, the opening and closing of the
markets, and the time of curfew, till the time when the horn and the
copper trumpet were superseded in this function by the bells in
church-towers.
[Illustration: Fig. 165.--Shepherd’s Horn. Eighth Century. (MS., British
Museum.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 166.--Horn, or _Olifant_, Fourteenth Century. (From
Willemin’s “French Monuments.”)]
Polybius and Ammianus Marcellinus tell us that the ancient Gauls and
Germans had a great passion for large, hoarse-sounding trumpets. At the
time of Charlemagne, and still more in the days of the Crusades, the
intercourse that took place between the men of the West and the African
and Asiatic races introduced among the former the use of musical
instruments of a harsh and piercing tone. Then it was that the
Saracen-horns, made of copper, replaced the wooden or horn trumpets. At
the same period sackbuts, or _sambutes_ (Fig. 167), made their
appearance in Italy: in those of the ninth century, we find the
principle of the modern trombone. About the same epoch the Germans
introduced great improvements into the trumpet by adapting to it the
system of holes, which up to that time had been the characteristic of
flutes (Fig. 168).
[Illustration: Fig. 167.--_Sambute_, or Sackbut, of the Ninth Century.
(Boulogne MS.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 168.--German Musician sounding the Military Trumpet.
Drawn and Engraved by J. Amman.]
But among all the wind instruments of the Middle Ages, the organ was the
one most imposing in its nature, and destined to the most glorious
career. The only instrument of this kind known by the ancients was the
water-organ, in which a key-board of twenty-six keys corresponded to the
same number of pipes; and the air, acted upon by the pressure of water,
produced most varied sounds. Nero, it is said, spent a whole day
examining and admiring the mechanism of an instrument of this kind.
The water-organ, although described and commended by Vitruvius, was not
much in use in the Middle Ages. Eginhard speaks of one constructed, in
826, by a Venetian priest; and the last of which mention is made existed
at Malmesbury in the twelfth century. But this latter might be regarded
more in the light of a steam-organ; for, like the warning whistles of
our locomotives, it was worked by the effects of the steam of boiling
water rushing into brass pipes.