EUROPEAN NATIONS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.
Many representations of musical instruments of the middle ages have
been preserved in manuscripts, as well as in sculptures and paintings
forming ornamental portions of churches and other buildings. Valuable
facts and hints are obtainable from these evidences, provided they
are judiciously selected and carefully examined. The subject is,
however, so large that only a few observations on the most interesting
instruments can be offered here. Unfortunately there still prevails
much uncertainty respecting several of the earliest representations
as to the precise century from which they date, and there is reason
to believe that in some instances the archæological zeal of musical
investigators has assigned a higher antiquity to such discoveries than
can be satisfactorily proved.
It appears certain that the most ancient European instruments known to
us were in form and construction more like the Asiatic than was the
case with later ones. Before a nation has attained to a rather high
degree of civilisation its progress in the cultivation of music, as an
art, is very slow indeed. The instruments found at the present day in
Asia are scarcely superior to those which were in use among oriental
nations about three thousand years ago. It is, therefore, perhaps
not surprising that no material improvement is perceptible in the
construction of the instruments of European countries during the lapse
of nearly a thousand years. True, evidences to be relied on referring
to the first five or six centuries of the Christian era are but scanty;
although indications are not wanting which may help the reflecting
musician.
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There are some early monuments of Christian art dating from the fourth
century in which the lyre is represented. In one of them Christ is
depicted as Apollo touching the lyre. This instrument occurs at an
early period in western Europe as used in popular pastimes. In an
Anglo-saxon manuscript of the ninth century in the British museum
(Cleopatra C. VIII.) are the figures of two gleemen, one playing the
lyre and the other a double-pipe. M. de Coussemaker has published in
the “Annales Archéologiques” the figure of a crowned personage playing
the lyre, which he found in a manuscript of the ninth or tenth century
in the library at Angers. The player twangs the strings with his
fingers, while the Anglo-saxon gleeman before mentioned uses a plectrum.
_Cithara_ was a name applied to several stringed instruments greatly
varying in form, power of sound, and compass. The illustration
represents a cithara from a manuscript of the ninth century, formerly
in the library of the great monastery of St. Blasius in the Black
Forest. When in the year 1768 the monastery was destroyed by fire, this
valuable book perished in the flames; fortunately the celebrated abbot
Gerbert possessed tracings of the illustrations, which were saved from
destruction. He published them, in the year 1774, in his work “De cantu
et musica sacra.” Several illustrations in the following pages, it
will be seen, have been derived from this interesting source. As the
older works on music were generally written in Latin we do not learn
from them the popular names of the instruments; the writers merely
adopted such Latin names as they thought the most appropriate. Thus,
for instance, a very simple stringed instrument of a triangular shape,
and a somewhat similar one of a square shape were designated by the
name of _psalterium_; and we further give a woodcut of the square kind
(p. 86), and of a _cithara_ (above) from the same manuscript.
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This last instrument is evidently an improvement upon the triangular
psalterium, because it has a sort of small sound-board at the top.
Scarcely better, with regard to acoustics, appears to have been the
instrument designated as _nablum_, which we engrave (p. 87) from a
manuscript of the ninth century at Angers.
[Illustration]
A small psalterium with strings placed over a sound-board was
apparently the prototype of the _citole_; a kind of dulcimer which was
played with the fingers. The names were not only often vaguely applied
by the mediæval writers but they changed also in almost every century.
The psalterium, or psalterion (Italian _salterio_, English _psaltery_),
of the fourteenth century and later had the trapezium shape of the
dulcimer.
[Illustration]
The Anglo-saxons frequently accompanied their vocal effusions with a
harp, more or less triangular in shape,--an instrument which may be
considered rather as constituting the transition of the lyre into the
harp. The representation of king David playing the harp is from an
Anglo-saxon manuscript of the beginning of the eleventh century, in
the British museum. The harp was especially popular in central and
northern Europe, and was the favourite instrument of the German and
Celtic bards and of the Scandinavian skalds. In the next illustration
from the manuscript of the monastery of St. Blasius twelve strings
and two sound holes are given to it. A harp similar in form and size,
but without the front pillar, was known to the ancient Egyptians.
Perhaps the addition was also non-existent in the earliest specimens
appertaining to European nations; and a sculptured figure of a small
harp constructed like the ancient eastern harp has been discovered in
the old church of Ullard in the county of Kilkenny. Of this curious
relic, which is said to date from a period anterior to the year 800, a
fac-simile taken from Bunting’s “Ancient Music of Ireland” is given (p.
91). As Bunting was the first who drew attention to this sculpture his
account of it may interest the reader. “The drawing” he says “is taken
from one of the ornamental compartments of a sculptured cross, at the
old church of Ullard. From the style of the workmanship, as well as
from the worn condition of the cross, it seems older than the similar
monument at Monasterboice which is known to have been set up before the
year 830. The sculpture is rude; the circular rim which binds the arms
of the cross together is not pierced in the quadrants, and many of the
figures originally in relievo are now wholly abraded. It is difficult
to determine whether the number of strings represented is six or seven;
but, as has been already remarked, accuracy in this respect cannot be
expected either in sculptures or in many picturesque drawings.” The
Finns had a harp (_harpu_, _kantele_) with a similar frame, devoid of
a front pillar, still in use until the commencement of the present
century.
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One of the most interesting stringed instruments of the middle ages
is the _rotta_ (German, _rotte_; English, _rote_). It was sounded by
twanging the strings, and also by the application of the bow. The first
method was, of course, the elder one. There can hardly be a doubt
that when the bow came into use it was applied to certain popular
instruments which previously had been treated like the _cithara_ or
the _psalterium_. The Hindus at the present day use their _suroda_
sometimes as a lute and sometimes as a fiddle. In some measure we
do the same with the violin by playing occasionally _pizzicato_. The
_rotta_ (shown p. 91) from the manuscript of St. Blasius is called in
Gerbert’s work _cithara teutonica_, while the harp is called _cithara
anglica_; from which it would appear that the former was regarded as
pre-eminently a German instrument. Possibly its name may have been
originally _chrotta_ and the continental nations may have adopted it
from the Celtic races of the British isles, dropping the guttural
sound. This hypothesis is, however, one of those which have been
advanced by some musical historians without any satisfactory evidence.
[Illustration]
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We engrave also another representation of David playing on the
_rotta_, from a psalter of the seventh century in the British museum
(Cott. Vesp. A. I). According to tradition, this psalter is one of
the manuscripts which were sent by pope Gregory to St. Augustine.
The instrument much resembles the lyre in the hand of the musician
(see p. 22) who is supposed to be a Hebrew of the time of Joseph. In
the _rotta_ the ancient Asiatic lyre is easily to be recognized. An
illumination of king David playing the _rotta_ forms the frontispiece
of a manuscript of the eighth century preserved in the cathedral
library of Durham; and which is musically interesting inasmuch as
it represents a _rotta_ of an oblong square shape like that just
noticed and resembling the Welsh _crwth_. It has only five strings
which the performer twangs with his fingers. Again, a very interesting
representation (which we engrave) of the Psalmist with a kind of
_rotta_ occurs in a manuscript of the tenth century, in the British
museum (Vitellius F. XI.). The manuscript has been much injured by
a fire in the year 1731, but Professor Westwood has succeeded, with
great care, and with the aid of a magnifying glass, in making out
the lines of the figure. As it has been ascertained that the psalter
is written in the Irish semi-uncial character it is highly probable
that the kind of _rotta_ represents the Irish _cionar cruit_, which
was played by twanging the strings and also by the application of a
bow. Unfortunately we possess no well-authenticated representation
of the Welsh _crwth_ of an early period; otherwise we should in all
probability find it played with the fingers, or with a plectrum.
Venantius Fortunatus, an Italian who lived in the second half of the
sixth century, mentions in a poem the “Chrotta Britanna.” He does
not, however, allude to the bow, and there is no reason to suppose
that it existed in England. Howbeit, the Welsh _crwth_ (Anglo-saxon,
_crudh_; English, _crowd_) is only known as a species of fiddle closely
resembling the _rotta_, but having a finger-board in the middle of the
open frame and being strung with only a few strings; while the _rotta_
had sometimes above twenty strings. As it may interest the reader to
examine the form of the modern _crwth_ we give a woodcut of it. Edward
Jones, in his “Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh bards,”
records that the Welsh had before this kind of _crwth_ a three-stringed
one called “Crwth Trithant,” which was, he says, “a sort of violin, or
more properly a rebeck.” The three-stringed _crwth_ was chiefly used by
the inferior class of bards; and was probably the Moorish fiddle which
is still the favourite instrument of the itinerant bards of the Bretons
in France, who call it _rébek_. The Bretons, it will be remembered, are
close kinsmen of the Welsh.
[Illustration]
A player on the _crwth_ or _crowd_ (a crowder) from a bas-relief on the
under part of the seats of the choir in Worcester cathedral (engraved
p. 95) dates from the twelfth or thirteenth century; and we give (p.
96) a copy of an illumination from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque
royale at Paris of the eleventh century. The player wears a crown on
his head; and in the original some musicians placed at his side are
performing on the psalterium and other instruments. These last are
figured with uncovered heads; whence M. de Coussemaker concludes that
the _crout_ was considered by the artist who drew the figures as the
noblest instrument. It was probably identical with the _rotta_ of the
same century on the continent.
[Illustration]
An interesting drawing of an Anglo-saxon fiddle--or _fithele_, as it
was called--is given in a manuscript of the eleventh century in the
British museum (Cotton, Tiberius, c. 6). The instrument is of a pear
shape, with four strings, and the bridge is not indicated. A German
fiddle of the ninth century, called _lyra_, copied by Gerbert from the
manuscript of St. Blasius, has only one string. These are shown in the
woodcuts (p. 97). Other records of the employment of the fiddle-bow
in Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are not wanting.
For instance, in the famous ‘Nibelungenlied’ Volker is described as
wielding the fiddle-bow not less dexterously than the sword. And in
‘Chronicon picturatum Brunswicense’ of the year 1203, the following
miraculous sign is recorded as having occurred in the village of
Ossemer: “On Wednesday in Whitsun-week, while the parson was fiddling
to his peasants who were dancing, there came a flash of lightning
and struck the parson’s arm which held the fiddle-bow, and killed
twenty-four people on the spot.”
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Among the oldest representations of performers on instruments of the
violin kind found in England those deserve to be noticed which are
painted on the interior of the roof of Peterborough cathedral. They
are said to date from the twelfth century. One of these figures is
particularly interesting on account of the surprising resemblance which
his instrument bears to our present violin. Not only the incurvations
on the sides of the body but also the two sound-holes are nearly
identical in shape with those made at the present day. Respecting the
reliance to be placed on such evidence, it is necessary to state that
the roof, originally constructed between the years 1177 and 1194, was
thoroughly repaired in the year 1835. Although we find it asserted that
“the greatest care was taken to retain every part, or to restore it
to its original state, so that the figures, even where retouched, are
in effect the same as when first painted,” it nevertheless remains a
debatable question whether the restorers have not admitted some slight
alterations, and have thereby somewhat modernised the appearance of
the instruments. A slight touch with the brush at the sound-holes, the
screws, or the curvatures, would suffice to produce modifications which
might to the artist appear as being only a renovation of the original
representation, but which to the musical investigator greatly impair
the value of the evidence. Sculptures are, therefore, more to be
relied upon in evidence than frescoes.
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