The Organ.
This is one of the most ancient of instruments. Thus in the second century before our era Ctesibius of Alexandria had a simple type of organ, in which the wind from the bellows was admitted at will into whistle-like tube by keys which the performer depressed with his fingers. It is a remarkable fact that keys should afterwards have been replaced by cumbersome sliders which had to be pushed in and out to produce the desired note. But so it was, and the keyboard had to be rediscovered in the twelfth century. The keys were first
applied to the little portatives, [94a] one of which is figured by Galpin, p. 221, where the organist works the wind supply with one hand and manipulates the keys with the other. In Galpin, p. 222, a monk is shown playing a simple organ of apparently two octave compass, while another tonsured person is blowing a pair of bellows, one with the left and the other with the right hand. Another artist is shown by Galpin, p. 226, from a thirteenth century Psalter, who is accompanying a player of the symphony (hurdy-gurdy). The bellows are blown by the feet of an assistant.
The regal, figured by Galpin at p. 230, was a simple form of organ in which the pipes were not of the whistle-type, but consisted principally of reed-pipes.