And playing songs on a small ribible,
Thereto he song sometimes a loud querrible;
And as well could he play on a giterne."
The "giterne" was probably the guitar, and the cyteler, or citole, mentioned by Gower, the zitern, which has always been a favourite instrument on the Continent, and has of late years been introduced into England. Matthew Paris also speaks of musical instruments called "burdons," which were used in the church of St. Albans, and probably in others.
Church music, we are told by the old writers, was now as ardently studied by the clergy as secular music by the minstrels and gleemen. Music was taught in all colleges, cathedrals, convents, and capital churches; and the clergy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were by much the most able musicians, as well in instrumental as vocal music. The learned Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, who was also an excellent sculptor and goldsmith, was passionately fond of music as well as of fishing. He wrote a hand-book for anglers, "Manuel de Pêche"; and he had always a harper in the next room, and when wearied with his studies, he ordered him to play. Like Saul, he thought sweet music drove away evil spirits. Being asked—
"Why he held the harpe so dere?"
He replied,
"The virtue of the harpe, through skyle and ryght,
Wyll destroye the fendis myght,