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 ([Fig. 28]). 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.
Fig. 29.—Harp. From a 9th century MS. formerly in the monastery of St. Blasius in the Black Forest.
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 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 ([Fig. 29]) 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. This curious relic, which is said to date from a period anterior to the year 800, is illustrated in Bunting’s “Ancient Music of Ireland.” 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 last century.
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 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.
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; it 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 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 was 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 semiuncial 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 fingerboard 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 an illustration of it ([Fig. 30]). 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.