Attention must now be drawn to some instruments which originated during the Middle Ages, but which attained their highest popularity at a somewhat later period.
About 300 years ago the lute ([Fig. 39]) was almost as popular as is the pianoforte at the present day. Originally it had eight thin catgut strings arranged in four pairs, each pair being tuned in unison; so that its open strings produced four tones; but in the course of time more strings were added. Until the sixteenth century twelve was the largest number, or rather, six pairs. Eleven appears for some centuries to have been the most usual number of strings; these produced six tones, since they were arranged in five pairs and a single string. The latter, called the chanterelle, was the highest. According to Thomas Mace, the English lute in common use during the seventeenth century had twenty-four strings, arranged in twelve pairs, of which six pairs ran over the finger-board and the other six by the side of it. This lute was therefore, more properly speaking, a theorbo. The neck of the lute, and also of the theorbo, had frets consisting of catgut strings tightly fastened round it at the proper distances required for ensuring a chromatic succession of intervals. The illustration ([Fig. 40]) represents a lute-player of the late fifteenth century. The order of tones adopted for the open strings varied in different centuries and countries; and this was also the case with the notation of lute music. The most common practice was to write the music on six lines, the upper line representing the first string; the second line, the second string, etc., and to mark with letters on the lines the frets at which the fingers ought to be placed—a indicating the open string, b the first fret, c the second fret, and so on.
Fig. 39.—Lute. Italian (Venetian). Beginning of 17th century.
L. 32½ in., W. 12 in. No. 1125-’69.
Victoria and Albert Museum.
Fig. 40.—Angel playing a Lute, after an oil painting by Ambrogio da Predis. Late 15th century.
National Gallery.
