[335] Couches.
[336] For other illustrations of musical instruments see a good representation of Venus playing a rote, with a plectrum in the right hand, pressing the strings with the left, in the Sloane MS. 3,985, f. 44 v. Also a band, consisting of violin, organistrum (like the modern hurdy-gurdy), harp, and dulcimer, in the Harl. MS. 1,527; it represents the feast on the return of the prodigal son. In the Arundel MS. 83, f. 155, is David with a band of instruments of early fourteenth-century date, and other instruments at f. 630. In the early fourteenth-century MS. 28,162, at f. 6 v., David is tuning his harp with a key; at f. 10 v. is Dives faring sumptuously, with carver and cup-bearer, and musicians with lute and pipe.
[337] Mallory’s “History of Prince Arthur,” vol. i. p. 44.
[338] Viz., by making the sign of the cross upon them.
[339] Edward VI.’s commissioners return a pair of organs in the church of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, which they value at 40s., and in the church of St. Peter, Parmentergate, in the same city, a pair of organs which they value at £10 (which would be equal to about £70 or £80 in these days), and soon after we find that 8d. were “paied to a carpenter for makyng of a plaunche (a platform of planks) to sette the organs on.”
[340] Another, with kettle-drums and trumpets, in the MS. Add. 27,675, f. 13.
[341] A harp with its case about the lower part is in the Add. MS. 18,854, f. 91.
[342] There are casts of these in the Mediæval Court of the Crystal Palace.
[343] “Annales Archæologiques,” vol. vi. p. 315.
[344] Ibid., vol. ix. p. 329.