Regals or Organ (Royal, 14 E iii).
The forms of the most usual musical instruments of various periods may be gathered from the illustrations which have already been given. The most common are the harp, fiddle, cittern or lute, hand-organ, the shalm or psaltery, the pipe and tabor, pipes of various sizes played like clarionets, but called flutes, the double pipe, hand-bells, trumpets and horns, bagpipes, tambourine, tabret, drum, and cymbals. Of the greater number of these we have already incidentally given illustrations; we add, on the last page, other illustrations, from the Royal MS., 2 B vii., and Royal MS. 14 E iii. In the fourteenth century new instruments were invented. Guillaume de Marhault in his poem of “Le Temps Pastour,” gives us an idea of the multitude of instruments which composed a grand concert of the fifteenth century; he says[368]—
“Là je vis tout en un cerne
Viole, rubebe, guiterne,
L’enmorache, le micamon,
Citole et Psalterion,
Harpes, tabours, trompes, nacaires,
Orgues, cornes plus de dix paires,
Cornemuse, flajos et chevrettes
Douceines, simbales, clochettes,
Tymbre, la flauste lorehaigne,
Et le grand cornet d’Allemayne,
Flacos de sans, fistule, pipe,
Muse d’Aussay, trompe petite,
Buisine, eles, monochorde,
Ou il n’y a qu’une corde;
Et muse de blet tout ensemble.
Et certainment il me semble
Qu’ oncques mais tèle mélodie
Ne feust oncques vene ne oye;
Car chascun d’eux, selon l’accort
De son instrument sans descort,
Vitole, guiterne, citole,
Harpe, trompe, corne, flajole,
Pipe, souffle, muse, naquaire,
Taboure et qu cunque ou put faire
De dois, de peune et à l’archet,
Ois et vis en ce porchet.”
In conclusion we give a group of musical instruments from one of the illustrations of “Der Weise König,” a work of the close of the fifteenth century.
Musical Instruments of the 15th Century.
