To the human voice we need not refer, since it is little susceptible of change from age to age.
Musical instruments were few in number and of a crude order in general. The bagpipe, hornpipe and others of a similar kind, together with stringed instruments in the earliest stage of development, being in most general use.
The viols, lute, virginals, recorders, and many others, belong to a much later period. The violin, as we know it, only arrived at perfection in the seventeenth century, when Stradivarius,
Amati and Guanarius were making their marvellous instruments. But that they had instruments and even used them in combination is shewn by the following lines from Chaucer:—
"Cornemuse and shalmyes,
And many a maner pipe,"
and again,
"Both ye Dowced and ye Rede."
"Cornemuse" is generally accepted to mean a hornpipe.
"Shalmyes"[4] was probably a reed instrument of the character of an oboe.
With regard to "ye Dowced" and "ye Rede," numerous controversies have failed to establish any definite conviction.