Musical history in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries is at its darkest; hence little is positively known of the life of Guido. It is certain that he was in great favor at Rome, and that other countries applied to him for his musical services to reorganize their ecclesiastical chanting, and also that his health failing, he returned to his monastery, forgetting and forgiving the ill treatment he had received there, and in its cloisters peacefully ended his days.
The date of his decease is not known.
Other names appear in this misty epoch in musical history. Franco of Cologne, Walter Odington, an English Monk, Heeronymus von Maehren, etc., wrote works upon the theory of music, while Adam de la Hale (of Arras, France) wrote music in four-part harmony, about the year 1280. But in the midst of this darkness there came a glorious sunburst in the shape of chivalric bands who elevated music to a broader sphere by adding to the ecclesiastical chanting a secular school of composition, both warlike and lyrical.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE ANCIENT BARDS.
While Rome and Milan were devoting themselves almost entirely to ecclesiastical music, there had sprung up among the barbarian nations a school of music more consonant to their habits, being warlike in its style, and having for its object the celebration of the heroes of each country, and the inciting of their descendants to similar deeds of glory. From earliest days Wales has possessed a guild of such singers, who were, in fact, the historians of the country, at a time when written books would have been nearly useless. The songs of the Welsh bards have been preserved traditionally by that people; while the songs of the druids who preceded them have been allowed to pass into utter oblivion, the latter having, evidently, not taken deep root in Welsh soil.
At the commencement of the sixth century, the bards of Wales exerted all their energies of exhortation to animate their countrymen in the strife with the Saxon invaders, and when Wales was conquered by Edward I., (1284) he dreaded their influence so much that he is said to have persecuted them and put them to death. The bards in Wales had an organization similar to that which we shall presently find among the troubadours and minne-singers. They were divided into two classes,—poets, and musicians. Each of these classes were subdivided into three divisions. The first class of poet-bards was composed of those who understood history, and dabbled somewhat in sorcery, thus being held in awe as prophets and diviners. The second class consisted of bards attached to private families, whose duties were to chant the praises of the heroes of their particular house. The third class were the heraldic bards, who wrote the national annals and prescribed the laws of etiquette and precedence. These must have exerted a powerful influence on a nation which clung so strictly to ceremony and the privileges of lineage.
The musicians were also divided into three classes, of which the first were harpers, and possessed the title of Doctors of Music; the second class were the players upon the crouth or chrotta, a smaller stringed instrument; the third class consisted of the singers. Many laws and regulations were made to define the privileges of each class, and the classification of new bards took place at an assemblage called the Eisteddfod, which met triennially, and conferred degrees. The highest degree could only be obtained after nine years faithful study. From the thirteenth century Wales also possessed a class of wandering musicians entitled, “Clery dom.” The harps used were various, though the three-stringed one was the national instrument. One variety was made of leather, strung with wire, and is said to have been peculiarly harsh; another called isgywer was so small that it could be played on horseback; another was strung with hair. The order of the bards was hereditary to some extent. King Howel Dha issued edicts regarding them (fixing their rank) about 940 A. D., and in 1078 the whole order was reformed and full regulations made by Gryffith ap Conan. In spite of the persecutions to which they were subjected, the order was sustained for centuries, and Eisteddfods were held under royal commission down to the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
In Ireland minstrelsy has had a foothold in all times. There is a legend that about the year 365 B. C., there occurred in Ireland the first triumph of poetry and music. A young prince, driven from his throne by a usurper, was so moved by a song which his betrothed wrote and caused Craftine, a celebrated bard, to sing to him, that he resolved on hazarding a supreme effort to regain his crown, and succeeded in driving the usurper from his kingdom.
The Irish claim that they were the originators of the Welsh system of bards, but this statement seems to be founded rather on national pride than upon fact, for it is probable that the borrowing was upon the other side. But it is certain that the Irish have ever possessed musical taste and skill.
Gyraldus Cambriensis (who wrote in the twelfth century) says of them: “The aptitude of this people for performing upon musical instruments is worthy of attention.”