The chorus, which in the time of St. Jerome was composed of a skin and two tubes, one forming the mouth, the other the bell-end ([Fig. 161]), must have presented a very great similarity to the modern bagpipes. In the ninth century its shape had changed but little, except that we sometimes find two bell-ends, and the membranous air-reservoir is in some examples replaced by a kind of case made of metal or resonant wood (bois sonore). Subsequently this instrument was transformed into a simple dulcimer.
The calamus, called the chalemelle or chalemie, which derived its origin from the calamus or reed-pipe of the ancients, became in the sixteenth century a treble to the hautboy, the bombarde being its counter-bass and tenor, and the bass being executed on the cromorne. There was, however, quite a group of hautboys. The douçaine or doucine, a soft flute, the great hautboy of Poitou played the parts of tenor or of fifth. The length of the hautboy having been found inconvenient, it was divided into pieces united in a movable cluster (faisceau) known by the name of fagot. This instrument was afterwards called courtaut in France, and sourdeline or sampogne in Italy, where it had become a kind of bagpipe, like the muse or estive. The muse de blé was a simple reed-pipe, but the muse d’Aussay (or d’Ausçois, district of Auch) was certainty a hautboy. With regard to the bagpipes, properly so called, they generally bore the name of chevrette, chevrie, or chièvre, on account of the skin of which the bag was made. They were also designated by the names of pythaule and cornemuse, drone-pipe ([Fig. 162]).
Fig. 160.—German Musicians playing on the Flute and Goat’s Horn. (Drawn and Engraved by J. Amman.)
The flaïos de saus, or reed-flutes, were nothing but mere whistles, such as village children are still in the habit of making in the spring; but there were, says an ancient author, more than twenty kinds, “as many loud as soft,” which were coupled by pairs in an orchestra. The fistule, the souffle, the pipe, and the fretiau or galoubet, were all small flageolets played on by the left hand while the right marked the time on a tambourine or with the cymbals. The pandorium, which has been classed among the flutes without its shape and character of tone being rightly determined, must have presented, at least at its origin, some similarity of sound to the stringed instrument called pandore (pandora).
Fig. 161.—Chorus with single Bell-end with Holes. (Ninth Century, MS. of Saint-Blaise.)
Fig. 162.—Bagpiper, Thirteenth Century. (Sculpture on the Musicians’ Hall at Rheims.)
Trumpets formed a much more numerous class than the flutes. In Latin they were called tuba, lituus, buccina, taurea, cornu, claro, salpinx, &c.; in French, trompe, corne, olifant, cornet, buisine, sambute, &c. In most cases, however, they derived their name either from their shape, the sound which they produced, the material whereof they were made, or the use for which they were specially intended. Thus, among military trumpets of copper or brass, the names of some (claro, clarasius) indicating the piercing sound which they produced; the names of others seem rather to refer to the appearance of their bell-ends ([Fig. 164]), which imitated the head of a bird, a horn, a serpent, &c. Some of these trumpets were so long and heavy that a foot or stand was required to support them, while the performer took the end in his mouth and blew through it with full power of breath ([Fig. 163].)
The shepherds’ horns, made of wood rimmed with brass, were a heavy and powerful kind of speaking-trumpet, which in the eighth century the Welsh herdsmen and those of the landes of Cornouaille always carried with them ([Fig. 165].) When the barons or knights desired to convey any signals rendered necessary either in war or hunting, they were in the habit of using horns of a much more portable character, which were suspended at their girdles; they used them, also, as drinking vessels when occasion required. At first these instruments were generally made of nothing but buffalo’s or goat’s horns; but when the fashion arose of working delicately in ivory, they took the name of olifant, an appellation destined to become famous in the old romances of chivalry, in which the olifant played a very important part ([Fig. 166]). To cite only one example among a thousand, Roland, when overwhelmed by numbers in the valley of Ronceveaux, sounded the olifant in order to call Charlemagne’s army to his aid.