The harp was certainly Saxon in its origin, although some have imagined they could discover traces of it in Greek, Roman, and even Egyptian antiquities. This instrument was at first nothing but a triangular cithern ([Fig. 187]), in which the sounding-board occupied the whole of one side from top to bottom, instead of being limited to the lower angle, as in the primitive cithara, or confined to the upper part as in the psaltery. The English harp (cithara Anglica) of the ninth century differed but little from the modern instrument; the simplicity and good judgment shown in its shape bear witness to the perfection it had already attained ([Fig. 188]). The number of strings and the shape of this instrument varied constantly from time to time. The sounding-box was sometimes made square, sometimes elongated, and sometimes round. The arms were sometimes straight and sometimes curved; the upper side was often lengthened so as to represent an animal’s head ([Fig. 189]) and the lower angle, on which the instrument rested on the ground, terminated in a griffin’s claw. According to the miniatures in manuscripts, the harp was of a size that the top of it did not extend higher than the head of the performer, who played upon it in a sitting posture ([Fig. 190]). There were, however, harps of a lighter character, which the musician bore suspended from his neck by a strap, and played upon while standing up. This portable harp was the one that may par excellence be called noble, and was the instrument on which the trouvères accompanied their voices when reciting ballads and metrical tales ([Fig. 191]). In the romances of chivalry harpers are constantly introduced, and their harps are ever tuned to some lay of love or war; we find this taking place as well in the north as in the south. “The harp,” says Guillaume de Machaut—
“tous instruments passe,
Quand sagement bien en joue et compasse.”
Fig. 189.—Harpers of the Twelfth Century, from a Miniature in a Bible. (MS. in the Bibl. Imp., Paris.)
Fig. 190.—Harp-player of the Fifteenth Century. From an Enamelled Dish found near Soissons, and preserved in the Bibl. Imp., Paris.
In the sixteenth century, however, it began to fall into disfavour; it was supplanted by the lute ([Fig. 192]), an instrument much used in the thirteenth century, and by the guitar, which was brought into fashion in France from Spain and Italy, and formed the delight both of the court and private circles. At that time every great lord, imitating kings and princesses, wished to have his lute or guitar player, and the poet Bonaventure des Périers, valet de chambre of Marguerite de Navarre, composed for her “La Manière de bien et justement entoucher les Lucs et Guiternes.” The lute and the guitar, which for about two centuries were in high favour in what was called “chamber music,” have since the above-named epoch scarcely been altered in shape. With certain modifications, however, they gave rise to the theorbo and the mandolin, which never attained more than a transient or local favour.
Fig. 191.—Minstrel’s Harp, of the Fifteenth Century. (MS. in the Miroir Historial of Vincent de Beauvais.)
Fig. 192.—Five-stringed Lute. Thirteenth Century. (MS. in the Bibl. Imp., Paris.)
Stringed instruments that were played on by means of bows were not known before the fifth century, and belonged to the northern races; they did not become prevalent in Europe generally until after the Norman invasion. At first they were but roughly made and rendered indifferent service to musical art; but from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, these instruments were subject to many changes both in form and name, and were brought to perfection according as the execution of musicians also improved. The most ancient of these instruments is the crout ([Fig. 193]), which must have produced the rote, so dear to the minstrels and the trouvères of the thirteenth century. The crout, which is the instrument placed by tradition in the hands of the Armorican, Breton, and Scotch bards,[24] was composed of an oblong sounding-box, more or less hollowed out at the two sides, with a handle fixed in the body of the instrument, in which were made two openings that allowed the performer to hold it by the left hand and at the same time to touch the strings; these, as a matter of principle, were only three in number. Subsequently it had four strings, and then six—two of which were played open (à vide). The musician played on it with a straight or convex bow, provided with a single thread either of iron wire or of twisted hair. Except in England, where the crout was national, it did not last beyond the eleventh century. It was replaced by the rote, which was not, as its name (apparently derived from rota, a wheel) would seem to intimate, a vielle or symphonie. It would be useless to seek for the derivation of the name of rota, except in the word crotta, the Latin form of the term crout.