N’ama onques tabour, ne point ne li agrée,
N’onques tabour n’i ot quant el fu espousée.
La douce mère Dieu ama son de viele.
No. 124. The Tabor, or Drum.
No. 125. Bruin turned Piper.
The artist who carved the curious stalls in Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster, seems to have entered fully into the spirit displayed by this satirist, for in one of them, represented in our cut No. 124, he has introduced a masked demon playing on the tabor, with an expression apparently of derision. This tabor presents much the form of a bushel measure, or rather, perhaps, of a modern drum. It may be remarked that the drum is, in fact, the same instrument as the tabor, or, at least, is derived from it, and they were called by the same names, tabor or tambour. The English name drum, which has equivalents in the later forms of the Teutonic dialects, perhaps means simply something which makes a noise, and is not, as far as I know, met with before the sixteenth century. Another carving of the same series of stalls at Westminster, copied in our cut No. 125, represents a tame bear playing on the bagpipes. This is perhaps intended to be at the same time a satire on the instrument itself, and upon the strange exhibitions of animals domesticated and taught various singular performances, which were then so popular.
No. 126. Royal Minstrelsy.