Nus riches hom ne doit son de tabour amer.
Quant il est bien tendu et on le vent hurter,
De demie grant lieue le puet-on escouter;
Ci a trop mauvès son por son chief conforter.
No. 124. An Organ Player.
The musical instruments used by the mediæval gleemen and minstrels form in themselves a not uninteresting subject. Those enumerated in the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies are the harp (hearpe, cithara), the byme, or trumpet, the pipe, “or whistle,” the fithele, viol, or fiddle, the horn, and the trumpet, the latter of which was called in Anglo-Saxon truth and særga. To these we must certainly add a few others, for the drum or tabor seems to have been in use among them under some form, as well as the cymbal, hand-bells, lyre struck by a plectrum, and the organ, which latter was already the favourite church instrument. A portable organ was in use in the middle ages, of which we give a figure ([No. 124]), from a manuscript in the British Museum of the earlier part of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 14 E. iii.). This hand-organ was known also by the name of the dulcimer. It occurs again in the following group ([No. 125]), taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Addit. No. 10,293), where the performer on the dulcimer is accompanied by two other minstrels, one playing on the bagpipe, the other on the viol or fiddle.
No. 125. A Group of Minstrels.
No. 126. David and his Musicians.
Each of the figures in this group is dressed in a costume so different from the others that one might almost suppose them engaged in a masquerade, and they seem to discountenance the notion that the minstrels were in the habit of wearing any dress peculiar to their class. In this respect, their testimony seems to be confirmed by the circumstance that minstrels are mentioned sometimes as wearing the dresses which have been given them, among other gifts, as a reward for their performances. The illuminated letter here introduced ([No. 126]), which is taken from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Harl. No. 5102), represents king David singing his psalms to the harp, while three musicians accompany him. The first, who sits beside him, is playing on the shalm or psaltery, which is frequently figured in the illuminations of manuscripts. One of the two upper figures is playing on bells, which also is a description of music often represented in the illuminations of different periods; and the other is blowing the horn. These are all instruments of solemn and ecclesiastical music. In the next cut ([No. 127]), taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), the shalm is placed in the hands of a nun, while a friar is performing on a rather singularly shaped cittern, or lute.
