Scan 42
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 32. See the scan on archive.org.
1exhibits an instrument which appears to be rather a kind of viol. The sculpture is evidently in too dilapidated a condition to convey a clear impression of the original shape of the instrument.
3As might perhaps be expected, the time when the crwth began to interest intelligent foreigners is not remote. The earliest mention of it by English antiquaries occurs, as far as is known, in John Leland's "Collectanea," dating from the sixteenth century, which is noticed in Vol. ii. of Hawkins's "History of Music." Edward Jones, notwithstanding his anxiety to claim for the Welsh instruments the highest antiquity, cannot give any distinct evidence of the use of the bow with the crwth earlier than about four centuries ago. He mentions, however ("Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards," p. 116, London, 1794), a species of fiddle, called crwth trithant (three-stringed crwth), which was, he explains, "a sort of violin, or, more properly, a rebec," and which anteceded the six-stringed crwth. The crwth trithant was evidently the more popular of the two instruments, since it was usually played by the ordinary minstrels, while the six-stringed crwth was confined to the superior class of bards.
5It admits hardly of a doubt that the crwth trithant was the mediæval rebec, derived from the rebab of the Arabs, and that this instrument suggested to the Welsh the employment of the bow on their old crwth, the strings of which were previously twanged. At all events, the rebab of the Arabs has led to the adoption of the bow on several other stringed instruments, in use in different European countries, the strings of which were originally twanged; and indications are not wanting which lead to the conclusion that precisely the same must have happened with the crwth.
7Edward Jones is unable to produce an earlier authentic record of the existence of the crwth in Wales than the mention of it in a poem of the fifteenth century; and even this date has not been satisfactorily ascertained, to judge from his remark ("Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards," p. 115, London, 1794): "It seems to be a production of the fifteenth century." The name of its author
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