Scan 51
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 41. See the scan on archive.org.
1Neither a bridge nor a finger-board are indicated, though both probably existed, to judge from the manner in which the player treats the instrument. Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of this crowd is that it is held somewhat like a violin, rather than in the eastern fashion generally observable on the representations of our early fidicinal instruments.
3A very curious and suggestive representation of an English crowd is to be found in the mural paintings of the Chapter House, Westminster Abbey. It dates from about the year 1400. The walls of the Chapter House were decorated with frescoes during the reign of Edward III., from the year 1336 to 1360; but, as some additions to the paintings are recorded to have been made at a somewhat later period, the instrument in question may have been designed towards the end of the fourteenth century, or in the beginning of the fifteenth. Probably the crowder is intended to represent a royal personage, perhaps King David, to judge from his head-dress, which somewhat resembles a crown. Musical performers designed during the middle ages are often thus adorned, and the usual explanation by our modern musical historians is—whether justified or not I do not pretend to decide—that the figures are meant for King David. The fact of their occurring most frequently in sacred books and ecclesiastical architecture certainly rather supports this opinion.
5Howbeit, the delineation of the crowd in the Chapter House is evidently not fanciful, but is faithfully copied from nature, as the reader may judge from an examination of the engraving (Fig. 10). No doubt the instrument was provided
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