Scan 52
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 42. See the scan on archive.org.
1with a finger-board, which is not indicated, otherwise the player could not have produced a tone from the strings as he covers them with his left hand. He must necessarily have pressed them down, if he grasped them in this way and intended to vibrate them with the bow. The only resemblance which this crowd bears to the rebec is that it has three strings. As regards its shape, its identity with that of the old continental rote, or rotte, is unmistakable. The back was evidently vaulted like that of the lute, though not so much so. The position in which the player holds the instrument before him is in the oriental manner, and is the reverse of that of the crowder from Worcester Cathedral just described.
3A manuscript of the eleventh century, which is in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, contains, among some figures rudely designed, a crowned personage, who is playing an oval three-stringed instrument, which, in shape as well as in construction, is identical with the crowd in Worcester Cathedral. Coussemaker ("Annales Archéologiques, dirigées par Didron Aine," Vol. iii., p. 151, Paris, 1845) calls the French instrument a crout; and Fétis ("Histoire Générale de la Musique," vol. iv., p. 345) notices it as a crouth. The player, who is supposed to represent King David, holds it in his left hand and sounds the strings with a bow much curved, which he holds in his right hand. He is evidently not eliciting sweet music from his instrument, since his bow is placed below the bridge. Such inaccuracies in the representations of musical performers occur not unfrequently in the illustrations dating from the middle ages. However, some slight discernment generally enables the student to detect them and to understand what is really meant. Fétis believes that the instrument is the crwth trithant of the Welsh; but this can hardly be the case if, as Edward Jones
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.