Scan 69
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
13 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 59. See the scan on archive.org.
1originally the same meaning. The explanation of some modern writers, according to which the crout was distinguished from the rote by having the addition of a finger-board, is unsupported by historical facts. Although the earlier instruments of this description had no finger-board, properly speaking, the player, by putting his hand into the hole cut into the upper portion of the instrument, was generally enabled to modify the pitch of at least one of the strings by pressing it down at different distances on the soundboard. The open strings merely served as a rude accompaniment.
3Before dismissing this precious rote from Amiens, attention must be drawn to its remarkable resemblance to the English crowd of about the year 1400, depicted on page 42 (Fig. 10).
5In a poem by Guiraut de Calanson, of the twelfth century, as many as seventeen strings are given to a rotte:—
7 E faitz la rota
8 A 17 cordas garnir.
10As long as the strings were merely twanged, a large number was not only not inconvenient, but was actually desirable. Later, when the bow was occasionally used with the rotte, it was found, no doubt, practical to reduce the number of strings. Even the immediate precursors of our violin, the reader may be reminded, had more than four strings, and the reduction of the number was evidently adopted when the players acquired a greater command over the finger-board and a greater skill in managing the bow. The further they advanced in these accomplishments, the more they found a great number of strings only cumbersome. However, some of the early mediæval instruments played with a bow had only a few strings.
12The roet, or the rotte of the Dutch, was a stringed instrument played with a plectrum. According to Van der Straten ("La Musique aux Pays-Bas," Vol. iv., p. 111) it was also called pleie; at all events, it appears to be thus designated in a poem by Van Maerlant, which dates from the thirteenth century. Moreover, the liceon mentioned by Van Maerlant,
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