Books › The Violin and its Music, 1881 › scan 99
Scan 99
The Violin and its Music, 1881
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 79. See the scan on archive.org.
1We will now glance at some of the instruments used by the minstrels of the fifteenth century. The harp being essentially the instrument of the minstrel, takes precedence of the rest I shall mention. The extraordinary popularity of this instrument in the middle ages is shown from the accounts we have of the vast number of harpers brought together upon occasions of festival. Mention is made of upwards of one hundred having been assembled. Continuing with the stringed instruments, the Sauterie (Psaltery), a description of lyre—of which there appears to have been a great variety—may be noticed. Although there is no mention of bowed instruments in connection with the minstrels of Edward IV., it may be assumed they were numbered with the rest; but, in any case, we know they were in use in England. It is difficult to know how to describe this class of instrument, so varied are the names applied by different authorities—Rebec, Rote, Vielle, Fiddle, Viol, and Violin—that all these names applied indiscriminately could convey any notion at all approaching correctness of the bowed instruments of the fifteenth century is impossible. To describe the virginals of Queen Elizabeth's time as a grand pianoforte would give a very erroneous notion of that instrument, yet Violinists of the nineteenth century have been told over and over again that Violins were in Elizabeth's state band. Whatever bowed instrument it was, the difference between it and our Violin would be as marked as that of the
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