Scan 53
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
6 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. Printed page 17. See the scan on archive.org.
1The form of this Fiddle is in advance of that supplied in the St. Blasius manuscript, there being four strings, but there is no bridge indicated, and, had there been, it would not have evidenced a Saxon knowledge of tuning the strings to given intervals, and playing upon each string. The little light which has been thrown on the condition of instrumental music at the time renders it doubtful whether any bowed instrument was used, other than for the purpose of rendering a rude extemporaneous accompaniment to the voice or the dance.
3The chief authorities upon ancient minstrelsy agree that the Saxon's love of music was cultivated for centuries with ardour by his Saxon ancestors; it would therefore be reasonable to believe that his knowledge of rude Fiddles was derived from the land of his forefathers, and not from any instrument he discovered in Britain.¹ The similarity of the instrument of the St. Blasius manuscript and of that in the hands of the Saxon Gleeman in the Cottonian manuscript is evidence of Teutonic origin. It is, moreover, strengthened by the fact of the use of the word Fithele by the Anglo-Saxons for nearly two centuries after the Norman Conquest, which name was adopted with but little variation by the whole of the Teutonic
5¹ In Carl Engel's "Researches into the Early History of the Violin Family," 1883, the author disbelieves in the Crwth having been the lineal ancestor of the Violin, and there can be but little doubt of the correctness of his opinion.
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