This now-forgotten instrument was the main foundation on which mediæval music rested. By its aid the organ was tuned, and the voice of the singer was trained to the ecclesiastical scales, the principal of which, with their Authentic and Plagal tones, were graduated upon it in parallel lines. The oldest representations of the monochord show it horizontally placed on a table and plucked with the finger: but as the most primitive of bowed instruments is simply a bowed monochord, it may fairly be assumed that the bow was early employed to render its tones continuous. Probably a common military bow was originally used. Nothing could be more natural. The monochord was used, as already said, to tune the organ and to train, the voice: and its efficiency in both respects would be greatly increased by thus prolonging its sounds. The wheel was probably used at an early period as a substitute for the bow; and the monochord was thus ready for further developments.
Adapted so as to be handled vertically, i.e. with one end on the ground, it became the Trummscheidt or Marine Trumpet. [See Tromba Marina.] In its primitive form, the Trummscheidt must have been very unlike the mature instrument as described in that article. As we find it in old pictures, it was a monochord about 6 feet long, the lower part consisting of a large wooden sheath, 4 feet long and about 10 inches wide at the bottom, and diminishing to 5 inches in width where it joins the handle. The handle and head together were about 2 feet long. It had a common bridge, and was played, not in harmonics, but by stopping and bowing in the ordinary way. We know from Mersenne that it was occasionally strung with two or more strings, thus forming, if the expression is permissible, a double or triple monochord.
Whether the second modification of the monochord, in which it retains its horizontal position, and the string is set in vibration by a wheel and handle, and which is represented by the Organistrum or Hurdy-gurdy, preceded or followed the Trummscheidt in point of time cannot be determined. Structurally the Organistrum departs less from the monochord than the Trummscheidt does, because the horizontal position is retained: on the other hand, the invention of the wheel and handle cannot have preceded that of the bow, for which it is a substitute. Originally the Organistrum was an ecclesiastical instrument, and it may be said to be a combination of the monochord and the organ. It was made of large size, and was played, like the organ, by divided labour, the performer being solely concerned with the clavier, while an assistant supplied the rotary or grinding motion which produced the tone. The large Organistrum is found in the sculpture over the celebrated door of Santiago at Compostella, which proves its position among ecclesiastical instruments. But we have also actual specimens which appear to have been used in the church. Two are preserved in the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg, in both of which the size and ornamentation leave no doubt as to their ecclesiastical character.[1]
Meanwhile, the Roman Lyre or Fidicula, in various modified forms, had never gone out of use. Introduced into Celtic Britain by the Romans, the Fidicula was called by the Britons 'Crwth,' a word which signifies 'a bulging box.' Latinised as 'Chrotta,' this became by phonetic decay 'Hrotta' and 'Kotte.' The meaning of the word, taken together with existing pictures, gives us a clue to its shape. The upper part consisted of two uprights and a crosspiece or transtillum, the lower part of a box bulging at the back, and flat at the front where the strings were extended. From the illustrations in old manuscripts it appears that sometimes the resonant box was omitted and the type of the primitive harp was approached. In either form the primitive fidicula must have been of small size. It apparently had neither bridge nor fingerboard, and was plucked with the fingers. But in a celebrated ancient 'Harmony of the Gospels' in the Frankish dialect, attributed to Ottfried von Weissenburg (840–870), we find the Lyre, the Fiddle, the Harp, and the Crwth, all enumerated in the Celestial Concert.[2] Were any of these instruments played with the bow? In other words, does this passage indicate that the art of fiddling is a thousand years old? The writer is inclined to think that it does. It is hard to see how so many sorts of stringed instruments could have been differentiated, except by the circumstance that some of them were played with the bow: and in an English manuscript of not much later date belonging to either the 10th or 11th century, we have a positive representation of an English fiddler with fiddle and bow, the former being, in fact, the instrument called by Chaucer the Ribible, and afterwards generally known by the name in its French form 'Rebec.'
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Certainly in the 11th or 10th, probably in the 9th century, the bow, the bridge, and the fingerboard, all derived from the monochord, had evi-
- ↑ One very large and heavy one has a crucifix carved near the handle, and the lid ornamented with carvings: the other has the sacred monogram and sacred heart.
- ↑
'Sih thar ouh al ruarit
Thas organa fuarit
Lira joh Fidula
Joh managfaitu Swegala
Harpha joh Rotta
Joh thax joh Guates dohta.'
(Schilter, Thesaurus Antiq. Teut. vol. I. p. 379.)
