vocem emittit.” Several illuminated MSS.[1] from the 9th to the 11th century give fanciful drawings, accompanied by descriptions in barbarous Latin, evidently meant to illustrate those described in the letter to Dardanus. The original MS., probably an illustrated transcript of this letter, which served as a copy for the others, was apparently produced at a time when the Roman bagpipe (tibia utricularia) had fallen into disuse in common with other musical instruments, and was unknown except to the few. The Latin description given above is correct and quite unmistakable to any one who knows the primitive form of bagpipe; the illustrations must therefore represent the effort of an artist to depict an unknown instrument from a description. Virdung, Luscinius and Praetorius seem to have had access to a MS. of the Dardanus letter now lost, and to have reproduced the drawings without understanding them. In a MS. of the 14th century at the British Museum,[2] containing a chronicle of the world’s history to the death of King Edward I., the chorus is mentioned and described in similar words to those quoted above; in the margin is an elementary sketch of a primitive bagpipe with blowpipe and chaunter with three holes, but no drone. Bagpipes with drones abound on sculptured monuments and in miniatures of that century. Gerbert gives illustrations of the fanciful chorus from the Dardanus letter and of two other instruments of later date; one of these represents a musician playing the Platerspiel, the other the bagpipe known as chevrette, in which the whole skin of the animal (a kid or pig), with head and feet, has been used for the bag. Edward Buhle,[3] in his admirable work on the musical instruments in the illuminated MSS. of the middle ages, points out that Gerbert,[4] who gives the dates of his two MSS. as “6th and 9th centuries,” has a singular method of reckoning the date of a MS.; he refers to the age of a MS. at the time of writing (18th century), not to the date at which it was produced. The MS. containing the two figures of musicians mentioned above, instead of being ascribed to the 6th century, was six centuries old when Gerbert wrote in 1774, and dates therefore from the 12th century. It is interesting to note that Giraldus Cambrensis[5] mentions the chorus as one of the three instruments of Wales and Scotland, ascribing superior musical skill to the latter. Historians record that King James I. of Scotland was renowned for his skill as a performer on various musical instruments, one of which was the chorus.[6] This bears out the traditional belief that the bagpipe had been a Scottish attribute from the earliest times. The word “chorus” occurs once or twice in French medieval poems with other instruments, but without indication as to the kind of instrument thus designated. The word was probably the French equivalent for the Platerspiel.
See also G. Kastner, Danses des morts (pp. 200 to 202, pl. xv., No. 103); and Dom Pedro Cerone, El Melopeo y maestro (Naples, 1613), p. 248. (K. S.)
CHOSE (Fr. for “thing”), a term used in English law in different senses. Chose local is a thing annexed to a place, as a mill. A chose transitory is that which is movable, and can be carried from place to place. But the use of the word “chose” in these senses is practically obsolete, and it is now used only in the phrases chose in action and chose in possession. A “chose in action,” sometimes called a chose in suspense, in its more limited meaning, denotes the right of enforcing by legal proceedings the payment of a debt, or the obtaining money by way of damages for breach of contract, or as a recompense for a wrong. Less accurately, the money itself which could be recovered is frequently termed a chose in action, as is also sometimes the document evidencing a title to a chose in action, such as a bond or a policy of insurance, though strictly it is only the right to recover the money which can be so termed. Choses in action were, before the Judicature Acts, either legal or equitable. Where the chose could be recovered only by an action at law, as a debt (whether arising from contract or tort), it was termed a legal chose in action; where the chose was recoverable only by a suit in equity, as a legacy or money held upon a trust, it was termed an equitable chose in action. Before the Judicature Act, a legal chose in action was not assignable, i.e. the assignee could not sue at law in his own name. To this rule there were two exceptions:—(1) the crown has always been able to assign choses in action that are certain, such as an ascertained debt, but not those that are uncertain; (2) assignments valid by operation of law, e.g. on marriage, death or bankruptcy. On the other hand, however, by the law merchant, which is part of the law of England, and which disregards the rules of common law, bills of exchange were freely assignable. The consequence was that, with these and certain statutory exceptions (e.g. actions on policies of insurance), an action on an assigned chose in action must have been brought at law in the name of the assignor, though the sum recovered belonged in equity to the assignee. All choses in action being in equity assignable, except those which are altogether incapable of being assigned, in equity the assignee might have sued in his own name, making the assignor a party as co-plaintiff or as defendant. The Judicature Acts made the distinction between legal and equitable choses in action of no importance. The Judicature Act of 1873, s. 25 (6), enacted that the legal right to a debt or other legal chose in action could be passed by absolute assignment in writing under the hand of the assignor.
“Chose in possession” is opposed to chose in action, and denotes not only the right to enjoy or possess a thing, but also the actual or constructive enjoyment of it. The possession may be absolute or qualified. It is absolute when the person is fully and completely the proprietor or owner of the thing; it is qualified when he “has not an exclusive right, or not a permanent right, but a right which may sometimes subsist and at other times not subsist,” as in the case of animals ferae naturae. A chose in possession is freely transferable by delivery. Previously to the Married Women’s Property Act 1882, a wife’s choses in possession vested in her husband immediately on her marriage, while her choses in action did not belong to the husband until he had reduced them into possession, but this difference is now practically obsolete.
CHOSROES, in Middle and Modern Persian Khosrau (“with a good name”), a very common Persian name, borne by a famous king of the Iranian legend (Kai Khosrau); by a Parthian king, commonly called by the Greeks Osroes (q.v.); and by the following two Sassanid kings.
1. Chosroes I., “the Blessed” (Anushirvan), 531–579, the favourite son and successor of Kavadh I., and the most famous of the Sassanid kings. At the beginning of his reign he concluded an “eternal” peace with the emperor Justinian, who wanted to have his hands free for the conquest of Africa and Sicily. But his successes against the Vandals and Goths caused Chosroes to begin the war again in 540. He invaded Syria and carried the inhabitants of Antioch to his residence, where he built for them a new city near Ctesiphon under the name of Khosrau-Antioch or Chosro-Antioch. During the next years he fought successfully in Lazica or Lazistan (the ancient Colchis, q.v.), on the Black Sea, and in Mesopotamia. The Romans, though led by Belisarius, could do little against him. In 545 an armistice was concluded, but in Lazica the war went on till 556. At last, in 562, a peace was concluded for 50 years, in which the Persians left Lazistan to the Romans, and promised not to persecute the Christians, if they did not attempt to make proselytes among the Zarathustrians; on the other hand, the Romans had again to pay
- ↑ The MSS. are a psalterium, 9th century, Bibl. publique, Angers, fol. 13a; Boulogne Psalterium glossatum c. A.D. 1000, MS. No. 20, Bibl. publique. For reproduction of musical instruments see Annales archéologiques, tome iv. (1846), p. 38; Cotton MS., Tiberius C. vi., 10th to 11th century, fol. 16b, British Museum, illustrated in Strutt’s Horda Angel-cynnan, vol. ii. pls. xx. and xxi.; MS. psalter of St Emmeran, now in Munich Staatsbibliothek, clm. 14523, fol. 51b, 10th century, illustrated by Gerbert, De Cantu et Mus. Sacra, tome ii. pi. xxiii.; Paris, Bibl. Nat. Fonds Latin, 7211, 10th century, fol. 150 and 151a.
- ↑ Cotton MS., Nero D. ii. f. 15a, Chronicon ab orbe condito ad obitum Regis Edwardi I., 1307.
- ↑ Die musikalischen Instrumente in den Miniaturen des frühen Mittelalters, part i. “Die Blasinstrumente” (Leipzig, 1903), p. 7, note 1.
- ↑ Op. cit. (1774), tome ii. pl. xxv. No. 13, pp. 130, 151, 152, and pl. xxxi. No. 12.
- ↑ Topographia Hiberniae, cap. xi.
- ↑ Scotichronicon (Fordun and Bower), xvi. 28; and Dalyell, Musical Memoirs of Scotland, p. 47, pls. x. and xi.
