The Early English Organ Builders and their work/Lecture
THE EARLY ENGLISH
ORGAN BUILDERS
AND THEIR WORKS.
In responding to the wish of the Council of the College of Organists, that I should deliver a lecture before its body, I have chosen for my subject "The Early English Organ Builders and their Works, from the Fifteenth Century to the Period of the Great Rebellion." This offers a new field of inquiry, and one of great interest to the English organist. I have not adopted it, however, without some little hesitation, fearing that it might be considered of too archæological a character to come within the legitimate objects of this institution. But, after giving the matter due consideration in all its bearings, I arrived at the conclusion that the organist cannot be too minutely acquainted with the history of his instrument in order that he may reason upon the various points that may arise in the course of his studies, and draw his inferences from correct data.
No subject in connection with musical art, however remotely, should be ignored by this College. The object of the lectures should be to impart information and to educate the mind of the organist, so that he may take his place upon an equality with the professors of the other arts and sciences. That he does not do so, at present, is, I think, evident, from the way in which music is spoken of out of doors by our legislators and by many men eminent in literature—men, who, both from position and education, ought certainly to know better. Take, for instance, the late discussion in the House of Commons, in which musicians generally were spoken of as mere buffoons, public toys, little better in the scale of art than the strolling player or the conjuror! Again, one of our modern popular writers of fiction, who masks himself under the designation of "Cornelius O'Dowd," thus gives his opinion of the musical profession in one of the recent numbers of "Blackwood":
Mendelssohn alone of all our present-day men had genius: as for the others, there is not one of them whose worst ballad is not better than he who wrote it. They are the shallowest thinkers, the worst informed on matters of general interest, and the poorest conversationalists the world produces. They are as circumscribed as the actor, and they have not that humoristic tendency which gives to the actor all the emphasis of his character. Next in order to musicians come hairdressers.
What shall we say to the pitiful scribbler whose knowledge of our glorious art and its professors is so warped and so shallow! Words are useless; it were better to leave him in the undisturbed possession of his own feelings. We have, however, the satisfaction of believing in the maxim of our immortal poet, that "such a man is not to be trusted;" or with Luther, who exclaims, "Whoever despises music I am displeased with him. Next to theology I give a place to music; for thereby all anger is forgotten, the devil is driven away, and melancholy and many tribulations, and evil thoughts are expelled."
That music does not receive due recognition in this country is certain, from the way in which its professors are treated. Men of science, literature, poets, painters, architects—indeed, men of almost every calling, not excepting opulent tradesmen, are received into the highest circles; but musicians rarely, if ever.
It behoves us, then, to take a stand, to raise our voice and to proclaim to the world our right to occupy a certain position in society—a position from which at present we are excluded. And if, in some instances, this exclusion be not quite unjust, so much the more does it become our duty towards our profession and ourselves "to extend our knowledge on all subjects, especially those connected with our art, as the best means of internally strengthening ourselves to resist the external prejudice.
The establishment of this College, then, is of the highest importance in bringing forward the peculiar claims of the church musician. We are a body of musicians gathered together for one specific purpose, and bound by one common tie to advance as far as may be the honourable calling of Professor of Music, more especially as relates to the important office of organist, and to claim the proper recognition of his true position in society. Let us, then, never forget the object for which this institution has been founded.
Without further preface, I shall commence my subject, which may be considered as an "unwritten chapter" in the history of the organ.
We are sometimes inclined to overrate the progress of our own time in any branch of knowledge, and to believe that no previous age, nation or individual, has ever arrived at the same degree of development as ourselves. This may be true in some measure as regards the art of organ building, but it must not be forgotten that in early times there lived men famous in this craft—men who devoted their lives and genius to its improvement, and whose names ought surely to be handed down, and a place assigned them, in the roll of those who have honourably contributed to the advancement of the art they professed.
The works of the mediæval organ builders which once resounded in our abbeys and cloisters—those monuments of Gothic art now fast mouldering into dust—have, it is true, long since passed away; but records of many of those works exist, and such records as can now be recovered from their oblivion, may perhaps furnish useful subjects of reflection to the present generation.
The early history of the organ, I need scarcely tell you, is involved in great obscurity, and the more we attempt to investigate the facts that have come down to us, and to reconcile conflicting statements, the more perplexed does the subject appear.
As regards the origin of this noble instrument, we may safely assume it to have been the simple series of reeds of various lengths, blown into by the mouth of the performer at the upper ends, and known as the Pipes of Pan. The Greek and Latin shepherds made this primitive instrument of strong reeds, or some other suitable wood. It consisted originally of seven or eight reeds of graduated length, fastened together with wax. The number was afterwards extended to ten or twelve. The Syrinx or Pipes of Pan, by its form and arrangement, may be regarded as the first kind of organ building; for here were a number of pipes placed together in ranks, according to their succession of tones, and sounded by wind.
To obviate the fatiguing motion of the head or hands, by inflating the pipes in some other manner, seems to have been the object of desired attainment for centuries. At length this was accomplished. Among the Cicilian antiquities discovered in Syria, and recently brought to this country by Mr. W. B. Barker, is the portion of a figure playing upon a musical instrument of singular curiosity and interest.[1] This instrument, of which I have here a drawing, forms a connecting link between the pipes of Pan and the organ.
Let us examine it. It consists of a vertical row of pipes, the length unknown, as the lower portion is wanting; they are inserted into a small air-chest, which appears inflated in the middle part. The right hand is operating upon it with a kind of cushion or compress, by which the performer forces the air into the pipes, and which he seems to apply to different parts of the instrument at will. There appears to have been a prolongation of the central part of the instrument across the left arm: the loss of this is much to be lamented, as that would have shown us more of its construction, and also how the left hand was employed in playing it. This curious relic may be looked upon as the earliest attempt to combine the pneumatic chest with the Pandean organ, which still retains its place on the breast of the player, though he no longer operates upon it with his mouth.
I need hardly say that this monument is of the highest importance in the history of the organ. It has never been pointed out by any musical writer, and I may fairly take to myself the credit of giving it a place in our musical history.
An enigmatical description of the organ by Julian the philosopher—or, as some call him, the Apostate—first noticed by Ducange, has frequently been cited by modern writers.[2] Burney misunderstood it, and Fétis has given it quite a wrong meaning. The enigma is this: "I see a row of reeds; surely from another and a brazen soil have they quickly sprung. Nor are they agitated by our winds, but a blast rushing from a cavern of bull’s-hide makes its way from below the root of reeds with many openings; and a highly gifted man with nimble fingers handles the yieldling rods of the pipes, while they, softly vibrating, press out the sound."
This enigma so accurately describes the ancient monument I have just brought under your notice, that, taking them together, the pictorial representation and the poetical description, we have a complete refutation of M. Fétis's opinion, that it was not the organ but the bag-pipe, that was known to the ancients.
I do not intend to follow the various steps that were made from time to time to bring nearer to perfection the rude instrument we have just seen; suffice it to say that the organ had its origin from these primitive attempts. If we admit this, which I think we must, what a marvel then, it is, that our glorious organ, with its myriads of pipes, its net-work of mechanical detail, its powerful wind apparatus, its array of stops, and its tiers of key-boards for hands and feet; what a marvel, I say, that this "king of instruments" should have arisen out of such rude and simple beginning.
Very little is known of the organs of ancient Greece; and it is very difficult to understand the classic authors who mention them. M. de Caumont, a modern French writer, says, "The ancients appear to have known two sorts of organ—the hydraulic and the pneumatic, but they were both acted upon by means of æriform fluid, which in the first would be the effect of a fall of water, as in our forges, or of a current of water which turned a wheel, which of itself moved some secret handle; or rather by the steam of boiling water, as in our steam engines; or lastly by means of hydraulic bellows."
Ctesibius of Alexandria (who flourished according to the best accounts, about a century before Christ), a great mechanic, is said to have made many improvements in the wind apparatus of the organ, but the descriptions of his labours that have been handed down to us are scarcely intelligible, and certainly would not repay the time and thought required to elucidate them.[3]
One thing is certain with regard to the ancient organ of Greece—it was unprovided with a wind-chest. The air was generated in certain cylindrical vessels and supplied direct to the pipes, the number of vessels, depending, of course, upon the number of pipes and the size of the instrument. The supply of wind thus obtained must have been very unequal, but it was probably adequate to the small requirements of this early period.
A very interesting treatise on pneumatics by one Hero of Alexandria, supposed to have been a pupil of Ctesibius, has lately been translated from the original Greek, and published by Mr. Bennet Woodcroft.[4] Hitherto we have been content to rely on Vitruvius for our knowledge of the ancient organ, but now we have an independent authority; for the work of Hero was unknown to Vitruvius, and both describe, with considerable differences, the construction of the hydraulic and of the pneumatic organ.
Having briefly pointed out the treatise of Hero of Alexandria, for the benefit of those who think it worth while to investigate the subject, I shall merely call your attention to this ancient author's drawing of "An altar organ blown by the agency of a wind-mill." The cylindrical vessel forcing the air into the pipes by means of a piston is here shown.
In our own days, in a journal of only twenty-five years back, we read that "a novel organ has lately been erected by the Prince Brancaforte, upon a hill in his park, near Messina: it is supplied with wind by a wind-mill, and can be distinctly heard two or three miles distant."
Probably the Italian prince thought that he had hit upon a novelty when he erected his wind-mill organ; but we now find that his device had been anticipated more than eighteen hundred years before.
Organs were early introduced into the Christian Church—indeed at a much earlier period than is commonly assigned. According to Julianus, a Spanish bishop who flourished in 450, they were in use in his time. Aldhelm the Anglo-Saxon, who died in 709, mentions them, and speaks of the gilding of the external pipes.[5] This passage in the De Laude Virginum, as Mr. Sharon Turner justly observes, is alone sufficient to refute the generally received story of Muratori, that the first organ in Europe was that sent by the Emperor Constantine V to King Pepin in 756. In 812, Louis Le Debonnaire placed one in the Church of Aix-la-Chappelle; and one is mentioned as having been erected at Winchester in the tenth century.
Gervase the Monk, describing the destruction of the Cathedral of Canterbury by fire in 1174, especially mentions the burning of the organ; and Durandus, in the thirteenth century, alludes to the organ as common in the churches of his time. These facts completely refute the notion of Bingham and his followers that the instrument was first introduced into the Church by Marinus Sanutus in 1290.[6]
The organ erected in the monastery at Winchester, just mentioned, requires more than a passing notice. It is described by a monk named Wulstan, whose fidelity, as Lingard remarks, cannot be questioned, since he dedicated his "Life of St. Swithin," in which the description occurs, to Elphegus, Bishop of Winchester, by whose order the organ was erected, about the middle of the tenth century.[7]
To quote the lengthy account left us by the good monk,[8] and the absurd deductions that have been made from it would occupy more time than we could spare; suffice it to say that Mr. Wackerbarth, in his "Music and the Anglo-Saxons," states that he believes that it possessed registers or stops, and a key-board furnished with all the chromatic semi-tones! Mr. Arthur Ashpitel, a modern writer and archæologist, believes all this, and much more. He thinks it had "forty stops!" and after summing up his opinions, concludes with this remarkable passage:—"The instrument, therefore, would be the size of that magnificent one at St. Sepulchre's, Newgate Street!"[9]
Now I think that this lecture on the Early History of the Organ, is not without its use, if it only clears up some of these important points, about which clever and even scientific men are daily making mistakes. The slightest investigation into the progress of the science of music would alone aid us materially in drawing our conclusions, even without the valuable assistance of archæology; but when both are combined, we feel that we are treading on sure ground.
The organ described by Wulstan was a most primitive instrument, without registers or stops, of any kind, and unprovided with a key-board. Its compass is uncertain, but the only chromatic note it possessed was the B flat It had a set of rods or levers, in connection with the pipes; and the performance of the organist consisted in drawing these to and fro, as the sounds of the various pipes they covered were required. It had four hundred pipes, and twenty-six pair of bellows; but as it had no wind-chest this number was required to supply the unusually large number of pipes.
All doubts upon the matter, should any exist, may be set at rest by a perusal of Theophilus' valuable treatise upon the "Art of Organ Building," a work of the latter part of the eleventh century to which I was the first to call attention in my "History of the Organ." No one, after reading the worthy monk's curious directions for organ building, will question the primitive state of the art at this early period.
I may also, in passing, correct an error which has become very prevalent as regards a similar organ, of the same date, described as being in Westminster Abbey. Dom. Bedos, and after him Mason, La Trobe, Wackerbarth, Professor Pole, Seidel, Ashpitel, and a host of others, all cite the fact; but it is purely a mistake—giving the name Westminster instead of Winchester—which, originating with Dom. Bedos, has been handed down to the present day without investigation.
In the twelfth century many general improvements may be traced in the continental organs—improvements which, however, made but small way in our own country. The keyboard was invented, and although of very clumsy mechanism, it was a step in the right direction. Each key was originally many inches broad, and struck down by the fist of the performer, a method resembling that of carillon playing still in use in some parts of France, Germany and Holland. The use of compound stops also became known towards the end of this century, and the examples of Hucbald and Guido found illustration and interpretation.
A gradual course of improvement is traced in organs erected at Dijon in the thirteenth century, at Halberstad in 1360, and at Nuremberg in 1468, about which period pipes of the large dimension of sixteen and of thirty-two feet began to be made. The clumsy keys had disappeared long before, and the number of those which replaced them was increased both upwards and downwards. In fact the progress of harmony rendered these improvements inevitable.
Chromatic notes now gradually began to appear in the keyboard; the F sharp in the fourteenth century; the C sharp and E flat early in the following century; and the G sharp towards its close. The B flat was contained in the Winchester organ before alluded to, and probably in many of the earlier instruments, as it formed part of the Greek scale.
Before the close of the sixteenth century all the principal stops now employed had come into use, and the general plan of a large organ, in all its most important particulars was fully developed.
I have now arrived at that part of my lecture when it will be necessary to introduce to your notice some of those old English worthies in the craft of organ-building, whose names are now to be added to the roll of fame.
But first, let me again remind you that our own country did not keep pace with Germany and Holland in organ building. What was the cause of this? We must not plead the nature of our forms of religious worship; for the countries I have named bear witness that Protestantism by no means tends to discourage the use or the improvement of the organ. Perhaps the cause of the evil is to be traced to our general indifference as regards musical matters, and more especially when in connection with religious worship. But to dwell upon this theme would lead us far away from our subject matter.
The Precentor's accounts of Ely Cathedral for the year 1407, give the earliest details of the "Expenses of making an Organ," with which I am acquainted Translated from the Latin they read as follows:
| s. | d. | |
| "20 Stones of lead | 16 | 9 |
| 4 White horses' hides for 4 pair of bellows | 7 | 8 |
| Ashen hoops for the bellows | 4 | |
| 10 Pairs of hinges | 1 | 10 |
| The Carpenter, 8 days making the bellows | 2 | 8 |
| 12 Springs | 3 | |
| 1 Pound of glue | 1 | |
| 1 Pound of tin | 3 | |
| 6 Calf skins | 2 | 6 |
| 12 Sheep skins | 2 | 4 |
| 2 Pounds of quicksilver | 2 | 0 |
| Wire, nails, cloth, hoops and staples | 1 | 0 |
| Fetching the organ-builder and his board, 13 weeks | 40 | 0 |
| Total | £3 17 | 8" |
The small proportion of tin, and the large quantity of lead made use of for the pipes is remarkable. The quicksilver was probably used to silver the latter; or perhaps to soften the other metals. It is to be regretted that the maker's name is not given, but we may be sure that he was a Monk.
The Fabric Rolls of York Minster are among the earliest and most interesting documents of their class. Particulars of the "organs" commence as early as 1399, and in 1419 we have the following entries:
"For constructing two pair of bellows for the organ, 46s. 8d.
"For constructing the ribs of the bellows of the same organ, by John Couper, 12d."
A representation of the instrument, of this date, is still existing in York Cathedral; beneath the great niche over the west window, of which there is an organ carved in the pediment; the pipes appear without a case, and it has a single row of keys on which an angel is playing from a music-book held by two small boys or choristers below, while another is behind blowing the organ with a pair of common bellows. A similar device is carved over a door on the north wall of the Cathedral of Utrecht.
It is doubtful whether John Couper was the builder of the organ, or merely the carpenter. The ambiguity of the scribe has perhaps deprived this worthy of the honour of being the earliest English organ builder on record.
The next entry, in 1457, is more clear:
"To John Roose, brother of the order of Preaching Friars, who repaired and restored the organ at the altar of the B. V. M. in the Cathedral Church of the City of York, and one pair of bellows for the same, 36s. 8d."
Again, under the date 1469, we have:
"To brother John for constructing two pair of bellows for the great organ, and repairing of the same, 15s. 2d."
Both these entries undoubtedly relate to the same person; and to Father John Roose must be awarded the distinction of being the first English organ builder of whom we have any authentic account.
Other entries occur in the York records where "organ menders" are mentioned.[10] In 1470, we have the name of George Gaunte; and in 1473, of Richard Sowerby. But in 1485 we have the following specific and curious entry:
"To John Hewe for repairing the organ at the altar of B. V. M. in the Cathedral Church, and for carrying the same to the House of the Minorite Brethren, and for bringing back the same to the Cathedral Church, 13s. 9d."
This is the earliest instance I have found of a practice afterwards common—that of one church lending another its organ.[11]
Surely no further proof need be required of the smallness of our cathedral organs at the end of the fifteenth century.
But I must remind you that it was not uncommon before the Reformation for a cathedral to possess several organs. The York records particularly mention the organ at the altar, and the large organ in the choir. It was the smaller organ that was lent to the Minorite Brethren. There were doubtless several other organs in the various chapels. The Cathedral of Worcester had three organs; one in the Chapel of St. Edmund; another in the Chapel of St. George; and a large organ in the choir. Davies, of Kidwelly, in his "Ancient Rites of Durham,"[12] has left us a curious passage concerning the organs of that rich foundation. He says:
"There were three pair of organs belonging to the said quire, for maintenance of God's service, and the better celebrating thereof. One of the fairest pair of the three stood over the quire door, only opened and played upon on principal feasts, the pipes being all of the most fine wood, and workmanship very fine, partly gilt upon the inside, and the outside of the leaves and covers up to the top, with branches and flowers finely gilt, with the name of Jesus gilt with gold. There were but two pair more of them in all England of the same making; one in York and another in Paul's. Also there was a lantern of wood like unto a pulpit, standing and adjoining to the wood-organs over the quire door, where they had wont to sing the nine lessons in the old time, on principal dayes, standing with their faces towards the high altar. The second part stood on the north side of the quire, being never played upon but when the four doctors of the Church were read, viz., Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory and Jerome, being a pair of fair large organs, called the Cryers. The third pair were daily used at ordinary service."
This being the first time the expression "a pair of organs" has occurred, I may as well explain that it meant simply an organ with more pipes than one. Johnson, Heywood, and other of the old writers, always use the term pair in the sense of an aggregate, and as synonymous with set; thus we have "a pair of beads," "a pair of cards," "a pair of chessmen," "a pair of organs." When speaking of a flight of stars we often say a pair of stars. We also have "a pair of steps"; so this ancient form of expression, although obsolete in most cases, is still in use at the present day.
This old expression has been a source of great vexation to archæologists, as well as to musical writers. Albert Way thought that the term had reference to the "double bellows." Douce, that it referred to an instrument "with a double row of pipes." Nichols, the historian of Leicestershire, says, "a pair of organs was the term at that time when there were two kinds of organs, the one fixed and the other portable." A more recent writer, Mr. Ashpitel, enlarging upon this passage, adds, "a payre of organs consisted of two organs conjoined, with two sets of keys one above the other; one small, and called the choir, or more probably the chayre organ; and the other the great organ, built, as its name imports, on a large scale, and used in forte passages." This is by far the most erroneous explanation of the term yet given. It was probably hastily penned, as the writer is far too well acquainted with ancient documents to have written it after even the slightest reflection. Let us hope, however, that the question is set at rest for the future.
The Household Book of the Duke of Norfolk, an interesting document of the fifteenth century, printed by the Roxburgh Club in 1844, has a valuable entry for our purpose. Under the date of 1482 we read:
"Item, the xxi. day of March, my Lord payd Robert Borton of Stowmarket, the organ-maker, for mendyng of organys, vijs."
This person, from his being called "organ-maker of Stowmarket," was, in all probability, a professional builder, not a priest. This conjecture receives some confirmation from an entry that immediately follows the one just given, where the person spoken of is styled priest:
"Item, the same tyme my Lord toke Sir William Davyes, the pryst, to pay for a lok [lock?] to the orgyns, iiijd."
Sir was formerly the designation of certain members of the clergy. Bishop Percy says: "Within the limits of my own memory all Readers in chapels were called Sirs, and of old have been writ so; whence, I suppose, such of the laiety as received the noble order of knighthood, being called Sirs too, for distinction sake had Knight writ after them, which had been superfluous if the title Sir had been peculiar to them."
Some very curious illustrations of the history of the organ in the fifteenth century may be gleaned from old wills. It is not curiosity merely that is gratified by these inquiries, but we receive ample scope for philosophical reflection in contemplating the customs, habits and superstitious bigotry which prevailed at this distant era.
In the will of John Baret, of Bury, dated 1463, we have this clause:
"Item, I wille yt eche man yt syngy it prykked songe on ye day of my enterment at our ladyes messe have ijd. and ye players at ye orgenys ijd., and eche child id., and yt yei preyid [be begged] to dyner the same day."
Lord John Beauchamp, who made his will in 1475, says:
"My body to be buried in the Church of the Dominican Friars at Worcester, in a new chapel there now to be made on the north side of the quire, to which house of friars, for my burial there I bequeath xx marks to be bestowed in vestments and stuff, beside an organ of my own."
I shall quote another piece of mortuary evidence, from the will of John Baude, of Woolpett, dated 1501:
"I wyll that the tenement namyd the Cok wt all the ptynaunce thereto belonging, be solde by the hande of my executors, and the mony thereof comying, the fyrst pt I will it be gwovyn to synge for me and all my benefactors by the term of a holl yer, and the ijde pt of the mony, as fast as yt may be receyuyd, I will ther be brought one peyre of orgynys to the Church of Wulpett."[13]
The Rev. Sir William Cope, in a brief but interesting paper, on "Early Organ Builders in England," printed in "The Parish Choir," was the first to bring forward the name of one William Wotton, of Oxford, as "the earliest organ builder in this country," of whom any trace could be found.
I am, however, constrained to deprive Wotton of this honour, having produced many claimants of an earlier date.
In 1486, William Wotton, "orkyn maker," constructed a "pair of organs" for the chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, for the sum of twenty-eight pounds. Two years afterwards he repaired the organ, at a cost of forty shillings. In 1487 he entered into an agreement with the Warden of Merton College to make an organ "lyke unto the newe payr of organs of the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen," for the same sum. This instrument was to be finished by the vigil of Whitsuntide, 1489, and placed in the new roodloft of the chapel.
A very curious and interesting story in connection with this builder is told by Anthony Wood, in his "Annals," A.D. 1486. It is to the following effect:
"A certain poor priest of Oxford, named William Symonds, of the age of twenty-eight years, having a youth of a crafty wit and comely presence to his pupil, contrived (in hope to raise himself to some great Bishoprick), and brought it so to pass, that the said youth should be vulgarly reported by certain noble persons, that bore good will to the House of York, to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence (who before, as 'tis said, had secretly conveyed himself out of prison), to the end that he might be King, and that the House of York might again flourish. But the said Symonds being discovered, was apprehended, and on February 10 confessed in St. Paul's Church, before divers Bishops and Nobles, as also the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Sheriffs of London, that he, by flattery, had seduced the son of a certain organ-maker of the University of Oxford, and had caused him to be sent into Ireland, where he was by many reputed to be the Earl of Warwick, and that he was with the Lord Lovell at Furnsell. Upon which confession he was sent to the Tower, and afterwards (as some say) suffered as a traitor; though others not, but that he was only kept in close prison as long as he lived. Some report that the said youth was named Lambert Symmell, and that he was a baker's son in Oxford; but the Priest's confession was the truest, viz., that he was the son of an organ-maker of the University of Oxford. And who that should be but one William Wotton I cannot tell, knowing very well, from various obscure writs, that such an one, and nobody else professed that art at that time in Oxford."
Wotton's organ in Magdalen College was probably soon replaced by another, or enlarged; for, in 1509, a part-payment is entered for "organs" to John Chamberlayne. Nothing whatever is known of this builder further than he resided in London[14]
Thomas Smyth was an organ builder resident in London in the early part of the sixteenth century. A payment to him is thus recorded in the accounts of the churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, under the date of 1514:
"Item. Paid to Thomas Smyth, organemaker, for mendyng of the grete orgones, xls., and for the small orgones, vs."
Another contemporary builder was a Sir William Argall, a priest, who made an organ for Lambeth Church, in 1517, for the small sum of 10s.
A curious document was discovered, in 1862, among the old papers, in the church chest of Allhallows, Barking, of which a copy was kindly forwarded to me by the late, George Corner, F.S.A. It purports to be "An Indenture, or Contract, between the Churchwardens of Allhallows, Barking, and Anthony Duddyngton, for the organs, A.D. 1519."[15] From this contract we learn that the builder was to include pipes of 5 feet and 8 feet length in his instrument; that he was to use "fyne metall of pure tyn" in their construction; and that he was to have as few "stopped" pipes as "may be convenient." The compass was to be three octaves and five notes, namely, from C below the bass staff to A above the treble staff. The number of stops is not stated, but the builder was to be allowed fifteen months for the completion of his labour, and the price was to be £50.
It is not known what was the ultimate fate of this organ but it seems likely that it was sold for the value of the old metal—"the pure tyn" mentioned in the contract—during the reign of fanaticism in the century following. This seems the more likely, as the church was without an organ in 1675, when it was resolved at a vestry meeting to erect "an organ of convenient size and loudness for the due celebration of the psalmody of the church." According to this resolution, money was collected, and arrangements entered into with Renatus Harris, who erected the organ at present standing in the church.[16]
Nothing more is known of Anthony Duddyngton, "citizen of London"; but it is more than probable that many of the old City organs, destroyed in the great fire, were of his construction.
Organs were not mute in our country parish-churches during the sixteenth century, and constant mention of them is to be found in old accounts.
Among the local builders who have entirely escaped notice, is one Robartt, who lived at Crewkerne about the time of the Reformation. He was an "orgynmaker," who let out organs to churches by the year. Probably this might have been a prevailing practice, but this is the only instance I have met with of it at an early date.
According to a notice preserved in Mr. George Roberts' "Social History of the People of the Southern Counties of England,"[17] this maker was paid by John Hassard, Mayor of Lyme Regis, in 1551, "his year's rent, 10s."
Robartt's instrument seems to have been in the hands of an adept whose services were appreciated, as we learn from the following entry:
"1552. The Mayor and his brethren grant to John Coke £5 yearly in consideration of the good service that he hath performed in the church of King's Lyme from time to time, in singing and playing at organs, and which the said John Coke was to continue during his life, in the best manner he could, as God had endued him to do."
How long Robartt and Coke continued to exercise their harmonious calling is not known; but probably until the protestation of the clergy of the Lower House, within the province of Canterbury, pronounced "that synging and saying of mass, matins or even-song, is but roaring, howling, whisteling, mummyng, conjuring, and jogelyng, and the playing at the organys a foolish vanity."
One word more about John Coke, the "organ-player." He made himself useful to the Mayor, when there were no poor laws, in carrying out charitable objects. The Town Account Book of Lyme Regis has this entry, under the date 1553:—"John Coke found [i.e., provided with all necessaries] the poor children and the clerk." Let us hope that this was not a solitary instance of good feeling, and that worthy John Coke's example was not lost upon his brother organists of the neighbouring localities.
There was an organ in the parish church of Doncaster prior to the magnificent instrument destroyed in the fire; for in the churchwardens' accounts of 1569, Mr. Fenton was paid "13s. 4d. for an organe case." The Parish Registers of this church, under the date July 26th, 1567, record the burial of "James Dempsey, organe maker." It was in the establishment of this worthy, in all probability, that the first Doncaster organ was manufactured.
To return again to Oxford. In 1520 one Barbye was employed in repairing the "little orgayns" in the chapel of Magdalen College; but nothing seems to be known of him. We have also the names of John Hanson, and John Schowt, shortly afterwards. They were probably all three local builders of no great note. The latter, from the spelling of his name, may have been a German.
Another organ builder of this period was named Wyght, or White. Entries of payments to him for work done to the organ of Magdalen College occur in the books from 1531 to 1545. In one of these entries he is called Magister White.[18] from the title here given him, says Sir William Cope, "I have little hesitation in identifying him with the celebrated church writer Robert White, who probably united the art of constructing organs with his higher musical pursuits." Possibly, an entry in the old parish accounts of St. Andrew's, Holborn, may have some reference to this builder:—
"1553. The parishe gave young Whyte £5 for ye great orgaynes which his father made for ye churche."
John Vaucks, "orgayn-master," as he is termed, is another new name in the annals of organ-building. He was employed, in 1533, to set up a new "pair of organs" in the roodloft of Wimborne Minster, for which he was paid by the contributions of the parish; and his work appears to have lasted till the Great Rebellion, which brought it to an untimely end. In the year 1643, among entries for glazing the windows and new covering the roofs with lead (measures often found necessary after a visit of the Parliamentary forces), we find the following: "Paid for some of the organ-pipes, 6d." Here, then, is the fate of John Vauck's handiwork, after a century of use: its pipes scattered about the streets, or stolen for the sake of the metal, and the trouble of those who brought some of them back valued at sixpence. A considerable quantity of materials must, however, have been left, since, in the year following, the churchwardens sold off more than one hundred and forty pounds of old tin no doubt supplied by the organ pipes.[19]
In the list of Henry the Eighth's musical establishment, we find, under the date 1526, the name of "John de John, organmaker." Again, in the King's Household Book, May, 1531, a reward is paid to "Sir John the organ-maker": evidently the same person. Contemporary with him was Father Howe, of London, who tuned the organ in the choir in York Minster, in 1531, for twenty pence. His name occurs at a later period, 1568, as tuning and repairing the organs of St. Mary-at-Hill, St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, and Lambeth. Both these worthies were priests.
Sir John was succeeded as the royal organ builder by William Betun, or Beton. He was an artisan of some pretensions, if we may judge from the fact of his having been employed to build the organ for the old Cathedral of St. Paul's, destroyed in the great fire of 1666. The name of Richard Beynton, and that of the thoroughly English Thomas Browne, occur in old accounts as "mendyng," and otherwise restoring organs, about the middle of the sixteenth century.[20]
A little later we have a builder of the name of Broughe, who appears to have set up a new organ at St. Margaret's, Westminster, thus noticed in the churchwardens' accounts there:
"1590, payde to Mr. Broughe, for changeing of our organs for a payre of his, viijli."
An organ builder flourished at the close of the sixteenth century, who, though his name is now forgotten, seems to have been extensively employed in his day—John Chappington. He appears to have built an organ for Westminster Abbey about 1596; at least we find him in that year selling the old organ of that Collegiate Church to the churchwardens of St. Margaret's:
"Paid to Mr. Chappington for the organs of the Colledge, xiijli. xiijs. iiijd., and the old organs do remayne in the parish church, to be sold by the churchwardens."
The latter part of this entry possibly relates to the organ built by Broughe six years previously. In the following year a further payment was made "to Chappington for the organs lxvjs. viijd."
Chappington built an organ in 1597 for Magdalen College, Oxford, and of the payment for which a memorandum well worth preserving exists in the Liber Computi of that society:
"Paid Mr. Chappington for the organ 35l 13s 8d For colour to decorate the same 2 2 0 For wainscot for the same 3 14 0"
The practice of gilding and painting the pipes was customary at the period, as we may infer from this entry.
The accounts of King's College, Cambridge, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, introduces to our notice an organ builder named Dallam, who escaped my researches when writing the "History of the Organ."
I was then enabled to show, for the first time, that there were three builders of the same name—Dallam, or Dalham, namely, Robert, born in 1602, who built organs for York Minster, for the Music School, and for New College, Oxford, in the cloisters of which he was buried in 1665; Ralph, who was employed at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, at Rugby, Lyme Regis and Greenwich, and who died in 1672; and George Dalham who is mentioned in 1672 as "that excellent organ maker dwelling in Purple Lane, next door to the Crooked Billet." But the builder employed at King's College, Cambridge, in 1606, was clearly older than the three just mentioned, who may in all likelihood have been his sons, following their father's profession.
The accounts I have mentioned purport to be "The charges about the organs, etc., from June 22, 1605, to August 7, 1606." They are so highly interesting that I shall quote a few of the most important items:
"Imprimis payd to Mr. Dallam for his journey from London to Cambridge before he tooke the work in hand, xvs.
"Item for his and his menes charges of their journey coming down to work, xs.
"Item for a thousand six hundred of tynn at 3li. 12s. le c., lvijli. xijs.
"Item for carriage of the premisses being bought in divers places of the citie, togeather with Mr. Dallam his Tooles, iiijs.
"Item for brasse for the shaking stoppe, iiijs.
"Item for vi c. of lead ad 10s. le c., iijli.
"Item payd to Mr. Dallam, the organ-maker, for his wages and for his menes for lviij weekes, viz., from the 22d of June, 1605, until the 7th of August, 1606, ad 30s. le weeke, lxxxvijli. xvs.
"Item payd for his owne and his menes frydays and fasting night suppers, at 12d. a supper, being in all 87 nights, iiijli. vijs.
"Item payd for his hors hier [horse hire] and charges of him and his men at their departure up to London, xs.
"Item for recarriage of his tooles, etc., being iiij. c. wayght, xs.
"Item bread and beer by Mr. Dallam, the Joynor, and their men for the whole tyme, esteemyd at viliⁱ."
There are many other items for wood, planks, wainscot, cloth, studs, pasteboard, paint, gold, etc., which would be much too long to quote.[21]
There is something highly graphic in this picture of the old organ builder closing his workshop in London, and removing with his men, his whole " establishment," to Cambridge, to execute an order.
Dallam and his men were lodged in the town, but boarded in the College hall. From the item for suppers on Fridays and fasting nights, it appears they were not satisfied with the meagre fare there provided, but required extra dishes for their maintenance.
The whole of the materials used appear to have been bought in the rough, and made up on the spot; the metal purchased for the pipes, presuming that all the lead was used for that purpose, would be in the proportion of sixteen to six, or rather less than three-fourths tin. This was the composition of the original pipes of the Temple organ built by Father Smith in 1684.
No specification is extant from which any information may be obtained as to the compass and power of the instrument; the only stop mentioned in the account is the Shaking Stop, for which a special material was required; it was the original of the modern tremulant, and occurs in a specification for an organ given by John Loosemore, of Exeter, in 1665. It is not found in later specifications, and went out of use owing to the noise in action, occasioned by its faulty construction.
The total cost of the organ and case, according to the writer from whom I glean my knowledge of the King's College organ, was about £370; the outlay upon the organ, so far as the items may now be divided, amounting to £214, and that upon the case to £156.
The name of Dallam still occurs in the College accounts after the completion of the organ. In 1607 he is paid xxxvs. for tuning the organ, besides xxxvs. received by the sale of the surplus tin, of which "a thousand six hundred" had been purchased for the pipes; in 1617, £10, and in 1638, £22, are paid to him for repairs. His name occurs for the last time in 1641. In no case is a Christian name given.[22]
The fate of Dallam's organ is soon told. The commissioners sent down to Cambridge by the Long Parliament ordered the organ in the chapel to be removed, and in compliance with their edict, the pipes were taken out and sold. The case, with some alterations, remains to this day.
We will now retrace our steps, in order to give a cursory glance at the introduction and progress of the organ in Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
So far as I am aware, the earliest mention of the organ by any of the Scottish historians, is by Fordun, who, upon the occasion of the removal of the body of Queen Margaret from the outer church at Dunfermline for reinterment beside the high altar, in 1250, describes the procession of priests and abbots, by whom the ceremony was conducted, as accompanied by the sounds of the organ, as well as the chanting of the choir. Mr. Tytler, the author of a "Dissertation on Scottish Music," fell into a strange error, representing James I of Scotland as the first introducer of the organ into that country; when all that he actually did, as Mr. Dauney has pointed out,[23] was to introduce organs of an improved construction. The principal churches and abbeys of Scotland had most probably been furnished with them more or less from the era to which I have referred. The Chapel Royal at Stirling, founded by James III, to all appearance upon the model of that of Edward IV, was a very complete and richly endowed ecclesiastical establishment for the cultivation of church music; and several entries of sums laid out by the Scottish sovereigns in the upholding of the organs at Stirling and Edinburgh, are to be found in the Treasurer's Books, of which the following are specimens:
"1507, January 12. Item to the chanoun of Holyrudhous that mendit the organis in Strivelin and Edinburgh, vijli."
"1511. Item to Gilleam, organist, maker of the Kingis organis, for expenses maid be him at the sayd organis, in gait skynnis, and parchment for the belles, in naillis and sprentis of irne, in glew, papir, candill, coill, etc., viijli. iiijs."
The reintroduction of organs, episcopal vestments, decorations, etc, by James VI, into the chapel at Holyrood Palace, during his visit to Scotland in 1617, were regarded with great horror by his Scottish lieges.
"The Scots," says one of their own historians, "are in all acts of religious devotion, simple, rude and naked of ceremonial. The King, accustomed to the use of the organ and church ritual, commanded them to be used in his chapel of Holy Rood, and in the moment of joy occasioned by the general expectation of his arrival, did that, by exertion of authority, which he could not have done otherwise consistently with the actions and religious establishment of his native country. This was ill endured by the common people of Edinburgh, who considered it as staining and polluting the house of religion by the dregs of popery. The more prudent, indeed, judged it but reasonable that the King should enjoy his own form of worship in his own chapel; but then followed a rumour, that the religious vestments and altars were to be forcibly introduced into all the churches, and the purity of religion, so long established in Scotland, for ever defiled. And it required the utmost efforts of the magistrates to restrain the inflamed passions of the common people."[24]
The organ introduced into the Chapel Royal of Edinburgh by James VI must have been a magnificent instrument. I have fortunately met with a very curious notice of it. John Chamberlain, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, December 7, 1616, speaking of the King's intended progress to Scotland, adds: "We hear they made great preparations there to be in their best equipage; and from hence (London) many things are sent, but specially a pair of organs that cost above £400, besides all manner of furniture for a chapel, which Inigo Jones tells me he hath the charge of."
Some years after this, we are introduced, for the first time, to a Scotch organ builder. The author of "Rouen: its History and Monuments,"[25] speaking of the church of St. Godard, says: "In 1556, its organ was a very small one. It was afterwards enlarged; but in 1562, it was destroyed by the Calvinists. The present organ, which was built in 1640, is the work of a Scotchman named George Leslie."
Of organs in Ireland, I have not been able to meet with any particulars, and they would seem to have been almost unknown in that country in early times. In the Parochial Records of Cork, in the reign of Charles I, there is an order to pay £16 towards erecting a musical instrument called in English organs, as the custom is to have in cathedral churches."[26]
With regard to Wales, Dafydd ab Gwilym, who wrote in the fourteenth century, makes particular mention of an organ and choir at Bangor in his time.[27] The Red Book of St. Asaph's takes notice of a "loud organ" that existed at a very remote period in that church; and the organ at Wrexham enjoyed more than a local celebrity.
Fuller, in his "Worthies," says: "These organs were formerly most famous (the more because placed in a parochial, not cathedral church) for beauty, bigness and tuneableness, though far short of those in worth which Michael, Emperor of Constantinople, caused to be made of pure gold, and beneath those in bigness which George the Salmatian Abbot made to be set up in the church of his convent, whose biggest pipe was eight and twenty foot long, and four spans in compass." According to a "Gazetteer of England and Wales," temp. Charles II, "At Wrexham is ye rarest steeple in ye 3 nations; and hath had ye fayrest organes in Europe, till ye late wars in Charles ye 1st his raigne, whose Parliament forces pulled him and them downe with other ceremoniall ornaments."
I shall now mention a few of the unrecorded organ builders who flourished in the first half of the seventeenth century. In the books of Magdalen College we find the names of Yorke, Bull, Bishop and Harris. The latter name, which first occurs in 1637, is very important. This builder was the grandfather of the celebrated Renatus Harris, the formidable rival of Father Smith.
Smith arrived in this country from Germany shortly before the restoration of Charles II; and Burney tells us: "Smith had not been many months here before Harris arrived from France, with his son René, or Renatus, an ingenious and active young man, to whom he had confided all the secrets of his art"
It now appears, for the first time, that the Harrises were an English family, and that Renatus's grandfather was an organ builder residing among us and practising his art with success.
The relationship between the two Harrises is established by an entry in the Magdalen College books, in 1672, where Renatus Harris, being at Oxford, offers his services to repair the organ, "the rather because his grandfather made it at first, and he was sufficiently known to be as skilful an artist as any in England."
The builders of this period who remain to be named are Launcelot Pesse, of Cambridge; Gibbs, "of Powles" [St. Paul's]; Preston, of York; Thamar, of Peterborough; Robert Hayward, of Bath; and Loosemore, of Exeter. The well-known organ of the latter, in the cathedral of the city in which he resided, is deserving of notice on many points, but time will not allow me now to dwell upon it.
We now arrive at the period which explains the cause of many of the old instruments I have named having been so ruthlessly swept away—the Great Rebellion.
An ordinance being passed in the House of Lords, January 4, 1644, establishing a new form of divine worship, in which no music was allowed but plain psalm singing, it was thought necessary, for the promotion of true religion, that no organs should be suffered to remain in the churches; that choral books should be torn; painted glass windows broken; sepulchral brass inscriptions defaced; and, in short, that the Cathedral service should be totally abolished. In consequence of this ordinance, collegiate and parochial churches were stripped of their organs and ornaments; some of the instruments were sold to private persons, who preserved them; some were totally, and others but partially destroyed; some were taken away by the clergy in order to prevent their being destroyed, and some few were suffered to remain.
The puritanical spirit which doomed organs to destruction had long been gaining ground. Old Weever, in his "Funeral Monuments," says:
"Toward the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII, and throughout the whole reign of Edward VI, and in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth, certain persons, of every county, were put in authority to pull down, and cast out of all churches, roods, graven-images, shrines with their relics, to which the ignorant people came flocking in adoration, or anything else which tended to idolatry and superstition."
The organ did not escape at this early period, and the destruction of the "organs" of Worcester Cathedral, by Dean Barlow, in 1550, is on record.
On August 18, 1589, it was agreed at a parish meeting of St. Chad's, Shrewsbury:
"That for the better providing and accomplishing the reperation of the bells, fencing the church-yard, and purchasing one decent and semely cuppe of silver for the use of the Communion, the organs should be sould to any of the parishe for the sume of 41., if any desired the same: otherwise the said organs should presentlye bee sould to hym whosoever would give 41. or more for the same."
Some idea of the devastation committed by the Puritans of the Commonwealth time may be gathered from a few passages extracted from "Mercurius Rusticus," 1647. At Westminster Abbey, we are told, the soldiers "brake down the organs and pawned the pipes at severall ale-houses for pots of ale. They put on some of the singing-mens surplices, and in contempt of that canonicall habite, ran up and down the church; he that wore the surplice was the hare, the rest were the hounds." At Exeter Cathedral they "brake downe the organs, and taking two or three hundred pipes with them, in a most scornefull contemptuous manner, went up and downe the streets piping with them; and meeting with some of the choristers of the church, whose surplices they had stolne before, and imployed them to base servile offices, scoffingly told them, Boyes we have spoyled your trade, you must goe and sing hot pudding pyes." At Peterborough, after commiting all kinds of devastation, "when their unhallowed toylings had made them out of wind, they took breath afresh on two pair of organs." At Canterbury they "violated the monuments of the dead, and spoyled the organs"; and at Chichester "they brake down the organs, and dashing the pipes with their pole-axes, scoffingly said, Harke, how the organs goe." At Winchester "they entered the church with colours flying, and drums beating; they rode up through the body of the church and quire, until they came to the altar, there they rudely pluck downe the table and brake the rayle, and afterwards carrying it to an ale-house, they set it on fire, and in that fire burnt the Booke of Common Prayer, and all the Singing Books belonging to the Quire: they threw downe the organs, and break the stories of the Old and New Testament, curiously cut out in carved work."
Similar notices of the doings of these fanatical monsters are given by Sir William Dugdale, Bishop Hall and Izaak Walton; but the passages cited are more than sufficient for our purpose.
After the zeal with which the parliamentary ordinance of 1644 was put into force, it is only remarkable that any church organs should have escaped demolition. But that some few instruments were suffered to remain, we have accredited evidence. Among the number, were those of St. Paul's, York, Durham and Lincoln Cathedrals; St. John's and Magdalen College, Oxford; Christ's College, Cambridge; and probably others. Some of these have since been destroyed or removed, but one at least remains, a curious episode in the history of which will conclude this lecture.
The organ to which I allude is that of Magdalen College, built by Harris, the grandfather of Renatus, in 1637, for forty pounds. It escaped the ordinance of 1644, and was still remaining in the College Chapel in 1654, when Evelyn, who was at Oxford in the July of that year, has this entry in his "Diary":
"Next we walked to Magdalen College, where we saw the library and chapel, which was likewise in pontifical order, the altar only I think turned tablewise, and there was still the double organ, which abominations (as now esteemed) were almost universally demolished; Mr. Gibbon [Christopher Gibbons], that famous musician, giving us a taste of his skill and talents on that instrument."
This notice seemed to refute the tradition that "in the Grand Rebellion, when the organ of Magdalen College, among others, was taken down, it was conveyed by order of Cromwell to Hampton Court, where it was placed in the great gallery." I accordingly treated the story as apocryphal in my "History of the Organ." Since then, however, the matter has been set at rest by the discovery of a memorandum in the College books, to the effect that in 1660 £16 10s was paid for the transportation of the organ from Hampton Court back to the College. It must, therefore, have been taken down and removed to Hampton Court between the years 1654 and 1660.
There was, in all probability, some amicable agreement on the subject between Cromwell and the president and fellows. Nichols, in his "History of Leicestershire" tells us that Stanford Church is decorated with a handsome organ that formerly belonged to the banqueting room, Whitehall, which by order of Cromwell was taken down and sold. It was intended, he says, to be placed in the chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, but being too small, was purchased by the Cave family. Dr. Bloxam suggests that it was offered in exchange for the Magdalen organ, which seems more than probable.[28]
To carry on the history of this organ—in 1661, we find Dallam repairing Harris's instrument at a cost of twenty-five pounds. Further repairs by the same maker took place in 1664 and 1665. In 1672, Renatus Harris (the grandson of the builder) repaired the organ; and in 1680 Preston of York was employed for the same purpose. Six years later, Harris was again called in, and promised for one hundred and fifty pounds that it should be "an extraordinary good instrument, the best old organ in England, and exceed the best organ in the University." This proposition, the very curious original of which is preserved in the British Museum, was carried into effect in 1690.[29]
In 1737, the organ was removed to the Abbey Church of Tewkesbury, where, more than a century afterwards, it was remodelled and greatly enlarged by Mr. Henry Willis.
But little of the original work now remains, except the diapasons and the principal, together with the east or choir front. The pipes are of tin, alloyed with about eight pounds of lead to the hundred-weight.
"One of the relics of our Church," says the Rev. Mr. Havergal,[30] "before its grand disruption, in the days of fanaticism, rebellion and usurpation, was spared from destruction by the last man in the world who could be thought to have music in his soul—was curiously conveyed to an outraged palace for his stealthy gratification—was upon his death restored to its original home in Oxford, and is now standing, renovated and enlarged, in one of the most beautiful bulwarks of our land. Surely that organ speaks with a speechless voice to the heart of every English churchman more stirringly than the most consummate skill could make it speak to the ear! If more be wanting, then let poetry come to the aid of history, and tell you, that her Bard of Bards, the Glory of Godly verse, must in all probability have listened to its tones."
There can be but little doubt that, if not at Magdalen College yet at Hampton Court, the Tewkesbury organ was often heard and perhaps played upon by Milton. Surely, then, this is an instrument of the highest interest, and the episode which I have related not an inappropriate conclusion to my lecture, "On the Early English Organ Builders and their Works."
- ↑ "Lares and Penate: or Cicilia, and its Governors." By William Burckhardt Barker, M.R.A.S., 8vo, 1853. This interesting volume contains, in addition to the monument mentioned in the text, the representation of a youth playing the syrinx, or Pandean organ. The pipes are more numerous, and those in the bass part of the instrument much larger than is usually represented.
- ↑ "Anthologia Græca," Edit. Lips., 1794, tom, iii, p. 111; also Ducange, "Glossarium et infimæ Latinitatis," v. Organum.
- ↑ See Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," for the best account of Ctesibius and his works.
- ↑ The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria, from the original Greek. 4to, 1851. It contains two separate descriptions of the organ, "An Altar Organ blown by the agency of a Windmill (noticed in the text), and "An Altar Organ blown by Manual Labour."
- ↑ Bibliotheca Maxima Patrum, tom, xiii, p. 3. See also Sharon Turner's Anglo-Saxons, iv, p. 447.
- ↑ Bingham's Christian Antiq., Bk. viii.
- ↑ Wulstan or Wolston the deacon died a.d. 963; Elphegus received the Bishopric of Winchester a.d. 935, and held it till 951.
- ↑ Printed in Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Benedict Sœc. v., p. 631-2.
- ↑ A paper on the organ, printed in the Transactions of the British Archæological Association, 1846, p. 289.
- ↑ See Appendix I.
- ↑ 1508. For bringing the organs of the Abbey (Westminster) into the church, and beryng them home agayne, ijᵈ."—Accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster.
- ↑ Compiled from ancient monastic MSS., and printed in 1672, 12mo.
- ↑ These extracts from ancient wills are derived from Sir H. Nicolas's "Testamenta Vetusta," and the "Bury Wills," printed for the Camden Society.
- ↑ See Appendix II.
- ↑ See Appendix II.
- ↑ Harris's organ originally consisted of Great Organ and Echo—the predecessor of the modern Swell—and served the worship of the church some forty years. In 1720 it was enlarged and repaired by Gerrard Smith, nephew of the famous Father Smith.
- ↑ 1856, 8vo, page 233.
- ↑ "1531. Magistro White, organorum factore, pro reparat. duorum par, organorum in choro."
- ↑ I am indebted for these curious notices of John Vaucks, etc., to a "History of Wimborne Minster," published by Bell and Daldy, 1860, 8vo.
- ↑ In the old accounts of King's College, Cambridge, as early as 1508, we find Thomas Browne receiving xxxiijs. ivd.; "in partem solutionis viii. librarum pro factura magnorum organorum." This may be the builder mentioned in the text.
- ↑ See Appendix IV.
- ↑ In the books of Magdalen College, Oxford, between the dates 1615 and 1637, several entries occur of payments to one Dalham for repairs to the organ. Dr. Bloxam, in his interesting account of the College Chapel, believes him to have been the Robert Dallam before mentioned; but this could not be the case, as he was not born till 1602, and consequently was only thirteen years of age in 1615. It was certainly the builder now brought to light whose name occurs in the Magdalen books.
- ↑ "Ancient Melodies of Scotland," 4to, 1838.
- ↑ Johnston's "Historium Rernm Britannicorum, ad annum 1617."
- ↑ "Rouen," 12mo, page 93.
- ↑ "Clerical and Parochial Records of Cork, Cloyne and Ross," by W. M. Brady, D.D., 1864.
- ↑ See "A Commendatory Ode, addressed to Hywel, Bean of Bangor" (Howel was made Dean in 1359), printed by Browne Willis.
- ↑ See Dr. Bloxam's Registers of Magdalen College, Oxford, a work to which I am largely indebted in the composition of these pages.
- ↑ See Appendix V, VI.
- ↑ A sermon preached in the Abbey Church, Tewkesbury, on Friday, June 28, 1858.