Medieval and Tudor string instruments

Most of the instruments we know today, like the guitar or the violin for example, have medieval ancestors. Over the years these instruments have changed to a greater or lesser extent with the result that some, like the medieval fiddle, are easily recognisable while others, like the ancestor of the modern piano, are not.

The strings used on medieval and Tudor instruments varied, depending on how they were to be used. Most instruments had catgut strings - that is, strings made from the wound intestines of sheep, but metal wire was used on some plucked or hammered instruments to produce a louder tone. The strings for instruments were very expensive and there are records of minstrels being paid in strings for performance.

All string instruments feature a sound-box that has a great effect on the actual sound that is produced. This sound-box is usually wooden, using hard woods for the rear and side pieces and soft woods for the front (or soundboard). There are various ways in which sound-boxes can be made, the most common one being to glue or pin together several thin and carefully shaped pieces of wood. Another way is carve out a bowl from a solid block of wood and then attach a soundboard. The strings must then be connected in some way to the soundboard, sometimes by means of a bridge or otherswise, as in the case of the harp, by being directly attached at one end of the length of the string. There are nearly always sound-holes in the soundboard.

Sounds are produced simply by causing the string to vibrate, which might be done by bowing, plucking, hammering or even blowing!. The vibrations from the string travel down into the soundboard, causing the soundboard also to vibrate. This sets up vibrations inside the sound box, with the result that the sound of the string is amplified, or made louder.. The shape and quality of the sound box also adds its own tone to the overall sound.

Many of the instruments described here have attached sound-files. Click on the image to hear these instruments in action.

Citole

The Citole is the ancestor of our modern guitar and, like many stringed instruments, is of North African origin. Instruments of this kind first came into Europe when the Moorish people of North Africa settled in Spain, from the 9th century AD.

The Citole usually had four or five catgut strings and is normally pictured being played with a plectrum. The instrument was carved out of a solid block of wood (in the case of our instrument the wood is maple) and then a soundboard was attached. The soundboard is the softer wood on the front face of the instrument with the sound hole.

Like the modern guitar, this instrument has frets. Frets are pieces of wood or catgut attached to the finger board. They set out the finger positions to help the player make notes that are in tune and have a good tone. If an instrument has frets, it also becomes possible to play different strings at the same time, so that the musicians can produce chords or perform polyphony (which means "making more than one melody at a time") on these splendid instruments.

Citoles appear in English records by the end of the 13th century and appear to have enjoyed high status as they were often used to entertain nobility.

Fiddle or Vielle

Our instrument is based on a fiddle in a painting by Hans Memling from the 15th century. It has a gently curved bridge and five strings, and this suggests that medieval musicians often used to bow two strings together. If the instrument is tuned in the right way, this two string effect can be very pleasing and is demonstrated on the sound file. As with the Citole, the Vielle had catgut strings, and it too has North African origins.

Records indicate that the fiddle was very popular in England in the 13th and 14th century, regularly appearing at banquets, festivals and ceremonies.

There are no hard and fast records indicating how these instruments should be tuned, and in fact the various sources differ. Most musicians nowadays prefer to tune them in fifths, rather like the modern violin.

Harp

People nowadays often think that the harp is a traditional instrument of the Brtish Isles, but this is largely because it is important in the modern folk tradition. In medieval times, the harp seems to have been popular in many countries , and harps appear in medieval illustration from all over Europe.

The harp is closely related to the lyre (which is described below) and its early history is difficult to separate from the lyre as scholars cannot be certain which words refer to which instrument! Although it is commonly believed today that the harp originated in Ireland and was a 'Celtic' instrument, this is almost certainly not the case. The word 'harp' is Germanic in origin (originally 'hearpe'), and the Christian writers of the Dark Ages associated the instrument that went by this name with the people they called 'barbarians' - that is, the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples that settled throughout western Europe after the end of the Roman empire.

However, the harp referred to in these early records most likely refers to an instrument resembling the lyre. The earliest illustration depicting a triangular harp dates from an English source of the 10th century. For the next few centuries, there are lots of images and references to minstrels performing on the harp, which shows that the instrument was very popular in England. It began to lose popularity as the fiddle, citole and lute became popular, and it appears less and less in illustrations of the 14th to 16th centuries.

The medieval nd Tudor harp had anything between 8 to 29 catgut or wire strings, depending on the century and the region in which it was being played. Early 11th and 12th century harps had very few strings while the later 14th century harps had far more.

Early medieval music was often diatonic, that is using only one mode or scale. The medieval harp was ideally suited to this type of music as each string was tuned to a note of the scale. By the 14th century, music featured more chromatic notes or musica ficta (notes outside the usual scale) and were as a result unplayable on the harp, at least until tuning levers were introduced later on. This is probably why the harp became less popular towards the end of the Middle Ages..

Psaltery

Psalteries were wire-strung instruments mounted on a hollow wooden box. As with the harp, the number of strings varied, with the earlier instruments having fewer. The instrument shown to the left in the pictures below has a very simple shape, like the psalteries which are shown in many early illustrations. It is played with little wooden hammers which are used to gently tap the strings, creating a clear ring or a sweet shimmering sound. The instrument to the right is a "pig-snout" variety that is plucked with the fingers or with quills. This instrument has many more strings than the earlier one.

The psaltery appears in many illustrations and carvings being played by saints and angels. This could be because our medieval ancestors thought that this instrument had ancient origins, and therefore believed it might have been played in biblical times. Actually, they were right about this, because the psalterion was known in ancient Greece as a box-like instrument for the sounding of strings with the fingers - however, most medieval people didn't know much about ancient Greeks so this was really a lucky guess!

Psalteries were still in use in the 14th and 15th century, though illustrations show a number of differences. In the middle of the 15th century, instrument makers started to design ways in which keyboards could be attached to the box of the psaltery, with simple machinery leading from the keys to the strings, and this makes the psaltery the ancestor of our modern piano.

Hurdy-Gurdy

This instrument is one of the few that have not really survived to become modern instruments. Where many other instruments have found their way into today's classical or popular music, the hurdy-gurdy has changed very little. The instrument can still be seen in some regions as a traditional folk instrument, particularly in France.

The hurdy-gurdy is a curious "mixture" of an instrument, which seems to have bits of both the violin and the piano. There is a box in the middle of the instrument that contains a number of catgut strings. At one end of the insturment, there is a wheel that the musician turns with a handle. As the wheel turns, it rubs against the strings (like the bow on a violin), and this makes the strings vibrate. Then, at the side of the instrument, there is a set of keys (a bit like on a piano), and by pressing these the player can change the length of the strings in the box, and therefore produce different notes (like violin or guitar player pressing on the strings to change the notes). If this sounds quite complicated, well - it is! Setting up a hurdy-gurdy to play is a hard-won skill in itself, but if you can manage it you can produce a surprisingly powerful and rich sound. The hurdy-gurdy is often fitted with a sympathetic resonating bridge (the 'chien') that with skilful playing can add a strong rhythmic edge to the sound as the little resonating bridge vibrates against the soundboard.

The hurdy-gurdy is often thought of as a low-status instrument but this is entirely because of the way it is used today and not necessarily true for medieval and Tudor times.. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the hurdy-gurdy would have been an expensive instrument, and not an easy one for poorer musicians to get hold of.

Symphony

The word 'symphony' is a Greek word meaning 'sounding together', and this is because this instrument is designed to make two or more strings sound together. The symphony is the medieval ancestor of the hurdy-gurdy described above. As can be seen, it has a plainer box and it had a narrower range of notes. The hurdy-gurdy would have been capable of playing sharps and flats whereas the symphony is limited to diatonic melodies (using only one mode or scale, like the medieval harp described above). The symphony produces a similar tone to the hurdy-gurdy but is much quieter, and it can be seen in illustrations from as early as the 13th century.

Lute

The lute is originally a middle eastern instrument. In fact, its name is derived from the Arabic words 'el oud' meaning 'the wood', and this instrument is still very popular in the Middle East. The instrument was known throughout Europe from at least the 13th century but only became truly popular in the 16th century, when it was a great favourite with English kings and queens - King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I were both said to be skilled players.

The lute was a carefully constructed instrument. The back is ribbed - that is, made from lots of pieces of wood put together, and has a deep rounded shape. The soundboard on the front is made from a soft wood and usually has an elaborate rose (or soundhole carving), while the fingerboard is made of a hardwood. The strings were made out of catgut and varied in number. Some earlier lutes show only nine strings while the one pictured, which islate 16th century in style, has 15 strings. The strings are arranged in double courses with the highest string always being a single. Unlike the modern guitar, the instrument has no fixed frets, and it can be played without frets or with frets tied on - little off-cuts of catgut are very useful for this.

Rebec

Like the fiddle, the rebec is an ancestor of the modern violin family. Like the citole, rebecs were imported into Europe from North Africa, and this nstrument rapidly became popular throughout Europe.

The instrument is contructed in a very similar manner to the citole, being carved out of one solid piece of wood with an added soundboard and fingerboard. The instrument in the picture is a reconstructed bass-type instrument that produces a very rich deep tone.

Rebecs had between two and four catgut strings and were not fretted.

Viol

During the 16th century instrument makers tried out different ideas to improve on the earlier medieval fiddles described above. Many instruments were developed at this time, including the Viols. The Viol family resembles our modern violin family but it is not a direct ancestor. The Viol family and the violin family both existed at the same time for over a century, and they served different purposes, but the Viols gradually lost favour as the violin came to dominate the string instrument family. Only in recent years has the viol become more popular again with many new musicians taking up the viol and with new works being composed for this unique instrument.

Viols differ from violins in three main ways. Firstly, viols have six strings as opposed to four. Secondly, viols were fretted in the same way as the lute described above (with frest just tied round the fingerboard). Thirdly the construction of the box is quite different, providing each instrument with its own distinct tone.

Lyre, Rotta

This kind of instrument is typical of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and the 'Celtic' and Germanic inhabitants of north-west Europe during the first thousand years AD. However, these instruments do still appear in many early medieval illustrations, usually those which depict King David playing music to honour God.

Lyres, like harps, have a number of strings that are tuned to the notes of a mode or scale. Medieval lyres tend to have only six strings, which means they are not so useful for playing melodies, but more useful for accompanying melodies.

Crwth, Bowed Rotta

This instrument is very similar to the lyre in its general appearance, but the main differences are that the crwth has fewer strings and also a fingerboard, and that the strings are sounded with a bow. The instrument seems to be an awkward mixture of the early lyre and the newer rebec-style instruments being introduced into Europe in the Middle Ages.

The crwth was still being played in the early 14th century as is shown in royal and baronial records. Interestingly, all the crwth players featured in these records are Welsh, and the crwth might well be thought of as the typical and traditional instrument of Wales up to modern times.

Gusli

This eastern European instrument is clearly related to the psaltery and lyre type instruments of the west. Our version is a nine string instument and is based on surviving Guslis from Eastern Europe The instrument from this photo was made according to late tradition of Latgalia region of 18-20th centuries. The geography of the gusli in this style spreads from Novgorod (Russia) in the North to Minsk (Belarus) in the South and from Riga (Latvia) in the West.

.The strings are wire and produce a delicate shimmering sound. Nobody knows for sure exactly how old the gusli is, but it is thought that similar lyre-type guslis date back at least a 1000 years.

The instrument in the image was made by Valerij Zinkevic in Belarus.

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