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Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 26

Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, Volume 1, Issue 1, Page 26
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periodical Publisher
Clementi & Co., London, 1809
periodical Editor
Edward Bunting
periodical Title
Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland
volume Number
1
issue Content
15We are told that the gentler modulations of the crwthwere despised, and that it was banished into Wales,Cornwall, and Amorica (Bretagne), in which last countryVenai tius found it in the sixths century.By a passage in the Life of St. Mungo, alias Kentigern,cotesuporary with St. Columba in the sixth century ,we find that Roderic, king of Wales, was so celebratedboth at home and abroad for power, munificence, andprincely virtues, that a king of Ireland sent a joculator,or jongleur, to the Welsh court to examine the truth ofwhat Fame reported. Being admitted, he sang andplayed on the Harp and tambour, delighting the kingand his nobles during the Christmas holidays. AboutEpiphany, the king ordered rich presents to be given tothe bard. Kentigeru lived A. D. 680: but let the datebe what it may, the anecdote demonstrates, that the bar ,!,who is here called joculator and hirtrio, belonged to asociety or order in Ireland; that lie united the arts ofmusic, poetry, and song, for one of the compositions isset down, beginning Vere, non est similis tui; and that liewas instantly admitted to play before Roderic, and lastly,was magnificently rewarded.It has been asserted that the Welsh, or ancient Bri-tons, cannot trace their bards or their music higher thanthe reign of the British king, Cadwallader, who diedA. D. 668. From this, however, it does not follow thatthey were not in possession of both earlier. VenerableBede says, that in the. sccentls century the harp was sogenerally played in Britain, that it was customary to handit from one to another at their entertainments, and men-tions one who, ashamed that lie could not play on it,slunk away lest he should expose his ignorance f. Thisis particularly e.ientioncd in hi account of the religiouspoet Cudmon.In a manuscript of the same century, in a monasteryof St. Blasius, quoted by Gerbertus, the prilice al)bOt ofthat monastery, there is a representation of a Harp, en-titled Cythara 4nglica, the same shape as the presentHarps, but of fewer strings .It appears by the same authority, that it was used inBritain to Saxon words in the beginning of the csqhthcentury, on an antique bason dug up near Soissons, andsupposed by the abbe le Beuf to have been executedbefore A. D. 152: in one of the compartments is a playeron the Harp, exalted on a high seat, and on his left handa player on the viol, played with a bow .Tn the ninth century we find it again noticed by Iso, amonk of St. Gall in Switzerland. The founder of thatreligious house being an Irishinsan that had fled from theJ)anisls tyranny, aiid its monks mostly of the same nation,day could not be strangers to the instfumelit. But theiliost eminent notice we have of it in that century is inA. 1). 818, when the great Aarstzn Q, assuming the cha-racter of a harper, with an attendant to carry his instru-ment according to die custom of minstrels, entered theJ)euish camp, where lie played before their priles.Above sixty years afterwards in the tenth century,Jlulqff, the Danish king of Northumberland, returned thecompliment against king ATHELSTAN, by dressing inminstrels habit arid entering his Camp, entertailling theking and his nobles with his voice and instrument. Wehave this fact from tile same authority as the last. He snug so sweetly before the royal tent, and at the seine time touched his Harp with such exquisite skill, that liewas invited to enter; and having entertained the kingand his nobles with his music while they sat at dinner,lie was dismissed with a valuable present .Tim author of the Life of Dunstan, his cotemporaryin tire tenth century, says, that the saint took with him,according to custom, his cithiara, which, in their ver-nacular tongue, was called a Harp , and was introducedto Atheistan as a player on it. The monarch heapedtreasures on Egil Skillagrini, a poet and musician ofNorway, ois account of the pleasure he received front hisperformances.Not only all our kings, but almost all our nobility andmen of fortune, had bands of secular musicians orminstrels in their service, who resided in their families,and even attended them in their journies for their amuse-ment. These domestic minstrels, besides their board,clothing, and wages, which they received from theirmasters, were permitted to perform in rich monasteries,and iii the castles of the barons, upon occasions of fes-tivity, for which they were handsomely rewarded.The nsinstrels retained in noblemens families woretheir lords livery, and those of the royal household didthe same. Tile queen, as well as the king, had her min-strels: they sometimes shaved the crowns of their headslike monks, and put on ecclesiastic habit. Two itinerantpriests coming, towards night, to a cell of time Benedictines near Oxford, gained admittance on the suppo-sition of their being mimics or minstrels; but the cellarez,the sacrist, and others of the brethren, finding them to beindigent ecclesiastics, who could afford them no amusement, beat aiid hurried them out of the monastery ft.They were disliked by the professors of religion, who Anthologia Hibernica, vol. ii. p. 8. j Bede, HisS. Eec. I. iv. c. 24.Gerbertus Se musica sacra, apud Jones. Dr. Burney. In StrutSs English Dresses, ml. i. plate 15, a figure appears of an ecclesiastic playing on the cruith in the eighth century. SeePlate 1V. No. 2.Alfred died A. D. 900; his translation of Boetius and Befe are considered the most ancient literary monuments England can produce. Ta such honour was the Harp held in Wales, that a slave might not practice on it; that to be able to play on it was an indispensable qualifi-cation of a gentleman; and that it could not be taken for debt. In Scotland, at the same period, the bards were considered in a very different pointof view, at least by the usurper Macleth. He enacted a law in the beginning of the eleventh century, whereby minstrels were liable to be yoked inthe plough instead of the ox; and by a more ancient law, they were subject to be branded on the cheek. [ Baringtons Observ. on the Statutes. Sumpsit seems,, cx more, Citharam sunmi, quam, paterna lingua, ilearpa vocamus. ft HisS, and Antiq. Oxlbrd.
issue Number
1
page Number
26
periodical Author
Edward Bunting
issue Publication Date
1809-01-01T00:00:00
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anonymous,guest,friend,member

Bunting - A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland