There exists a curious carving of a bagpiper on one of the brackets adorning the Eleanor Percy tomb at Beverley minster, where the windbag of the instrument consists of a small entire pig-skin, with fore-legs and feet intact, the blowpipe being inserted in the pig's mouth (Pl. III. 2). That this is no mere fancy of the artist may be inferred from a parallel custom related by Engel, who remarks that in Poland and the Ukraine the bagpipe used to be made of the whole skin of the goat, so that whenever the windbag was distended the shape of the animal was fully retained exhibiting even the head with the horns; hence they called the bagpipe rosa, signifying a goat.'

Bagpipes, although regarded as special favourites of the Celtic races, were popular with all classes, being associated with folk and dance music and also freely found in ecclesiastical sculptures. There is evidence, moreover, of their employment in the homes of royalty, and it is on record that Henry VIII., who was no mean musician, had four bagpipes in his collection "with pipes of ivorie."

1 Op. cit., p. 130.

5.-SHAWM.

The instrument depicted here is the Shawm, or Schalmey, a name which was derived through the Fr.chalumeau from " calamus," a reed. It is perhaps the oldest of all instruments, and therefore the parent of all the reed instruments of the modern orchestra. Schalmey is a term still applied to the lower 2 See Galpin, p. 175.

register of the clarinet. The shawm appears to have been introduced into the West by the Romans.

Directly descended from the schalmey is the hautbois, or waight, so-called from being used by the London watchmen, or "waights," to proclaim the time of the night. After a toot or short solo on his instrument the watchman would cry the hour in quaint fashion, such as: Past three o'clock and a cold frosty morning; past three o'clock good morrow, masters all.' name “ howeboie," derived from the Fr. haut-bois, dates from Queen Elizabeth's time, and probably indicates the shrill tone of the treble shawm."

The

The modern oboe family, including the bassoon and fagotto, is thus the offspring of the shawm, its essential characteristic being the double reed; that is, two thin slips of cane which vibrate against each other. In the single reed family, to which the clarinet belongs, a single reed vibrates against the natural tube or the mouthpiece. Bagpipes, it has been pointed out, frequently exhibit both; the chanter-pipe having a double

1 Naumann, i., 261, n.

"

2 We first hear of the Manchester waights," who were the town minstrels rather than watchmen, in the Court Leet records of 1563. They were at first two in number, but were later increased to four. Among their specified duties were playing mornying and euening to gether according as others haue bene accustomed to doe"; they played also at other times, as for example on civic occasions and at weddings. They were appointed, though apparently not paid, by the court, and had the assistance of the constables of the town in gathering" their wages. Very likely they would wear, as was customary elsewhere, a badge of office. A fine set of four such badges, with silver collars, dating from the time of Queen Mary, is preserved at Bristol. (See Society of Antiquaries Proceedings, xiii., 262.)

A quaint survival of a similar official personage is the horn-blower of the " Wakeman, now Mayor, of Ripon, who still blows his horn on the Town Hall steps at nightfall, the citizens being thereby reminded that " Except the Lord keep the city the wakeman (i.e., watchman) waketh but in vain."-Ps. cxxvii. 2.

Galpin, p. 165.

reed and the drones a single.

Along with the bagpipes the shawm was the intimate companion of the wandering minstrels of Central Europe.

is a

6.—Trumpet, OR CLARION. "With trumpets also and shawms" familiar invitation to praise. The conjunction of the instruments here is therefore appropriate. But trumpets, with their big and little brothers, the Buzine (Lat. buccina) and the Clarion, had other functions; sometimes it was the pageantry of courts that called them; at others, as at Crécy and Agincourt, they are found in martial array among the

"Pypes, trompes, nakers, and clariounes,

That in the bataille blowen blody sounes.'

2

The earlier mediæval " trompes " had a long straight cylindrical tube which varied in length from three or four feet to six or seven feet, and

terminated in a spreading bell. Gradually and for the sake of convenience the long straight form gave way to the bent tube, sometimes shaped in zigzag fashion (Pl. I.2), but afterwards, as in the case before us, with a double bend folded over upon itself, which gives a better construction. Thus Horman, an early sixteenth century writer, tells us that "a Trom

pette is straight, but a Clarion is wounde in and

out with a hope."

1 Lynd, p. 22.

Chaucer, The Knight's Tale, 1. 1653 (ed. Skeat).

9 Galpin, p. 203.