Rebec, Fiddle and Crowd in England: Some Further Observations

Extract

In my paper published in the last number of the Proceedings, I attempted to see how far back could be traced the string formation of the Welsh crwth, i.e. four central strings above a finger-board and two drone strings at the side. The late fourteenth-century carving on a misericord at Worcester Cathedral seemed to be the earliest known English example with six strings and a fingerboard, but in this case there is nothing to indicate that two of the strings are lateral drones.