The latter is what Chaucer calls the rubible.
Possibly an impulse was given the fiddle by the Moorish rebab, brought
into Spain in the eighth century, but ancient Celtic bards had long
before this used a bow instrument--the chrotta or crwth, derived from
the lyre, which was introduced by the Romans in their colonizing
expeditions. As early as 560 A. D., Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of
Poitiers, wrote to the Duke of Champagne:
_"Let the barbarians praise thee with the harp,
Let the British crwth sing."_
This instrument, whose name signifies bulging box, was common in
Britain, and was used in Wales until a comparatively recent period. One
of its distinguishing features was an opening in the lower part for the
admission of the fingers while playing. A fine specimen is preserved in
the South Kensington Museum, corresponding well to the following
description by a Welsh poet of the fifteenth century: "A fair coffer
with a bow, a girdle, a finger-board and a bridge; its value is a pound;
it has a frontlet formed like a wheel with the short-nosed bow across.
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