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Citole

Citole
Citole made c. 1300, exhibited
at the British Museum
Classification String instrument (plucked)
Hornbostel–Sachs classification321.322-6 (box-necked lute)
(Chordophone with permanently attached resonator and neck, sounded by a plectrum)
Developed13th–14th centuries from the cithara (lyre), plucked fiddles and/or lutes
Related instruments
List

The citole was a string musical instrument, closely associated with the medieval fiddles (viol, vielle, gigue) and commonly used from 1200–1350.[1][2][3] It was known by other names in various languages: cedra, cetera, cetola, cetula, cistola, citola, citula, citera, chytara, cistole, cithar, cuitole, cythera, cythol, cytiole, cytolys, gytolle, sitole, sytholle, sytole, and zitol.[2][4] Like the modern guitar, it was manipulated at the neck to get different notes, and picked or strummed with a plectrum (the citole's pick was long, thick, straight and likely made of ivory or wood).[5] Although it was largely out of use by the late 14th century, the Italians "re-introduced it in modified form" in the 16th century as the cetra (cittern in English), and it may have influenced the development of the guitar as well.[6][7][8] It was also a pioneering instrument in England, introducing the populace to necked, plucked instruments, giving people the concepts needed to quickly switch to the newly arriving lutes and gitterns.[9] Two possible descendant instruments are the Portuguese guitar and the Corsican Cetera, both types of cittern.

It is known today mainly from art and literary sources. Early examples include Provençal poetry (there called the citola) from the 12th century; however it was more widely displayed in medieval artwork during the 13th and 14th centuries in manuscript miniatures and in sculpture.[7][10][11] The art did not show uniformly shaped instrument, but instead an instrument with numerous variations. The variety shown in art has led the instrument to be called "ambiguous".[12] From the artwork, scholars know that it was generally a four-string instrument, and could have anything from a "holly-leaf" to a rounded guitar shaped body (that can be called a "T-shaped" body).[12][13] While paintings and sculpture exist, only one instrument has survived the centuries.[11]

The sole survivor, associated with Warwick Castle, was made around 1290–1300.[14] It is now preserved in the British Museum's collection.[14] At some point, probably in the sixteenth century, it was converted into a violin-type instrument with a tall bridge, 'f'-holes and angled fingerboard; thus, the instrument's top is not representative of its original appearance. That instrument contributed to a great deal of confusion. It was labeled a violin in the 18th century, a gittern in the early 20th century and finally a citole, beginning after 1977.[15][16][17] That confusion is itself illustrative of the confusion about the nature of citoles and gitterns; once the instruments and their traditions were gone, scholars in later centuries didn't know which images and sculpture went with which names from poetry and other literature. Additionally, scholars have translated passages in such a way that literature itself can not always be trusted. One example cited by the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: a specific reference to the citole may be found in Wycliffe's Bible (1360) in 2 Samuel vi. 5: "Harpis and sitols and tympane".[18] However, the Authorized Version has psalteries, and the Vulgate lyrae.[18] The Britannica also supposed that the citole has been supposed to be another name for the psaltery, a box-shaped instrument often seen in the illuminated missals of the Middle Ages, also liable to confusion with the gittern.[18] Whether the terms overlapped in medieval usage has been the subject of modern controversy. The controversy of citole versus gittern was largely resolved in a 1977 article by Lawrence Wright, called The Medieval Gittern and Citole: A Case of Mistaken Identity.[19]

  1. ^ Sadie, Stanley, ed. (1984). "Citole". The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. p. 374. Volume 1.
  2. ^ a b "CITOLE, also spelled Systole, Cythole, Gytolle, &c. (probably a Fr. diminutive form of cithara, and not from Lat. cista, a box)" (Chisholm 1911, p. 397)
  3. ^ Wright 1977, pp. 24, 27–28.
  4. ^ Johann Gottfried Walther: Musicalisches Lexicon. Wolffgang Deer, Leipzig 1732, p. 168 (zitiert Du Cange)
  5. ^ Wright 1977, p. 30.
  6. ^ Wright 1977, p. 32
  7. ^ a b Butler, Paul. "The Citole Project". crab.rutgers.edu. Archived from the original on 7 August 2022. Retrieved 16 November 2016. The citole is definite ancestor of the cittern.
  8. ^ Galpin, Francis William (1911). Old English Instruments of Music. Chicago: A.C. McClurg and Company. pp. 21–22. Now it is well known that the Greeks and Romans adopted many of the instruments which they found in popular use throughout Asia Minor...this instrument with vertical incurved sides and flat back was brought into Southern Europe, the first name given to the Guitar in medieval times being Guitare Latine...In this way, and popularized by the troubadours and minstrels, the Guitar reached our country in the thirteenth century...
  9. ^ Spring, Matthew (2006). The Lute in Britain: A History of the Instrument and Its Music. Oxford University Press. p. 28. ISBN 9780195188387. One possible explanation for this easy acceptance was that both instruments required a basic playing technique that was easily transferred from the citole...
  10. ^ Wright 1977, p. 25
  11. ^ a b Margerum 2015, p. 1
  12. ^ a b "Unprofitable Instruments, Citole". trombamarina.com. Retrieved 8 December 2016.
  13. ^ Stryjak, Julien. "Les instruments à cordes pincées de la Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg". Archived from the original on 24 November 2016. Retrieved 24 November 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  14. ^ a b British Museum Highlights
  15. ^ Hawkins, John (1776). A general history of the science and practice of music. T. Payne and Son. pp. 342–344. ...for at a sale by auction of the late Duke of Dorset's effects, a violin was bought, appearing to have been made in the year 1578...as appears by the following representation of it. [An engraving of the Warwick Castle Citole was the representation.]
  16. ^ "In 1910 the eminent musicologist Canon Francis Galpin finally identified the medieval origins of the instrument, describing it as a 'gittern' and thus creating the title by which it was known for much of the 20th century: 'The Warwick Castle Gittern'." (Margerum 2015, p. vi)
  17. ^ "Wright argued that medieval instruments like the example in the British Museum would have been known as citoles and it is his definition of the term ‘citole’ that is accepted by most recent dictionaries of music." (Margerum 2015, p. 16)
  18. ^ a b c Chisholm 1911, p. 397.
  19. ^ Baker, Paul. "The Gittern and Citole". Retrieved 4 December 2016.