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The cythara is a wide group of stringed instruments of medieval and Renaissance Europe, including not only the lyre and harp but also necked, string instruments. [1] In fact, unless a medieval document gives an indication that it meant a necked instrument, then it likely was referring to a lyre.
See Rotta for the medieval lyre, or Rote for the fiddle. During the 11th to 15th century A.D., rotte (German) or rota (Spanish) referred to a triangular psaltery illustrated in the hands of King David and played by jongleurs (popular musicians who might play the music of troubadours) and cytharistas (Latin word for a musician who plays string instruments).
The earliest reference to the word "lyre" is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists" and written in the Linear B script. [5] In classical Greek, the word "lyre" could either refer specifically to an amateur instrument, which is a smaller version of the professional cithara and eastern-Aegean barbiton, or "lyre" can refer generally to all three instruments as a family. [6]
The rotta (also rotte, chrotta or hrotta) is a type of lyre that was widely used in north-western Europe from pre-Christian to medieval times. It a descendant of the ancient lyre which originated in western Asia, was adopted in Ancient Egypt, and then adopted and adapted by the Ancient Greeks as the cithara. [1] One variant is the Anglo-Saxon lyre.
The Anglo-Saxon lyre, also known as the Germanic lyre, a rotta, or the Viking lyre, is a large plucked and strummed lyre that was played in Anglo-Saxon England, and more widely, in Germanic regions of northwestern Europe. The oldest lyre found in England dates before 450 AD and the most recent dates to the 10th century.
Continuous, clear records of the use of crwth to denote an instrument of the lyre (or the Byzantine bowed lyre) class date from the 11th century. [ citation needed ] Medieval instruments somewhat resembling the crwth appear in pictures (first in Continental Europe) as far back as the 11th century, shortly after bowing was first known in the West.
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An artistic rendering of a medieval harp (Cythara anglica) from Martin Gerbert's De Cantu et musica sacra a prima ecclesiae aetate usque ad praesens tempus (Typis San-Balsianis, 1774). [1] Below it are a rebec or vielle and a lyre. The Germanic lyre was present in Western Europe before the harp, a version shown here as Cythara Teutonica.