The chrotta, was a musical instrument played in Ireland, whose exact description is contested.
According to Irish historian
Gratton Flood, it was a small harp played with a bow. The instrument could be rested on knees or on a table.
Flood notes that the historian Gerbert had described the chrotta as an oblong instrument with six strings, four of which on a fingerboard and two off of it.
Historian
Carl Engel
Carl Engel (July 21, 1883 – May 6, 1944) was a France, French-born United States, American pianist, composer, musicologist and publisher from Paris. He was also president of G. Schirmer, Inc., a writer on music for The Musical Quarterly, a ...
noted that a 6th-century CE Italian writer,
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus ( 530 600/609 AD; french: Venance Fortunat), known as Saint Venantius Fortunatus (, ), was a Latin poet and hymnographer in the Merovingian Court, and a bishop of the Early Church who has been venerate ...
, had mentioned the "Chrotta Britanna" in a poem, but did not mention any bow.
See also
*
Crwth
The crwth (, also called a crowd or rote or crotta) is a bowed lyre, a type of stringed instrument, associated particularly with Welsh music, now archaic but once widely played in Europe. Four historical examples have survived and are to be foun ...
, a similar Welsh instrument
References
{{reflist
Bowed lyres
Irish musical instruments
Early musical instruments
Lost and extinct musical instruments