Gittern
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The gittern was a relatively small gut-strung, round-backed instrument that first appears in literature and pictorial representation during the 13th century in Western Europe (Iberian Peninsula, Italy, France, England). It is usually depicted played with a quill
plectrum A plectrum is a small flat tool used for plucking or strumming of a stringed instrument. For hand-held instruments such as guitars and mandolins, the plectrum is often called a pick and is held as a separate tool in the player's hand. In harpsic ...
, as can be seen clearly beginning in manuscript illuminations from the thirteenth century. It was also called the in Spain, or in France, the in Italy and in Germany. A popular instrument with court musicians,
minstrels A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in Middle Ages, medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobatics, acrobat, singer or jester, fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to ...
, and amateurs, the gittern is considered an ancestor of the modern guitar and other instruments like the
mandore Mandore is a suburb Historical town located 9 km north of Jodhpur city, in the Indian state of Rajasthan. History Mandore is an ancient town, and was the seat of the Pratiharas of Mandavyapura, who ruled the region in the 6th century CE ...
,
bandurria The bandurria is a plucked chordophone from Spain, similar to the mandolin and bandola, primarily used in Spanish folk music, but also found in former Spanish colonies. Instrument development Prior to the 18th century, the bandurria had a round ...
and
gallichon File:Mandora MET DP168838.jpg, 6~9 courses lute (Calchedon, Calichon) (1726)Georg Kinsky: Musikhistorisches Museum von Wilhelm Heyer in Cöln, Bd. 2, Köln 1912, S. 98. File:Gallichon, Muzeum Instrumentów Muzycznych w Pradze.jpg, Gallichon The ...
. From the early 16th century, a -shaped (flat-backed) began to appear in Spain, and later in France, existing alongside the gittern. Although the round-backed instrument appears to have lost ground to the new form which gradually developed into the guitar familiar today, the influence of the earlier style continued. Examples of lutes converted into guitars exist in several museums, while purpose-built instruments like the gallichon utilised the tuning and single string configuration of the modern guitar. A tradition of building round-backed guitars in Germany continued to the 20th century with names like and . Up until 2002, there were only two known surviving medieval gitterns, one in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
(see external links), the other in the
Wartburg Castle The Wartburg () is a castle originally built in the Middle Ages. It is situated on a precipice of to the southwest of and overlooking the town of Eisenach, in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It was the home of St. Elisabeth of Hungary, the p ...
Museum. A third was discovered in a medieval
outhouse An outhouse is a small structure, separate from a main building, which covers a toilet. This is typically either a pit latrine or a bucket toilet, but other forms of dry toilet, dry (non-flushing) toilets may be encountered. The term may als ...
in
Elbląg Elbląg (; german: Elbing, Old Prussian: ''Elbings'') is a city in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland, located in the eastern edge of the Żuławy region with 117,390 inhabitants, as of December 2021. It is the capital of Elbląg County. ...
, Poland.


Structure

The back, neck and
pegbox A variety of methods are used to tune different stringed instruments. Most change the pitch produced when the string is played by adjusting the tension of the strings. A tuning peg in a pegbox is perhaps the most common system. A peg has ...
were probably usually carved from one piece of timber. Occurring less rarely later in the 15th century, the back was built up from a number of thin tapered ribs joined at the edges, as was characteristic of the lute. Unlike the sharp corner joining the body to the neck seen in the lute, the gittern's body and neck either joined in a smooth curve or straight line. The sickle, or occasional gentle arc pegbox, made an angle with the neck of between 30-90 degrees. Unlike the lute, most pegboxes on gitterns ended in a carving of a human or animal head. Most gitterns were depicted as having three or (more commonly) four courses of double strings. There are also references to some five course gitterns in the 16th century. Although there is not much direct information concerning gittern tuning, the later versions were quite possibly tuned in fourths and fifths like the mandore a few decades later. Frets were represented in a few depictions (mainly Italian and German), although apparently absent in most French, Spanish and English depictions. The gittern's sound hole was covered with a rosette (a delicate wood carving or parchment cutting), similar to the lute. The construction resembles other bowed and plucked instruments, including the
rebec The rebec (sometimes rebecha, rebeckha, and other spellings, pronounced or ) is a bowed stringed instrument of the Medieval era and the early Renaissance. In its most common form, it has a narrow boat-shaped body and one to five strings. Origi ...
, Calabrian and
Byzantine lyra The Byzantine lyra or lira ( gr, λύρα) was a medieval bowed string musical instrument in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. In its popular form, the lyra was a pear-shaped instrument with three to five strings, held upright and played by ...
, gǎdulka,
lijerica ) * Gudok (''russian: гудок'' '' uk, гудок'') * Kemenche * Rabel (instrument) * Rabāb (Arabic الرباب) * Rebec * violin The lijerica () is a musical instrument from the Croatian region of Dalmatia and Croatian parts of eastern H ...
, klasic kemençe,
gudok The gudok (, russian: гудок), gudochek (, russian: гудочек) is an ancient Eastern Slavic string musical instrument, played with a bow.
and
cobza The ''cobza'' (also ''cobsa'', ''cobuz'', ''koboz'') is a multi-stringed instrument of the lute family of folk origin popular in the Romanian folklore from both Romania and Republic of Moldova (it is considered the oldest accompaniment instrumen ...
. These have similar shapes, a short neck, and like the gittern are carved out of a single block of wood.


Relationship between gittern, the citole, lute and guitar family

Some have pointed out that there have been errors in
scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarsh ...
(starting in the 19th century) which led to the gittern being called mandore and vice versa, and similar confusion with the
citole The citole was a string musical instrument, closely associated with the medieval fiddles (viol, vielle, gigue) and commonly used from 1200–1350."CITOLE, also spelled Systole, Cythole, Gytolle, &c. (probably a Fr. diminutive form of cithar ...
. As a result of this uncertainty, many modern sources refer to gitterns as mandoras, and to citoles as gitterns. A number of modern sources have also claimed the instrument was introduced to Europe from the Arabic regions in a manner similar to the
lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
, but actual historical data supporting this theory is rare, ambiguous, and may suggest the opposite. The various regional names used (including the Arabic) appear derived over time from a Greco-Roman (
Vulgar Latin Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...
) origin, although when and how this occurred is presently unknown. It is possible the instrument existed in Europe during a period earlier than the Arabic conquests in the Iberian peninsula, with the names diverging alongside the regional evolution of European languages from Latin following the collapse of the Roman Empire (compare
Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
). While the name of the lute (Portuguese ''alaúde'', Spanish ''laud'', from Arabic ''al-ʿūd''), and the instrument itself has been interpreted as being of Arabic/Persian origin, the gittern does not appear in historical Arabic source material to support what can only be speculation.


Etymology and identity

The gittern had faded so completely from memory in England that identifying the instrument proved problematic for 20th-century early music scholarship. It was assumed the ancestry of the modern guitar was only to be discovered through the study of flat-backed instruments. As a consequence, what is now believed to be the only known surviving medieval
citole The citole was a string musical instrument, closely associated with the medieval fiddles (viol, vielle, gigue) and commonly used from 1200–1350."CITOLE, also spelled Systole, Cythole, Gytolle, &c. (probably a Fr. diminutive form of cithar ...
was until recently labelled a gittern. In 1977, Lawrence Wright published his article ''The Medieval Gittern and Citole: A Case of Mistaken Identity.'' in issue 30 of the
Galpin Society Journal The Galpin Society was formed in October 1946 to further research into the branch of musicology known as organology, i.e. the history, construction, development and use of musical instruments. Based in the United Kingdom, it is named after the emin ...
; with detailed references to primary historical source material revealing the gittern as a round-backed instrument - and the so-called ' Warwick Castle gittern' (a flat-backed instrument) as originally a citole. Wright's research also corresponded with observations about the origins of the flat-backed guitarra made by 16th-century Spanish musicologist
Juan Bermudo Juan Bermudo (1510 in Écija, Province of Seville – 1565) was a Spanish Friar Minor who is best known as a composer, music theorist and mathematician. Life Bermudo entered the Franciscan Order in 1525, belonging to the Province of Andalusia. ...
. With this theoretical approach, it became possible for scholars to untangle previously confusing and contradictory
nomenclature Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. The principles of naming vary from the relatively informal naming conventions, conventions of everyday speech to the i ...
. Because of the complex nature of the subject, the list and links below should assist in further reading. *Names in English: gittern, gittron, giterninge, giterne. John Playford's ''A Booke of New Lessons for the Cithern & Gittern'' (published in London in 1652) may represent a response to the continued popularity of both instruments; although references to the gittern virtually disappear in England during the following century. The guitar that re-surfaces during the mid-1750s (referred to as English guitar or 'guittar'), enjoying a wave of popularity that faded away in the 19th century; is an entirely different instrument related to later developments of the
cittern The cittern or cithren ( Fr. ''cistre'', It. ''cetra'', Ger. ''Cister,'' Sp. ''cistro, cedra, cítola'') is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is d ...
. During the 14th century in
Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...
's time, the 'e' that appears at the end of his English spelling 'gyterne' would have been pronounced. But following the
great vowel shift The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through ...
- Playford's gittern has lost the 'e' altogether. Although Wright's work enabled identification of the medieval instrument, references to it in 16th century England are more ambivalent regarding structure - leading to the initial confusion identifying the citole. It seems reasonable French and Spanish fashions influenced the gittern during the time of
Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
as they did elsewhere. * Names in French: gviterre (the 'v' is a Latin substitute for 'u'), guisterne, guitarre, guiterne, guyterne, guiterre, quinterne, quitaire, quitarre (the 'e' at the end of the word may have been stressed in a different and heavier manner to modern pronouncement in a similar manner to the English). In France, the plucked form of the flat-backed '
vielle The vielle is a European bowed stringed instrument used in the medieval period, similar to a modern violin but with a somewhat longer and deeper body, three to five gut strings, and a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal tuning pegs, sometimes with a ...
' (
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
with Spanish 'vihuela'), never assumed the importance it developed in the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. As a consequence the replacement of the round-backed guitarre by the new Spanish style appears disconnected with little to trace in historic sources. The 16th century saw the publications (with illustrations on the front cover depicting the instrument) of works by composers like Guillaume Morlaye and
Adrian Le Roy Adrian Le Roy (c.1520–1598) was an influential French music publisher, lutenist, mandore player, guitarist, composer and music educator. Life Le Roy was born in the town of Montreuil-sur-Mer in northern France to a wealthy family. Very little ...
intended for the four course flat-backed guitar, reflecting a new popularity in France possibly more so than Spain. *Names in Italian: chitarino (It. diminutive, ''i.e.'' small chitara), chitarrino, chitarra, cythara. James Tyler has considered the possibility of the chitarino being ancestral to the early
mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
during the 15th century. The
chitarrone The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending out ...
(literally large 'chitarra'), is an instrument that appeared in the late 1580s and became important for its role in ''
basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...
'' supporting various musical ensembles during the 17th century as well as for solo works. The alternative name 'tiorba' (English
theorbo The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending ou ...
) displaced the original word, and is now the preferred term used by modern musicians. *Names in German: quintern, chiterna, quinterna - possibly derived from the later development of a five course instrument (overlay of Latin ''quinctus'' 'five' with chiterna or similar). Juan Bermudo mentioned having seen a 5 course ''guitarra'' but that 4 course instruments were normal. The ''quinterna'' that appears in the German
Michael Praetorius Michael Praetorius (probably 28 September 1571 – 15 February 1621) was a German composer, organist, and music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms ba ...
treatise on musical instruments of 1618, ''
Syntagma Musicum ''Syntagma Musicum (1614-1620)'' is a musical treatise in three volumes by the German composer, organist, and music theorist Michael Praetorius. It was published in Wittenberg and Wolfenbüttel. It is one of the most commonly used research sources ...
'' (Plate 16) - has pegs inserted sideways in the pegbox but the body is now a flat figure-of-8 shape. Like Bermudo, Praetorius also mentions 5 course instruments but considers 4 courses normal. The surviving instrument by Hans Oth is unusual in comparison to historical depictions, the strings pass over the
bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
and are fastened to the lower edge of the body. The strings in historical illustrations are normally shown fastened to the bridge, which may suggest the instrument was converted from four courses at a later date to its construction and the original bridge detached. *Name in Spanish: guiterna *Names in Arabic: kouitra, quitra, kaitara. This four course round-backed instrument is usually mentioned in connection with theories supporting an Arabic origin for the gittern. It is constructed in a similar manner to the ''chitarra Italiana'' and the oud, although the pegbox has lost all trace of its 'sickle-shaped' predecessor. The modern instrument appears to have survived and developed in
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
in isolation from surrounding regions, and is traditionally associated with the music of
Al-Andalus Al-Andalus DIN 31635, translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber languages, Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, ...
. This cultural tradition in North Africa is considered closely linked to development in the Iberian peninsula and the later
expulsion of the Moriscos The Expulsion of the Moriscos ( es, Expulsión de los moriscos) was decreed by King Philip III of Spain on April 9, 1609. The Moriscos were descendants of Spain's Muslim population who had been forced to convert to Christianity. Since the Spani ...
between 1609 and 1614. *Name in Portuguese: The process whereby the round-backed guitarra became a flat-backed instrument in Spain (and the instrument itself) appears to have left little impact on Portuguese history. The usage of 'guitarra' in the 18th century (to present) Portugal refers to a different instrument - the
guitarra portuguesa The Portuguese guitar or Portuguese guitarra ( pt, guitarra portuguesa, ) is a plucked string instrument with twelve steel strings, strung in six course (music), courses of two strings. It is one of the few musical instruments that still uses wat ...
, related to later developments of the cittern. The modern Portuguese equivalent to the 'Spanish guitar' is still generally known as
viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...
(
violão The classical guitar (also known as the nylon-string guitar or Spanish guitar) is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor o ...
in Brazil - literally large viola), as are some smaller regional related instruments. Portuguese 'viola' (like Italian), is cognate with Spanish 'vihuela'. Unlike in Spain, all these instruments traditionally used metal strings until the advent of modern nylon strings. While the modern ''violão'' is now commonly strung with nylon (although steel string variations still exist), in Portugal musicians differentiate between the nylon strung version as ''guitarra clássica'' and the traditional instrument as ''viola de Fado'', reflecting the historical relationship with fado music. While the English and Germans are considered to have borrowed their names from the French, Spanish "guitarra", Italian "chitarra", and the French "guitarre" are believed ultimately to be derived from the Greek " kithara" - although the origins of the historical process which brought this about are not yet understood, with very little actual evidence other than linguistic to explore.


Role in literature


Cantigas of Santa Maria

In Spanish literature, the 13th-century ''
Cantigas de Santa Maria The ''Cantigas de Santa Maria'' (, ; "Canticles of Holy Mary") are 420 poems with musical notation, written in the medieval Galician-Portuguese language during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile ''El Sabio'' (1221–1284). Traditionally, they ar ...
'' with its detailed colored miniature illustrations depicting musicians playing a wide variety of instruments is often used for modern interpretations - the pictures reproduced and captioned, accompanied by claims supporting various theories and commenting on the instruments. None of the surviving four manuscripts contain captions (or text in the poems) to support observations other than the gittern appears to have had equal status with other instruments. Although social attitudes towards instruments like the lute, rebec, and gittern may have changed in Spain much later with the cultural impact of the ''
Reconquista The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...
'' - what is recorded in the ''Cantigas'' indicates the opposite during this period of history. Far from being considered an example of Islamic culture, the instrument was used for one occasion to illustrate principles of Christian religious doctrine. French theologian
Jean Gerson Jean Charlier de Gerson (13 December 1363 – 12 July 1429) was a French scholar, educator, reformer, and poet, Chancellor of the University of Paris, a guiding light of the conciliar movement and one of the most prominent theologians at the Co ...
compared the
four cardinal virtues The cardinal virtues are four virtues of mind and character in both classical philosophy and Christian theology. They are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. They form a virtue theory of ethics. The term ''cardinal'' comes from the La ...
to "''la guiterne de quatre cordes''" (the gittern of four strings). Italian statesman and poet
Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...
, referring to the qualities (and possibly the structure) of the gittern, said, "...just as it would be a blameworthy operation to make a spade of a fine sword or a goblet of a fine ''chitarra''."


Guillaume de Machaut

However, 14th-century French composer
Guillaume de Machaut Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to ...
in his poem ''Prise d'Alexandrie'': ''1150 "Lutes, moraches and guiterne / were played in taverns"'', notes a secular role away from religious references or royal and ducal courts.


Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer also mentions the gittern in the ''
Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus' ...
'' (late 14th century) being played by people who frequent taverns. In ''The Miller's Tale'', Absalom serenades a woman outside her window:Music in the age of Chaucer By Nigel Wilkins. Page 114. Published by DS Brewer, 1999
/ref> ''Now was ther of that chirche a parish clerk'', ''the which that was ycleped (called) Absalon...'' ''and as wel coud he play on a giterne.'' ''In all the town n'as (there never was) brewhous ne (nor) taverne,'' ''that he ne visited with his solas
olos ''Olos'' (2000) is an album by the Finnish rock group Absoluuttinen Nollapiste. Track listing # "Valajas helkures" (Aake Otsala, Aki Lääkkölä) – 3:02 # "Kalkin sammutus" (Otsala, Tommi Liimatta) – 4:10 # "Kotiinpaluu, jotenkin" (Otsala, ...
'' The Canterbury tales By Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Tyrwhit.
Page 93-94. Published by D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1870.
And his '' The Cooks Tale''., ''Al konne he pleye on gyterne or ribible'' (all can he play on gittern or rebab).Robert Boenig and Andrewy Tayler, editors, ''The Canterbury Tales, Second Edition'', Broadview Press, Broadview Editions 2nd Edition, page 118, line 4396, .


Other written records

Praetorius, commenting on a dual-purpose social role, "..in Italy, the ''Ziarlatini'' and ''Salt' in banco'' use them for simple strummed accompaniments to their ''villanelle'' and other vulgar, clownish songs. (These people are something like our comedians and buffoons.) However, to use the (''chiterna'') for the beautiful art-song of a good professional singer is a different thing altogether." The gittern often appeared during the 14th to early 15th century in the inventories of several courts.
Charles V of France Charles V (21 January 1338 – 16 September 1380), called the Wise (french: le Sage; la, Sapiens), was King of France from 1364 to his death in 1380. His reign marked an early high point for France during the Hundred Years' War, with his armi ...
's court recorded four, including one of ivory, while the Italian courts of Este and
Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...
recorded the hiring of gittern (chitarra) masters.


Resources

Early Music Muse - GitternEarly Music Instrument Database - Gittern


References


External links


Article with several pictures of Elbing gittern. Article is for flutes found in the same dig as the gitterns, but the photos are of the gitterns.The text article that goes with the photos from the above link. Polish language, but Google translate does a good job.Large closeup of Elbing gittern.

Closeup of Elbalg or Elbing gittern.Article in German about Elbing gittern with good picture.Page with a good side view photo of the Elbing gittern.
- The Gittern and Citole discussed. Author writes strongly as to why there is historical confusion over instrument names.

- The Guitar and Vihuela.



* ttp://earlymusichicago.org/businesses_gittern.htm Gittern Businesses - Early MusiChicago
The History of the Guitar in Spain
*

This was revised and reprinted in 1666 as ''Musick's Delight on the Cithren''
1450s Gittern in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts. Cited by James Tyler in "The Early Mandolin", pages 3 and 4. The museum has labeled this a "mandora."
The identification of the instrument as a gittern is uncertain, considering the appearance and small size. The pegbox configuration for five strings may also be regarded as consistent with the identification proposed by the museum.

*[http://musiconis.huma-num.fr/en/fiche/9/trois-anges-jouant-de-la-guiterne-et-de-la-harpe-au-dessus-de-la-vierge-a-l-enfant-saints-et-donateurs.html Three angels playing the gittern and the harp above the Virgin and child, saints and donors.]
Musician playing the gittern under St. John the Baptist, XIV century, Amiens (France)
{{Authority control Early musical instruments Mandolin family instruments Guitar family instruments Necked bowl lutes Medieval musical instruments