HOME





Medieval Harp
The medieval harp refers to various types of harps played throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. The defining features are a three-sided frame (column, harmonic curve, and soundboard) and strings made of wire or gut. The instrument was most popular in Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, and Scandinavia. Most information about the medieval harp comes from art and poetry of the era, though some original instruments survive and are available to view in museums. Performers play modern reconstructions of medieval harps today. The instrument is the predecessor to the concert grand pedal harp. Construction and technique All medieval harps were built with a large vertical box for sound resonance and production. The soundboard was held to the player's body. Strings attached to the soundboard and to tuning pegs within the neck or the harmonic curve of the instrument. The curve became more pronounced in the eleventh century and onwards. The medieval harp usually featured gut strings, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

David Tuning A Medieval Harp, Paris, Bibl
David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate a victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase (), which is translated as "House of David" by most scholars. The Mesha Stele, erected by King Mesha of Moab in the 9th century BCE, may also refer to the "House of David", although this is disputed. According to Jewish works such as the ''Seder Olam Rabbah'', ''Seder Olam Zutta'', and ''Sefer ha-Qabbalah'' (all written over a thousand years later), David ascended the throne as the king of Judah in 885 BCE. Apart from this, all that is known of David comes from biblical literature, the historicity of which has been extensively challenged,Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel; by Isaac Kalimi; page 32; Cambr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (; most likely baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri; – September 14, 1321), widely known mononymously as Dante, was an Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer, and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ) and later christened by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language. Dante chose to write in the vernacular, specifically, his own Tuscan dialect, at a time when much literature was still written in Latin, which was accessible only to educated readers, and many of his fellow Italian poets wrote in French or Provençal dialect, Provençal. His ' (''On Eloquence in the Vernacular'') was one of the first scholarly defenses of the vernacular. His use of the Florentine dialect for works such as ''La Vita Nuova, The New Life'' (1295) and ''Divine Comedy'' helped establish the modern-day standardized Italian language. His wo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Westminster Psalter
The Westminster Psalter, British Library, MS Royal 2 A XXII, is an English illuminated psalter of about 1200, with some extra sheets with tinted drawings added around 1250. It is the oldest surviving psalter used at Westminster Abbey, and is presumed to have left Westminster after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It joined the Old Royal Library as part of the collection of John Theyer, bought by Charles II of England in 1678. Both campaigns of decoration, both the illuminations of the original and the interpolated full-page drawings, are important examples of English manuscript painting from their respective periods. Description The manuscript has 224 medieval folios with a page size of 230 x 155 mm and a typical text area of 160 x 95. The binding is modern, from 1932. The contents begin with a calendar, illustrated with the signs of the Zodiac in small roundels (ff. 4r-10v), with Scorpio as a dragon. Then follow five full-page miniatures with gold grounds, showing ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Harley Psalter
The Harley Psalter (British Library Harley MS 603) is an illuminated manuscript of the second and third decades of the 11th century, with some later additions. It is a Latin psalter on vellum, measures 380 x 310 mm and was probably produced at Christ Church, Canterbury. The most likely patron of such a costly work would have been the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, possibly Æthelnoth, who was consecrated in 1020 and remained at Canterbury until 1038. Description The Harley Psalter is the earliest of three surviving medieval copies of the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter of c. 820, then at Canterbury; the later ones were the 12th-century Eadwine Psalter and the Anglo-Catalan Psalter. It contains more than 100 11th-century coloured pen and wash drawings in the Utrecht Style, ending abruptly at Psalm 143:12, probably due to loss of pages rather than interruption of the original work. In addition to the drawings being done in the Utrecht Style, a large amount of them are ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Rotta (lyre)
:''See Rotte (psaltery) for the medieval psaltery, or Rote for the fiddle'' Rotte or rotta is a historical name for the Germanic lyre, used in northwestern Europe in the early medieval period (circa 450 A.D.) into the 13th century. The plucked variants declined in the medieval era (spreading less often in manuscripts in the 13th century), while bowed variants have survived into modern times. Non-Greek or Roman lyres were used in pre-Christian Europe as early as the 6th century B.C. by the Hallstatt culture, by Celtic peoples as early as the 1st century B.C., and by Germanic peoples. They were played in Anglo-Saxon England, and more widely, in Germanic regions of northwestern Europe. Their existence was recorded in the Scandinavian and Old-English story ''Beowulf'', set in pre-Christian times (5th-6th century A.D.) and written or retold by a Christian scribe about 975 A.D. The Germanic lyre has been thought to be a descendant of the ancient lyre which originated in western Asia ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Utrecht Psalter
The Utrecht Psalter (Utrecht, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS Bibl. Rhenotraiectinae I Nr 32.) is a ninth-century illuminated manuscript, illuminated psalter which is a key masterpiece of Carolingian art; it is probably the most valuable manuscript in the Netherlands. It is famous for its 166 lively pen illustrations, with one accompanying each psalm and the other texts in the manuscript (Chazelle, 1055). The precise purpose of these illustrations, and the extent of their dependence on earlier models, have been matters of art-historical controversy. The psalter spent the period between about 1000 to 1640 in England, where it had a profound influence on Anglo-Saxon art, giving rise to what is known as the "Utrecht style". It was copied at least three times in the Middle Ages. A complete facsimile edition of the psalter was made in 1875 (Lowe, 237), and another in 1984 (Graz). The other texts in the book include some Canticle, canticles and hymns used in the Liturgy of the Hours, offi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Aachen
Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is located at the northern foothills of the High Fens and the Eifel Mountains. It sits on the Wurm (Rur), Wurm River, a tributary of the Rur (river), Rur, and together with Mönchengladbach, it is the only larger German city in the drainage basin of the Meuse. It is the westernmost larger city in Germany, lying approximately west of Cologne and Bonn, directly bordering Belgium in the southwest, and the Netherlands in the northwest. The city lies in the Meuse–Rhine Euroregion and is the seat of the Aachen (district), district of Aachen ''(Städteregion Aachen)''. The once Celts, Celtic settlement was equipped with several in the course of colonization by Roman people, Roman pioneers settling at the warm Aachen thermal springs around the 1st cen ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Trinity College Dublin
Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin in the Republic of Ireland. Founded by Queen Elizabeth I in 1592 through a royal charter, it is one of the extant seven "ancient university, ancient universities" of Great Britain and Ireland. Trinity contributed to Irish literature during the Georgian era, Georgian and Victorian era, Victorian eras, and areas of the natural sciences and medicine. Trinity was established to consolidate the rule of the Tudor dynasty, Tudor monarchy in Ireland, with Provost (education), Provost Adam Loftus (bishop), Adam Loftus christening it after Trinity College, Cambridge. Built on the site of the former Priory of All Hallows demolished by King Henry VIII, it was the Protestant university of the Protestant Ascendancy, Ascendancy ruling eli ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vikings
Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9–22. They also voyaged as far as the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, Greenland, and Vinland (present-day Newfoundland in Canada, North America). In their countries of origin, and some of the countries they raided and settled in, this period is popularly known as the Viking Age, and the term "Viking" also commonly includes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian homelands as a whole. The Vikings had a profound impact on the Early Middle Ages, early medieval history of Northern Europe, northern and Eastern Europe, including the political and social development of England (and the English language) and parts of France, and established the embryo of Russia in Kievan Rus'. Expert sailors and navigators of their cha ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Harp
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments. Ancient depictions of harps were recorded in Mesopotamia (now Iraq), Persia (now Iran) and Egypt, and later in India and China. By medieval times harps had spread across Europe. Harps were found across the Americas where it was a popular folk tradition in some areas. Distinct designs also emerged from the African continent. Harps have symbolic political traditions and are often used in logos, including in Ireland. Historically, strings were made of sinew (animal tendons). Other materials have included gut (animal intestines), plant fiber, braided hemp, cotton cord, silk, nylon, and wire. In pedal harp scor ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Picts
The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Scotland in the early Middle Ages, Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pictish stones. The name appears in written records as an Exonym and endonym, exonym from the late third century AD. They are assumed to have been descendants of the Caledonians, Caledonii and other northern British Iron Age, Iron Age tribes. Their territory is referred to as "Pictland" by modern historians. Initially made up of several chiefdoms, it came to be dominated by the Pictish kingdom of Fortriu from the seventh century. During this Fortriu#Verturian_hegemony, Verturian hegemony, ''Picti'' was adopted as an endonym. This lasted around 160 years until the Pictish kingdom merged with that of Dál Riata to form the Kingdom of Alba, ruled by the House of Alpin. The concept of "Pictish kingship" continued for a few decades until it was ab ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjacent Islands of Scotland, islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. To the south-east, Scotland has its Anglo-Scottish border, only land border, which is long and shared with England; the country is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the north-east and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. The population in 2022 was 5,439,842. Edinburgh is the capital and Glasgow is the most populous of the cities of Scotland. The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the 9th century. In 1603, James VI succeeded to the thrones of Kingdom of England, England and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland, forming a personal union of the Union of the Crowns, three kingdo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]