The forms of the most usual musical instruments of various periods may be gathered from the illustrations which have already been given. The most common are the harp, fiddle, cittern or lute, hand-organ, the shalm or psaltery, the pipe and tabor, pipes of various sizes played like clarionets, but called flutes, the double pipe, hand-bells, trumpets and horns, bagpipes, tambourine, tabret, drum, and cymbals. Of the greater number of these we have already incidentally given illustrations; we add, on the last page, other illustrations, from the Royal MS., 2 B vii., and Royal MS. 14 E iii. In the fourteenth century new instruments were invented. Guillaume de Marhault in his poem of "Le Temps Pastour," gives us an idea of the multitude of instruments which composed a grand concert of the fifteenth century; he says[368]-- "Là je vis tout en un cerne Viole, rubebe, guiterne, L'enmorache, le micamon, Citole et Psalterion, Harpes, tabours, trompes, nacaires, Orgues, cornes plus de dix paires, Cornemuse, flajos et chevrettes Douceines, simbales, clochettes, Tymbre, la flauste lorehaigne, Et le grand cornet d'Allemayne, Flacos de sans, fistule, pipe, Muse d'Aussay, trompe petite, Buisine, eles, monochorde, Ou il n'y a qu'une corde; Et muse de blet tout ensemble. Et certainment il me semble Qu' oncques mais tèle mélodie Ne feust oncques vene ne oye; Car chascun d'eux, selon l'accort De son instrument sans descort, Vitole, guiterne, citole, Harpe, trompe, corne, flajole, Pipe, souffle, muse, naquaire, Taboure et qu cunque ou put faire De dois, de peune et à l'archet, Ois et vis en ce porchet." In conclusion we give a group of musical instruments from one of the illustrations of "Der Weise König," a work of the close of the fifteenth century. [Illustration: _Musical Instruments of the 15th Century._] THE KNIGHTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. CHAPTER I. SAXON ARMS AND ARMOUR. We proceed, in this division of our work, to select out of the inexhaustible series of pictures of mediæval life and manners contained in illuminated MSS., a gallery of subjects which will illustrate the armour and costume, the military life and chivalric adventures, of the Knights of the Middle Ages; and to append to the pictures such explanations as they may seem to need, and such discursive remarks as the subjects may suggest. For the military costume of the Anglo-Saxon period we have the authority of the descriptions in their literature, illustrated by drawings in their illuminated MSS.; and if these leave anything wanting in definiteness, the minutest details of form and ornamentation may often be recovered from the rusted and broken relics of armour and weapons which have been recovered from their graves, and are now preserved in our museums.