used chiefly to accompany the song or the dance. As we may deduce from many contemporary references, the troubadours, jongleurs, and minnesingers[43] of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries played a very important part in the development of the violin type of instrument. There is extant, for instance, a manuscript of the period, containing an illustration of a _jongleur_ playing upon a three-stringed instrument very nearly resembling the modern violin. Jerome of Moravia, a Dominican monk of Paris in the thirteenth century, informs us in his _Speculum Musices_ that the two strings of the violin then in use were tuned as follows: [Illustration: Music score]. His _Speculum_, which is probably the earliest approach to an instruction book for the violin, also contains this very definite indication of the fingering: [Illustration: Music score] Under the influence of the troubadours and minnesingers the popularity of the violin spread rapidly both among professionals and amateur musicians. It was especially popular as an accompaniment to dances. In the _Brunswick Chronicle_ (1203) we read of a clergyman who had his arm struck by lightning while playing for dancers. We may infer from this that it was considered quite a respectable recreation. The _Chronicle_ has the words _veddelte_ (fiddled) and _Veddelbogen_ (fiddle-bow) without any comment, so that they must have been quite familiar terms. A stained glass window, a Parisian manuscript and a miniature painting from a manuscript called _Mater Verborum_ (1202-12) show that the instrument then in use resembled in shape the modern violin. In Ulrich von Lichtenstein’s _Frauendienst_ we read of an orchestra which included two fiddles and which played a lively walking-tune or march for the purpose of charming away the fatigues of the journey. We may gather some idea of the vogue of violin playing during this period from the character of a decree, issued in the year 1261 and now in the archives of Bologna, which forbade the playing of the viol at night in the streets of that city. Despite its great popularity it held a place beside the harp as an instrument worthy of the dignity of a minstrel, as we may gather from an allusion of a French poet about the year 1230: ‘When the cloth was ta’en away Minstrels strait began to play, And while harps and viols join Raptured bards in strains divine, Loud the trembling arches rung With the noble deed we sung.’ By this time professional instrumentalists had become a strong class and in various cities had begun the formation of fraternities which did not differ much in essence from our modern musical unions. The first of these, as far as we can discover, was the St. Nicholas Brüderschaft which existed in Vienna as early as 1288.