The side-mouthed flute, which was at first very little used, owed its celebrity in the sixteenth century to the improvements it received from the Germans, hence it acquired the name of the _German flute_ (Fig. 160). The _syrinx_ was nothing but the ancient Pandean pipes, composed generally of seven tubes of wood or metal, gradually decreasing in length; they were closed at the bottom, and at the top took the form of a horizontal plane, which was touched by the lip of the musician as it passed along (Fig. 159). In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the syrinx, which must have produced very shrill and discordant music, was generally made in the shape of a semicircle, and contained nine tubes in a metallic case pierced with the same number of holes. [Illustration: Fig. 158.--Double Flute, Fourteenth Century. (From Willemin’s “French Monuments.”)] [Illustration: Fig. 159.--Seven-tubed _Syrinx_, Ninth or Tenth Century. (Angers MS.)] The _chorus_, which in the time of St. Jerome was composed of a skin and two tubes, one forming the mouth, the other the bell-end (Fig. 161), must have presented a very great similarity to the modern bagpipes. In the ninth century its shape had changed but little, except that we sometimes find two bell-ends, and the membranous air-reservoir is in some examples replaced by a kind of case made of metal or resonant wood (_bois sonore_). Subsequently this instrument was transformed into a simple dulcimer. The _calamus_, called the _chalemelle_ or _chalemie_, which derived its origin from the _calamus_ or reed-pipe of the ancients, became in the sixteenth century a treble to the hautboy, the _bombarde_ being its counter-bass and tenor, and the bass being executed on the _cromorne_. There was, however, quite a group of hautboys. The _douçaine_ or _doucine_, a soft flute, the great hautboy of Poitou played the parts of tenor or of fifth. The length of the hautboy having been found inconvenient, it was divided into pieces united in a movable cluster (_faisceau_) known by the name of _fagot_. This instrument was afterwards called _courtaut_ in France, and _sourdeline_ or _sampogne_ in Italy, where it had become a kind of bagpipe, like the _muse_ or _estive_. The _muse de blé_ was a simple reed-pipe, but the _muse d’Aussay_ (or _d’Ausçois_, district of Auch) was certainty a hautboy. With regard to the bagpipes, properly so called, they generally bore the name of _chevrette_, _chevrie_, or _chièvre_, on account of the skin of which the bag was made. They were also designated by the names of _pythaule_ and _cornemuse_, drone-pipe (Fig. 162). [Illustration: Fig. 160.--German Musicians playing on the Flute and Goat’s Horn. (Drawn and Engraved by J. Amman.)]