[Illustration: Fig. 197.--Juggler playing on a _Vielle_, hollowed out at the Sides. Fifteenth Century. (“Heures du Roi René,” MS. No. 159 in the Bibl. Imp. of the Arsenal, Paris.)] its sides hollowed out, and its strings had received a more extended field of action by removing the stringer (_cordier_) from the centre of the sounding-board [Illustration: Fig. 198.--Player on the _Vielle_. Thirteenth Century. (Taken from an Enamelled Dish at Soissons.)] [Illustration: Fig. 199.--Angel Playing on a Three-stringed Fiddle. Thirteenth Century. (Sculpture in the Cathedral of Amiens.)] Henceforth the play of the board became more free and easy, the performer was able to touch every string singly, and was in a position to substitute effects more characteristic instead of the former monotonous consonances. [Illustration: Fig. 200.--Rebec, of the Sixteenth Century. From Willemin.] [Illustration: Fig. 201.--Long Monochord played on with a Bow. Fifteenth Century. (MS. of Froissart, in the Bibl. Imp., Paris.)] England was the birthplace of the _crout_; France invented the _rote_, and Italy the _viole_; Germany originated the _gigue_,[25] the name of which may perhaps be derived from the similarity presented by the shape of the instrument to the thigh of a kid. The _gigue_ was provided with three strings (Fig. 199), and its special distinction from the _viole_ was, that instead of the handle being as it were independent of the body of the instrument, it was a kind of prolongation of the sounding-board. The _gigue_, which bore a considerable resemblance to the modern mandolin, was an instrument on which the Germans were accustomed to work wonders in the way of performance; according, at least, to the statement of Adenès, the _trouvère_, who speaks with admiration of the “_gigueours_ of Germany.” The _gigue_, however, entirely disappeared, at least in France, in the fifteenth century; but its name still remained as the designation of a joyous dance, which for a considerable period was enlivened by the sound of this instrument. Among the musical instruments of this class in the Middle Ages, we have still to mention the rebec (Fig. 200), which was so often quoted by the authors of the day, and yet is so little known, although it figured in the court concerts in the time of Rabelais, who specifies it by the term _aulique_, in contrast to the rustic _cornemuse_ (bagpipes).