The Highland bagpipe : $b its history, literature, and music: with some account of the traditions, superstitions, and anecdotes relating to the instrument and its tunesManson, W. L. (William Laird)
History
The Highland bagpipe : $b its history, literature, and music: with some account of the traditions, superstitions, and anecdotes relating to the instrument and its tunes
Manson, W. L. (William Laird)
Bagpipe
A.D. 1200.—Coming down to ages of which we have better historical
records, we find a drawing of the thirteenth century which shows a girl
dancing on the shoulders of a jester to the music of the instrument in
its simplest form, the chanter only.
A.D. 1300.—About the end of the thirteenth century the bagpipe in France
was consigned to the lower orders, and only used by the blind and the
wandering or mendicant classes. Polite society, however, resumed it in
the time of Louis XIV. and Louis XV.
A.D. 1307.—Several payments to performers of the fourteenth and
subsequent centuries are recorded. In the reign of Edward II. there is a
payment to _Jauno Chevretter_ (the latter word meant bagpiper) for
playing before the king.
A.D. 1314.—The Clan Menzies are alleged to have had their pipes with
them at Bannockburn, and they are supposed to have been played by one of
the Mac Intyres, their hereditary pipers. The Clan Menzies claim that
these pipes are still in existence, at least three portions of them—the
chanter, which has the same number of finger holes as the modern
chanter, but two additional holes on each side; the blowpipe, which is
square, but graduates to round at the top; and the drone, of which the
top half only remains. These relics, which are now preserved with great
care, are supposed to be the remains of a set which were played to the
clan when they mustered at Castle Menzies, and marched to join the main
body of the Scottish army at Torwood, and in front of them on the field
of battle. There are said to be Mac Donald pipes in existence, which
consist of a chanter and blowpipe only, and which, it is alleged, were
played before the Mac Donalds at Bannockburn. This, most likely, also
refers to the Menzies pipes, as the Mac Intyres, who are credited with
having been owners of each, were at different times pipers to the
Menzies and to the Clan Ranald branch of the Mac Donalds. Bruce’s son,
says another tradition, had pipes at Bannockburn. Sir Walter Scott
represents the men of the Isles as charging to the sound of the bagpipe;
and David Mac Donald, a Clan Mac Donald bard, who wrote about 1838, in a
poem on the battle, says that when the bards began to encourage the
clans, the pipers began to blow their pipes. There is, however, no
historical proof that the instrument was used at the battle. Though
horns and trumpets are mentioned by reliable historians, it is not till
about two hundred years later that the bagpipe is referred to as having
superseded the trumpet as an instrument of war.
A.D. 1327.—In the reign of Edward III. two pipers received permission to
visit schools for minstrels beyond the seas, and from about that time
till the sixteenth century the bagpipe was the favourite instrument of
the Irish kerns.
A.D. 1362.—There is an entry in the Exchequer rolls of 1362 of forty
shillings “paid to the King’s pipers,” which indicates the use of the
pipes at that date.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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