The Troubadour, who was a poet as well as a musician and who wrote the words of his songs as well as their melodies, played upon a _viole_, or _vielle_. Another name for it is guitar-fiddle. The instrument was a kind of guitar, fiddle and hurdy-gurdy all in one, as you will see if you look at the picture of the _Little Savoyard in Paris_ facing page 14, made in 1827; for the hurdy-gurdy of the wandering player is a survival of the old _vielle_. Its body was pear-shaped and over it five strings were stretched. The _vielle_ was a queer instrument indeed; sometimes it was played with a bow; sometimes it was plucked with the fingers; and sometimes it was played by turning a wheel. It was chiefly used by the Troubadours to support the voice, so it was an accompanying, rather than a solo, instrument. Gradually the _vielle_ was made larger; and during this same Thirteenth Century, when there were many new ideas springing up in the world, somebody got the idea of cutting out the sides of the long instrument to form a kind of waist. And this waist was the first step towards our modern violin. In the Fifteenth Century—two hundred years later—something else happened,—something of importance for the whole future of music. People began to make bowed instruments corresponding to the various kinds of human voices; consequently, these were the treble, or discant, viol; the tenor viol; the bass viol; and the double-bass, or violone. The next thing that happened—also in this Fifteenth Century—was the invention of corner blocks, which followed naturally from the cutting of the waist, although it took a long time to think of it. You will notice if you look at the illustrations facing pages 22, 24, 30, 34, and 38, that a violin has two sharply projecting points on each of its sides, one at either extremity of the _f_-holes at the waist of the instrument. These sharp corners mark the position of triangular blocks _inside_ the violin. These blocks are glued to the back and to the belly of the violin and the ribs of the violin are glued to the blocks. These blocks are the very corner-stones of the construction of a violin; and they add very much to the strength and the resonance of the instrument. [Illustration: ST. CECILIA _By Jan and Hubert van Eyck_] If you look at the violins and other bowed instruments in many old Italian and Flemish paintings you will see that they have only single corners, as, for instance, the large viol the Angel is holding in the picture of St. Cecilia facing page 18. Nobody seems to know whether single, or double, corners came first; but after a time only double corners were used.