The “Musurgia, seu Praxis Musicæ,” of the Benedictine Monk Luscinius, published in 1542, represents (coarsely cut in wood) as the bowed instruments then in use, the _rebec_, or three-stringed violin, and the _viol di gamba_. The instruments of the viol tribe, however, which are supposed to have been those that led more immediately to the construction of the true violin, considerably precede the above period in their date of origin. _Violars_, or performers on the viol, whose business it was to accompany the Troubadours in their singing of the Provençal poetry[5], were common in the 12th century; and, in a treatise on music, written by Jerome of Westphalia in the 13th century, there is particular mention made of the instrument known by the name of viol. Under various modifications of the term _fiddle_, there are to be found many very early allusions to an instrument, such as it was, bearing some resemblance to the violin. _Fidle_ is a Saxon word of considerable antiquity; and from the old Gothic are traced the derivations of 1. Middle High German. _Videl_ (noun), _Videlœre_ (noun personal), _Videln_ (verb, to fiddle), _Videl-boge_ (fiddle bow). 2. Icelandic. _Fidla._ 3. Danish. _Fedel._ Then we have _Vedel_, _Veel_, _Viool_ (Dutch); _Vedel_, _Vedele_ (Flemish), _Fiedel_, _Fidel_, _Geige_ (Modern German). _Fythele_, _Fithele_,—and _Fythelers_ (fiddlers) are alluded to in the Old English Romances. In the legendary life of St. Christopher, written about the year 1200, is this passage:— . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cristofre hym served longe; The Kynge loved melodye of _fithele_ and of songe. The poet Lidgate, at the beginning of the 15th century, writes of Instrumentys that did excelle, Many moo than I kan telle: Harpys, _Fythales_, and eke Rotys, &c. Chaucer, in his “Canterbury Tales,” says of the Oxford Clerk, that he was so fond of books and study, as to have loved Aristotle better Than robes rich, or _fidel_, or sautrie— and his Absolon, the Parish-Clerk, a genius of a different cast, and exquisitely described, is a spruce little fellow, who sang, danced, and played on the species of fiddle then known. An instrument remotely allied to the fiddle—the _ribible_, a diminutive of _rebec_, a small viol with three strings—is also alluded to by Chaucer. Referring to a later period, there is evidence to show that an instrument of the violin kind was used in England before the dissolution of monasteries, in the time of our eighth Henry, in the fact that something similar to it in shape is seen depicted upon a glass window of the chancel of Dronfield church, in the county of Derby; an edifice which was erected early in the sixteenth century.