Note 279 — Chapter I · HERBALISTS, CHARLATANS, MINSTRELS, JUGGLERS, AND TUMBLERS

At Exeter Cathedral may be seen many of the musical instruments used in the fourteenth century, sculptured in the “Minstrels’ Gallery,” where angels are performing (see the plate). The instruments they use have been identified by M. Carl Engel as being: the cittern, the bag-pipe, the clarion, the rebec, the psaltery, the syrinx, the sackbut, the regals, the gittern, the shalm, the timbrel, the cymbals. “Musical Instruments,” South Kensington Museum Art Handbook, p. 113. [The duties of the court minstrels of Edward IV are declared in the Black Book of the Orders of that king’s household (Harl. MS. 610, fol. 23), and their instruments are enumerated; “some vse trumpetts, some shalmes, some small pipes, some are stringe-men.” L. T. S.]