| Numerous studies have examined the role of the scop in Old English literature, but virtually nothing has been written about the musical instruments actually played by the Anglo-Saxons. The scholarship on Anglo-Saxon music has therefore been largely conjectural. A scientific evaluation of the evidence for Anglo-Saxon musical instruments is needed to substantiate Old English musical studies.;My dissertation will serve as a reference source to locate all the verbal, iconographical, and archaeological evidence for every Anglo-Saxon musical instrument. Linguists can use the lists of terms to study the localities of particular words and phrases, and scholars interested in any aspect of Anglo-Saxon musical instruments can consult my work for a catalogue and evaluation of all the available evidence.;My dissertation catalogues and analyzes all the existing data for nine types of Anglo-Saxon musical instruments: organs, pipes, horns and trumpets, bells, clappers, drums, Jew's harps, psalteries, and harps and lyres. Where the evidence permits, I consider three aspects for each instrument: the literary references, iconographical representations, and archaeological remains. At the beginning of each chapter I list every Old English word related to the particular instrument, and in a subsequent list I cite every occurrence in the Old English corpus of each word. A detailed discussion of the words and their sources follows, highlighting the most revealing phrases to determine what information the verbal evidence gives us. The second section includes a list of manuscript illuminations that picture the instruments. I discuss the artistic representations of the instruments in selected pictures, and what they tell us. The most revealing illuminations are reproduced. Finally, I catalogue all the archaeological discoveries of each type of instrument by date and discovery site. I also list the relevant scholarship for each object, and discuss the significance of the remains. At the end of each chapter, I summarize the conclusions we can draw from my analyses of the evidence. Some of the results are surprising. The Anglo-Saxons apparently did not have harps; Old English hearpe refers to the lyre, and in many cases to another instrument, such as the drum. The drum may in fact have been the instrument to which Old English poetry was chanted or sung. |
