animal (a kid or pig), with head and feet, has been
used for the bag. Edward Buhle,[3] in his admirable work on the musical
instruments in the illuminated MSS. of the middle ages, points out that
Gerbert,[4] who gives the dates of his two MSS. as "6th and 9th
centuries," has a singular method of reckoning the date of a MS.; he
refers to the age of a MS. at the time of writing (18th century), not to
the date at which it was produced. The MS. containing the two figures of
musicians mentioned above, instead of being ascribed to the 6th century,
was six centuries old when Gerbert wrote in 1774, and dates therefore
from the 12th century. It is interesting to note that Giraldus
Cambrensis[5] mentions the chorus as one of the three instruments of
Wales and Scotland, ascribing superior musical skill to the latter.
Historians record that King James I. of Scotland was renowned for his
skill as a performer on various musical instruments, one of which was
the chorus.[6] This bears out the traditional belief that the bagpipe
had been a Scottish attribute from the earliest times. The word "chorus"
occurs once or twice in French medieval poems with other instruments,
but without indication as to the kind of instrument thus designated. The
word was probably the French equivalent for the _Platerspiel_.

See also G. Kastner, _Danses des morts_ (pp. 200 to 202, pl. xv., No.
103); and Dom Pedro Cerone, _El Melopeo y maestro_ (Naples, 1613), p.
248. (K. S.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The MSS. are a psalterium, 9th century, Bibl. publique, Angers,
fol. 13a; Boulogne _Psalterium glossatum_ c. A.D. 1000, MS. No. 20,
Bibl. publique. For reproduction of musical instruments see _Annales
archeologiques_, tome iv. (1846), p. 38; Cotton MS., Tiberius C.
vi., 10th to 11th century, fol. 16b, British Museum, illustrated in
Strutt's _Horda Angel-cynnan_, vol. ii. pls. xx. and xxi.; MS.
psalter of St Emmeran, now in Munich Staatsbibliothek, clm. 14523,
fol. 51b, 10th century, illustrated by Gerbert, _De Cantu et Mus.
Sacra_, tome ii. pi. xxiii.; Paris, Bibl. Nat. Fonds Latin, 7211,
1Oth century, fol. 150 and 151a.

[2] Cotton MS., Nero D. ii. f. 15a, _Chronicon ab orbe condito ad
obitum Regis Edwardi I., 1307_.

[3] _Die musikalischen Instrumente in den Miniaturen des fruehen
Mittelalters_, part i. "Die Blasinstrumente" (Leipzig, 1903), p. 7,
note 1.

[4] Op. cit. (1774), tome ii. pl. xxv.