The Sound
of One Hand Piping

Fro kechene com þe fyrste cours,WiÞ pypes, and trumpes, and tabours.

King Richard Coeur de Lion (fourteenth-century) by Anonymous

The pipe and tabor sit proudly in the noble guild of things that toddled across cultures and continents, hitchhiking through the corridors of time, accruing accent and habit, altered by roads, borders, and markets, emerging everywhere recognisably themselves and yet never quite the same twice. Each culture took the same basic rig (three-holed pipe, drum, that’s the gist of it) and promptly did it differently. It’s the ultimate musical nomad story.

The story does not, in fact, begin with a thirteenth-century church joint in Exeter, nor with a three-hole pipe, nor within the agreeable confines of medieval Europe at all. It begins in eleventh-century Cambodia, carved into stone at Vat Baset which is now enjoying a continental retirement at the Musée Guimet in Paris. As Soler and Mitjans (2010) recount, the relief captures a scene from the Ramayana: the moment of the Vanara ape-king Sugriva's triumphant departure, heralded by what the Sanskrit text specifies as 'conchs and kettledrums.' The sculpture obliges us with a musician who appears to be playing a near-cylindrical aerophone, its end flared into a flower-like bloom, while at the same time striking a cylindrical drum with a beater. The marriage of pipe and percussion was already well established long before Europe ever thought to claim it.

The pipe and tabor, then, are descendants of a long line of one-handed musical hustlers: pipe and bell, horn and drum, frestel and bell, all fine examples of the enduring belief that one limb is quite enough for melody.

Medieval iconography is full of these pairings. The frestel and bell, in particular, turn up with suspicious regularity, peepin’ over the battlements as early as the eleventh century.

Take a look at Paris, BnF, Latin 11550 (folio 7v if you fancy) or roll through Jaca Cathedral. Both drop eleventh-century visuals of the one-handed frestel in action.

Paris, BnF, Latin 11550 

Twelfth-century depictions of the frestel-bell combination can be found in manuscripts like the Basilique Notre-Dame de Beaune and in the Église Saint-Nicolas de Civray.

BnF, Latin 343, f. 249v

The Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. 264 depicts this one-handed groove in action with both a horn and bell (fol.68v) and the pipe and tabor (fol.70r).

MS. Bodl. 264, f 68v

MS. Bodl. 264, f 70r

MS Ee.4.24

When we swing our gaze toward thirteenth-century Europe, we encounter horn-and-tabor imagery appearing with striking suddenness across multiple sites. Soler and Mitjans kept the receipts.

Running neck-and-neck with that famous misericord at Exeter was another piece of business altogether: the tomb of King Dagobert I at Saint Denis, put on order by Louis IX around 1240. Here, among devils hauling the king’s soul off, appears a horn-and-tabor. You could write it off as hellfire symbolism and call it a night, yet as Soler and Mitjans argue, the presence of this ensemble in such a prominent context likely reflects actual musical practice as much as theological intent.

Then swing over to Rouen Cathedral’s North Portal, put together after 1280, two examples appear: a fantastical beast playing a long, straight, cylindrical, bell-ended instrument alongside a wide tabor, and a devil in the Last Judgement using a horn-and-tabor ensemble. These representations suggest complex symbolism, with horn-and-tabor appearing in both demonic and celestial contexts in medieval art.

Paris, BnF, Latin 40 f.211v

Across the ocean, the Aymara sikuri and Quechua ayarachi were already running the same hustle, beating a drum while blowing a panpipe. It’s a move they've kept alive for over a thousand years. You can see it frozen in clay too. Olsen caught it on record back in 2002 in Music of El Dorado.

The Medieval Reality

Paris, BnF, ms. Rothschild 2973 979a), fol. 16r.

The pipe and tabor are found all over medieval manuscripts and artworks, popping their heads up in margins, miniatures, and glass, offering insight into the early use and design of these instruments. For instance...

The earliest known depiction of the pipe and tabor in England is found in the much-admired misericord of Exeter Cathedral, dating from c.1230-1279 (Montagu 1997). Further early representations surface at Lincoln and Gloucester Cathedrals, and at Tewkesbury Abbey.

MS Ee.4.24

The Macclesfield Psalter (c.1325-35), one of the finest East Anglian manuscripts, features pipe and tabor illustrations. The tabor in this manuscript shows a thick high-twist snare, rope V-bracing, and a head lapped around a rope ring. The instrument is held high on the left forearm with the pipe played by that hand, the right hand crossing the body to strike with a heavy beater featuring an oval head (Montagu 2006).

MS 1-2005, f.130r

Walters Manuscript W.88, fol. 115v

The period saw an influx of instruments from the Islamic world, the 'ūd (lute), rabāb (rebec), qānūn (psaltery), naqqāra (nakers), duff (tambourine), al-nafīr (trumpet), and zumār (shawm), there exists no evidence of the pipe and tabor in Islamic, North African, Central Asian, or sub-Saharan African iconography, either medieval or modern (Montagu 1997). The pipe and tabor appears to be a purely European phenomenon which, improbably, 'suddenly appeared, full formed, without any ancestral development' across the continent within two or three decades of the mid-thirteenth century. As Montagu notes, this seems 'not only improbable but, from all we know of the dissemination of instruments, all-but impossible.'

Arras, Médiathèque de l'Abbaye Saint-Vaast, CGM 863 (1043), f. 149v

Several fourteenth- and fifteenth-century instruments have been discovered in the Netherlands and England. Crane (1972) cites only two medieval pipes: one Polish of suspiciously early date, and another Spanish dated 1402. The Correr Collection contains one example with a long metal mouthpipe extending up the side of the instrument, exactly as Praetorius illustrates. Bosmans (1991) documents eleven early pipes from the Low Countries, two of which are in the Brussels Museum. Three pipes were found with the Mary Rose (sunk 1545), one bearing the double plume mark possibly associated with the Bassano family (Montagu 2010). Two instruments were found in Gloucester in the 1980s, and medieval instruments have also been uncovered in Hereford, Canterbury, and Southampton.

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodl. 264, f. 91r.

The lavish courts of Burgundy offer glimpses into how pipe and tabor functioned within the broader instrumental landscape of late medieval and early Renaissance Europe. At the famous Feast of the Pheasant (1454), Duke Philip the Good displayed an astonishing array of instruments: inside a huge pastry castle, twenty-eight musicians sang and played on recorders, rebecs, lutes, horns, dulcians, bagpipes, and a German cornett. Later in the same feast, 'three taborers inside the pie played, and another instrumental chanson was performed' (Bowles 1953).

Arras, Médiathèque de l'Abbaye Saint-Vaast, CGM 863 (1043), f. 179v

English Traditions & Literary References

The pipe and tabor appears in Middle English texts. Anonymous fourteenth century King Richard Coeur de Lion mentions it, and De proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, translated from the Latin by John de Trevisa in 1398. The Bodleian's MS Laud Misc. 622 also nods knowingly. Sir Orfeo (Harley 3810, c.1488) has a passage describing a procession with 'Taberis and pypes' alongside 'alle maner of mynstrelsy.'

The term tabor itself comes from the Middle Persian word tambūr, meaning 'lute' or 'drum,' and the Arabic tunbur ('lute') led to the Old French tabour.

The pipe and tabor been rollin’ deep with dancing bears, with references to this tradition dating from the thirteenth century and continuing well into the late 1800s, particularly in Western Europe.

Renaissance Refinement

It was during the Renaissance that the instrument as we know it found its groove, becoming standardised as a pipe and tabor. This development is documented by sources such as Virdung layin' it down in 1511, Agricola in 1529, and Praetorius in 1619. Still, much about the medieval pipe and its usage remains speculative, constrained by the limited survival of concrete evidence. Medieval people were too busy trying not to die of the plague to leave us detailed instruction manuals.

Praetorius gives us Stamenien-Baß und Discant, and Klein Päuglein zu den Stamenien Pfeifflein zugebrauchen.

Päuglein might today be Pauklein, with Pauk as the modern German for Timpani. 

A copy of the Stamentien Bass can be found in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, crafted from pearwood with a brass bocal and tuned in C, measuring 64.2 cm.

On the pipe, Praetorius writes: 

The Schwiegel, or Schwegel, (otherwise also called Stamentienpfeiff): the same has only 2 holes at the bottom, one at the back; It is the same length as a transverse flute, but is intoned like a recorder, and is used by some Englishmen with the left hand, for small drum playing or fife.

He goes on: 

Some are about a fifth deeper, from g to g [musical notation]. Which is then amazing, that one can reach so high and wide on three holes, as otherwise cannot happen on 6 or 7 holes. How one also has very small recorders (about three or four inches long/col. 9.) which have three holes at the front, one at the back; and are shaped almost like two octaves, which can therefore be used: And the Schwiegel, as well as such small flutes at the bottom, must be controlled with one finger. The Stamentienpfeiff is 20 inches long; the Tenor 26 and the Bass 30 inches.

To accommodate the newfound exuberance of polyphony, instruments were organised into tidy families, or consorts: recorders; viols; and violins in graduated sizes, neatly mirroring the full range of the human voice.

Tabor-pipes did not appear in consorts like the viol or recorder, but the Renaissance nevertheless indulged in producing it in a variety of sizes. These pipes cheerfully found themselves in mixed company, rubbing wooden shoulders with far grander instrumental assemblies. Nor was this promiscuity a novelty of the age: medieval imagery abounds with pipe and tabor players embedded amongst other instruments, blithely demonstrating they had been happily ignoring musical hierarchies for centuries.

By the Renaissance, at last, the pipe and tabor emerge from the fog with a degree of clarity. The medieval period, by contrast, leaves us peering into the gloom, armed with little more than suggestive images, fragmentary references, and a heroic quantity of educated guesswork.

Moreover, the Renaissance produced a substantial body of varied repertoire particularly suited to the pipe and tabor. For these reasons, it is useful to consult Renaissance sources for guidance on how to play the instrument and for stylistic ideas.

Virdung's Musica Getutscht is the earliest known treatise on musical instruments, where he depicts a three-hole pipe which he calls the Schwegel. Agricola's Musica Instrumentalis Deudsch (1529) expands upon Virdung only briefly, mentioning the pipe should be held in the right hand. He writes instructions which translate to 'take the pipe in the right hand, or in the left without fault. The other hand is free and common, yet you should cover the lower hole alone.'

This long flute has French counterparts as well, which Arbeau referred to as lonque flutte, flutte longue, or grand tibie. 

The bruloftspype is a musical instrument mentioned in a 1567 inventory of Batestein Castle in Vianen, Netherlands. Based on the inventory description, it is a wedding pipe or tabor pipe, as we know from 'Twee Inventarissen van het Huis Brederode' published in Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van het Historisch Genootschap (Volume XXXIX, 1918) by Dr. J.J. Salverda de Grave. This inventory documents the possessions of Hendrik van Brederode (1531-1568), a key figure in the early Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule. The castle was seized in May 1567 during the repression following the Beeldenstorm (Iconoclastic Fury) of 1566.

It mentiones:

Een bruloftspype met drie gaten mit een houtgen van brigilie omme op die tromme te slaen, wesende in een custodie.

(A wedding pipe with three holes with a little wooden stick of boxwood to beat on the drum, being in a case)

And

Twee tamborinpypen mit stockens.

(Two tamborinpypen with sticks)

Drie tamborinen in custodien.

(Three tamborinen in cases)

A similar instrument, the santoripipe, was noted alongside the tamarinpfeife in Württemberg, c.1589.

The instrument makers most closely associated with Renaissance pipe and tabor were the Bassano family, Venetian Jews who emigrated to England and established a musical dynasty lasting over a century. In 1540, five Bassano brothers were appointed to the English Court 'in the science or art of music,' bringing with them 'all their instruments'. The brothers (Alvise, Anthony, Jasper, John, and Baptista) were sons of Jeronimo I, called il Piva ('the bagpipe'). In 1540, the Bassano brothers established a recorder consort at the English Court that lasted exactly ninety years until Charles I reorganised the Court wind musicians in 1630. Of the nineteen members during this period, no fewer than thirteen were Bassanos. (Lasocki & Prior 1995).

The most detailed English documentation of late seventeenth-century instruments comes from James Talbot's manuscript (Christ Church Library Music MS 1187), dating from approximately 1695. Talbot, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge from 1689 to 1704, systematically gathered measurements and descriptions of instruments from leading London makers and performers, including the celebrated John Shore (Baines 1948).

In Shakespeare’s England, the pipe and tabor enjoyed a degree of prominence, popping up in comedies, histories, and romances. 

In Twelfth Night (Act III, Scene I), a conversation between Viola (disguised as Cesario) to Feste the Fool includes a reference to the (pipe and) tabor, involving wordplay about living 'by' the church versus living 'by' one's (pipe and) tabour.

Viola. Save thee, friend, and thy music: dost thou live by
thy tabour?

Feste. No, sir, I live by the church.

Viola. Art thou a churchman?

Feste. No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for
I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by
the church.

Viola. So thou mayst say, the king lies by a beggar, if a
beggar dwell near him; or, the church stands by thy
tabour, if thy tabour stand by the church.

We can also find it in The Tempest:

Lead, monster; we'll follow. I would I could see
this tabourer; he lays it on.

Coriolanus:

The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabour
More than I know the sound of CORIOLANUS' tongue
From every meaner man.

and

The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries and fifes,
Tabours and cymbals and the shouting Romans,
Make the sun dance. Hark you!

As well as references to dancing in Love's Labour's Lost:

I'll make one in a dance, or so; or I will play
On the tabour to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.

And Much Ado About Nothing supplies a magnificently long-winded observation on Claudio’s headlong tumble into romantic idiocy:

I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much
another man is a fool when he dedicates his
behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at
such shallow follies in others, become the argument
of his own scorn by failing in love: and such a man
is Claudio. I have known when there was no music
with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he
rather hear the tabour and the pipe: I have known
when he would have walked ten mile a-foot to see a
good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake,
carving the fashion of a new doublet.

Even beyond the stage, the pipe and tabor were emphatically no mere theatrical accessories. Will Kemp, Shakespeare’s own clown, famously danced a Morris from London to Norwich, accompanied throughout by Thomas Slye on pipe and tabor. The episode neatly demonstrates that these instruments were as comfortable in theatres as they were in taverns, streets, and processions, perfectly content to keep time wherever feet, ale, or occasion demanded it.

But these sources spill a little secret about the pipe-and-tabor double act. They’re hardly ever called pipers, mostly taborers. Which tips the wink-wink balance of the partnership: the tabor struts about like the senior partner (Montagu 1997, 2010).

Part Two's gonna haul the tabor itself from the margins...