Possible ancient origins The evidence for bagpipes prior to the
13th century is still uncertain, but several textual and visual clues have been suggested. The
Oxford History of Music posits that a sculpture of bagpipes has been found on a
Hittite slab at
Euyuk in Anatolia, dated to 1000 BCE. Another interpretation of this sculpture suggests that it instead depicts a
pan flute played along with a
friction drum. Several authors identify the
ancient Greek (ἀσκός
askos –
wine-skin, αὐλός
aulos – reed pipe) with the bagpipe.
Dio Chrysostom wrote in the
1st century CE of a contemporary sovereign (possibly the Roman emperor
Nero) who could play a pipe (
tibia, Roman reedpipes similar to Greek and Etruscan instruments) with his mouth as well as by tucking a bladder beneath his armpit. In the
2nd century CE,
Suetonius also described
Nero as a player of the
tibia utricularis. Modern scholarship suggests that such instruments, rather than being seen as an independent class, were understood as variants on mouth-blown instruments that used a bag as an alternative blowing aid, and that it was not until drones were added in the European Medieval era that bagpipes were seen as a distinct class. Several illustrations of bagpipes also appear in the
Chronique dite de Baudoin d’Avesnes, a 13th-century manuscript of northern French origin. Although evidence of bagpipes in the British Isles prior to the 14th century is contested, they are explicitly mentioned in
The Canterbury Tales (written around 1380): Bagpipes were also frequent subjects for carvers of wooden choir stalls in the late 15th and early 16th century throughout Europe, sometimes with animal musicians. Actual specimens of bagpipes from before the 18th century are extremely rare; however, a substantial number of paintings, carvings, engravings, and manuscript illuminations survive. These artefacts are clear evidence that bagpipes varied widely throughout Europe, and even within individual regions. Many examples of early folk bagpipes in continental Europe can be found in the paintings of Brueghel, Teniers, Jordaens, and Durer. The earliest known artefact identified as a part of a bagpipe is a chanter found in 1985 at
Rostock, Germany, that has been dated to the late 14th century or the first quarter of the 15th century. The first clear reference to the use of the Scottish
Highland bagpipe is from a French history that mentions their use at the
Battle of Pinkie in 1547.
George Buchanan (1506–82) claimed that the bagpipe had replaced the trumpet on the battlefield. This period saw the creation of the
ceòl mór (great music) of the bagpipe, which reflected its martial origins, with battle tunes, marches, gatherings, salutes and laments. The Highlands of the early 17th century saw the development of piping families including the
MacCrimmonds, MacArthurs,
MacGregors, and the Mackays of
Gairloch. The earliest Irish mention of the bagpipe is in 1206, approximately thirty years after the Anglo-Norman invasion; another mention attributes their use to Irish troops in Henry VIII's
siege of Boulogne. Illustrations in the 1581 book
The Image of Irelande by
John Derricke clearly depict a bagpiper. Derricke's illustrations are considered to be reasonably faithful depictions of the attire and equipment of the English and Irish population of the 16th century. The "Battell" sequence from
My Ladye Nevells Booke (1591) by
William Byrd, which probably alludes to the Irish wars of 1578, contains a piece entitled
The bagpipe: & the drone. In 1760, the first serious study of the Scottish Highland bagpipe and its music was attempted in Joseph MacDonald's
Compleat Theory. A manuscript from the 1730s by a
William Dixon of
Northumberland contains music that fits the
border pipe, a nine-note bellows-blown bagpipe with a chanter similar to that of the modern
Great Highland bagpipe. However, the music in Dixon's manuscript varied greatly from modern Highland bagpipe tunes, consisting mostly of extended variation sets of common dance tunes. Some of the tunes in the Dixon manuscript correspond to those found in the early 19th century manuscript sources of
Northumbrian smallpipe tunes, notably the rare book of 50 tunes, many with variations, by
John Peacock. As Western classical music developed, both in terms of musical sophistication and instrumental technology, bagpipes in many regions fell out of favour because of their limited range and function. This triggered a long, slow decline that continued, in most cases, into the 20th century. Extensive and documented collections of traditional bagpipes may be found at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the
International Bagpipe Museum in
Gijón, Spain, the
Pitt Rivers Museum in
Oxford, England and the
Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum in Northumberland, and the
Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix,
Arizona. The is held every two years in
Strakonice,
Czech Republic.
Recent history During the 19th and 20th centuries, as a result of the participation of
Scottish regiments in the expansion of the
British Empire, the bagpipe became well known worldwide. This surge in the bagpipe's popularity was boosted by large numbers of Allied pipers which served in
World War I and
World War II. This coincided with a decline in the popularity of many traditional forms of bagpipe throughout Europe, which began to be displaced by instruments from the classical tradition and later by gramophone and radio. As pipers were easily identifiable, combat losses were high, estimated at one thousand in World War I. A front line role was prohibited following high losses in the
Second Battle of El Alamein in 1943, though a few later instances occurred. In the United Kingdom and
Commonwealth Nations such as
Canada,
New Zealand and
Australia, the
Great Highland bagpipe is commonly used in the military and is often played during formal ceremonies. Foreign militaries patterned after the British army have also adopted the Highland bagpipe, including those of
Uganda,
Sudan,
India,
Pakistan,
Sri Lanka,
Jordan, and
Oman. Many police and fire services in
Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
Hong Kong, and the
United States have also adopted the tradition of fielding pipe bands. with the Great Highland bagpipe on the street in
Edinburgh,
Scotland In recent years, often driven by revivals of native folk music and dance, many types of bagpipe have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity and, in many cases, instruments that had fallen into obscurity have become extremely popular. In
Brittany, the Great Highland bagpipe and concept of the
pipe band were appropriated to create a Breton interpretation known as the
bagad. The pipe-band idiom has also been adopted and applied to the
Galician gaita as well. Bagpipes have often been used in various films depicting moments from Scottish and Irish history; the film
Braveheart and the theatrical show
Riverdance have served to make the uilleann pipe more commonly known. The bagpipe is sometimes played at formal events at Commonwealth universities, particularly in Canada. Because of Scottish influences on the sport of
curling, the bagpipe is also the official instrument of the
World Curling Federation and is commonly played during a ceremonial procession of teams before major curling championships. Bagpipe making was once a craft that produced instruments in many distinctive, local and traditional styles. Today, the world's largest producer of the instrument is
Pakistan, where the industry was worth $6.8 million in 2010. In the late 20th century, various models of
electronic bagpipes were invented. The first custom-built
MIDI bagpipes were developed by the Asturian piper known as
Hevia (José Ángel Hevia Velasco). Astronaut
Kjell N. Lindgren is thought to be the first person to play the bagpipe in
outer space, having played "
Amazing Grace" in tribute to late research scientist Victor Hurst aboard the
International Space Station in November 2015. Traditionally, one of the purposes of the bagpipe was to provide music for dancing. This has declined with the growth of dance bands, recordings, and the decline of traditional dance. In turn, this has led to many types of pipes developing a performance-led tradition, and indeed much modern music based on the dance music tradition played on bagpipes is suitable for use as dance music. == Modern usage ==