Citole

The citole was carved from a single block of wood and had a separate soundboard glued to the top. Everything else was a single piece of wood that included a neck, the sides, the bottom, shoulder points (or arms projecting from the sides), and a knob on the end opposite the neck. One of the most prominent features of the earlier citoles was a deep neck, so thick that a thumb hole was carved within the neck. This feature gradually receded as the instrument was transformed into the cittern, first becoming larger and then turning into a hook on the back of the neck (a feature of some citterns). The neck was generally shorter than the body, and players' hands did not have to move far to reach all the frets. Another documented feature was the back, which was neither curved in a bowl like a lute or gittern, nor flat like a modern guitar, but instead slanted "upwards from each side to a central ridge extended in the neck." The overall shape of the instrument varied, but four forms were commonly illustrated: the holly-leaf shaped instruments, the T-shaped, the vase-shaped instruments and the spade-shaped instruments. Holly-leaf citoles had an outline shaped like a holly leaf, with as many as five corners (two on each side and one at the lower end). Some of them can overlap with the t-shaped citoles, but spade-shaped citoles lack the shoulder projections, having instead having wings pointing upwards. An example of this style is the c. 1180–1196 Parma citole sculpture by Benedetto Antelami. Art with this shape is found primarily in Italy. The strings commonly run from pins at the top of the instrument, down the length of the soundboard and over a bridge. At the bottom of the instrument there are variations. The trefoil is an anchor point, and instruments have different ways to anchor to it. Some clearly show violin style tailpieces tied to it and some citoles have a circle where the tailpiece should be, perhaps a ring to which the strings are fastened or a hole. String materials There have been differences of opinion between researchers concerning wire strings on the citole. One researcher, Thurston Dart, stated in 1948, that the citole was strung with wire strings. The information was included in Dart's article about the metal-strung cittern, a descendant instrument of the citole. Three decades later another researcher, Ephraim Segerman, considered the issue of wire strings versus metal strings for the citole and came up with a reason why the citole didn't use metal strings: such strings were not widely available during the citole's lifetime (it became obsolete in the second half of the 14th century). Segerman said that throughout its use, the citole was likely strung with gut strings, although iron metal-strings became more commonly available in the late 14th century, thanks to water-power, when the citole was largely obsolete. Bridge In most citoles, the bridge is shown placed at the bottom of the instrument. On the Parma citole, it is positioned in the center of the soundboard. Precise details of the bridge are difficult to make out with most illustrations. The bridge on the Robert de Lisle citole is typical of many of the drawn bridges. Looking at the image is a process of determining: is the shape that of the bridge from above lying flat on the soundboard (with no information about the height and shape of the up and down part of the bridge), or does it show the vertical view with the top and the bottom of the bridge and no information about the width of the bridge on the soundboard? One image that does give three dimensional information is from the Exeter Cathedral citole, done in sculpture. The sculpted instrument has a thick bridge, built like the corner of a frame, laid on the soundboard with the corner up and the two ends on the soundboard like a triangle. The strings passed over the sharp corner, which acted as a bridge. Frets Both deep-neck and free-neck citoles are depicted in illustrations with frets. Frets are often shown in pairs (two frets to mark one position on the neck). The number of fret positions varies. One Cantigas de Santa Maria citole has four frets, the others five. The Robert de Lisle Psalter citole (deep neck with thumbhole) is depicted with five frets. The Queen Mary Psalter citoles appear to show five. The abbey of St. Savin citole, the Lincoln Cathedral (stained glass) citole, and the Giorgiano painting citole show eight. As no instruments with frets have survived, the nature of the frets is conjecture. Choices include the use of strings tied around the neck as frets and some sort of permanently mounted fret. Most illustrations aren't detailed enough to know which is used. One exception is the Giorgiano painting, which shows the fret going all the way around the neck, tied string frets. The St. Savin deep-neck citole is also detailed and does not show strings going all the way around the neck. The Ducal Palace Studiolo Cittern/Citole shows cuts in the neck in place of frets. Tuning . Top, a cythara, interpreted as a citole, or a fiddle or vielle. Image from the Berkeley Manuscript, University of California Music Library, MS. 744. Documents contemporary to the Middle Ages haven't been discovered which cite the citole by name when they talk about tuning. As a result, researchers have had to look at other instruments to infer how the citole would have been tuned. One document cited is The Berkeley Manuscript. University of California Music Library, MS. 744. Professor Ephraim Segerman made a case that the entry in the document for a lute-like instrument labeled "cithara" applied to the citola. He thought that more appropriate than other tunings, because the separation using a second also occurred in tunings used by descendant instruments, the cetra and cittern. Instruments with holes cut into the sides include the Ducal Palace Studiolo cittern and the citole labeled "Plate 4 : Toro Collegiate : West Door, ca 1240" on Christian Rault's web page: The emergence of new approaches to plucked instruments, 13th - 15th centuries. ==Performance==

Citole and vielle, working together Laurence Wright called the vielle and the citole "a symmetrical pair", saying that the two are not only frequently illustrated as playing together, but that they are also commonly listed together in literature. He also pointed out that when shown together, they frequently have similar tailpieces, similar fingerboards that extend onto the soundboard of the instruments, and similar fretting (which were rare for vielles but more common in art when playing with citoles). Another overlap between the two instruments was mentioned by Mauricio Molina in his article "Li autres la citole mainne Towards a Reconstruction of the Citole’s Performance Practice," was that two documents exist that provide for the citole being tuned in octaves, fifths and fourths like the vielle. Molina put some thought into the reason for the pairing of the two instruments. He pointed out that dance music was common, and that the citole almost always had the vielle to accompany. Thinking about modern plucked and bowed instruments he speculated that the two complimented one another, saying the purpose of the citole in such music would be, "to help clarify the blurry articulation of the vielle with its sharp attack; tighten ensemble playing through its constant rhythmic subdivision; and secure the intonation of the bowed instrument with its droning and its frets." He also thought it would increase overall volume. Another advantage to the instruments being similar (including similar frets and tuning) is that a player could be more versatile, by playing both a bowed instrument and citole. Drone chords The Appendix A Musical Instrument Fit For a Queen: The Metamorphosis of a Medieval Citole pointed out that the way the citole was held allowed very limited movement of the hands on the instrument and suggested that the citole primarily played drone chords. The article suggested they were used as rhythm instruments, playing a few notes repeatedly to keep time. This, the article suggests, was a reason to pair the instruments with fiddles. This would be especially true of the deep-neck citoles with a thumbhole, that would keep the hand on the neck from moving up and down the neck. ==Origins==

Medieval origins In the citole entry in the 1985 edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Musical instruments, musicologist Laurence Wright said that there was plentiful evidence of the citole originating in either Italy or Spain and moving northward. For Italy, he suggested as an early example a sculpture at Parma by the sculptor Benedetto Antelami, saying it was "the earliest datable sculpture of a citole, and one of the finest." More ancient and more speculative origins Wright also wrote about the historical evidence for more ancient origins of the citole (and other European instruments, including fiddles). He weighed the pros and cons of two different theories for the development of the citole. As he saw it the two choices at the time (1984) were 1) Winternitz's theory that traced the citole back to the classical kithara, by adding a fingerboard, and 2) a relation to the fiddle or an "oriental necked instrument." From this perspective musical instruments change as luthiers build new instruments; the instruments retain features of older instruments out of concern for customer preferences. He interpreted the illustrations in the Charles the Bald Bible, the Utrecht Psalter and the Stuttgard Psalter as illustrating this transformation, and gave many more examples in books and papers that he wrote. He pointed to the Carolingian Renaissance as one of these renaissances, that recreated old instruments anew. Under the theory, a neck was constructed between the two arms of the lyre, and then the arms of the lyre became vestigial, as "wings" (on the cittern "buckles"). Citing Werner Bachman's 1969 book, The Origins of Bowing, Segerman mentioned that in Central Asia short lutes were invented that were as wide as they were deep, much longer than wide, with 3–5 strings and plucked with heavy plectrum. Some were widened and deepened further, becoming the barbat and entering Europe as the oud. Another line of lutes was widened, but not made any deeper. This line entered Europe, becoming the plucked fiddles (vielle, viola, giga, citole). Segerman also about the relationship between plucked fiddles and citoles, saying that telling a plucked fiddle from a citole was often "[n]o more than guesswork". Connecting back to Winternitz's continuous development theory, Segerman said that a good way to link an instrument in medieval art to the citole identity was to look for some sign that there was thinking about the cithara-lyre in the design. ==Gallery==

File:Citole All Souls College Oxford, MS vii, f7.jpg|England. 5-point holly-leaf citole, from the manuscript All Souls College, Oxford, MS vii, f.7. File:Citole cropped.jpg|England. Citole from Queen Mary Psalter c. 1320 showing top view of instrument. European style sound-hole. File:Brunetto Latini "Li livres dou tresor" Mermaid with 5-point citole.jpg|Italy.Mermaids, one with a 5-point holly-shaped citola, from Brunetto Latini's "Li livres dou tresor", c. 1300. File:Saint Millan playing a citole as a shephard.jpg|Spain, mid to late 14th century. The Visigoth saint, Saint Millan, playing a citole. He was also known as San Millán in Spanish, Emilianus or Aemilianus in Latin. File:Citole and harp from School of Mont-Saint Michel MS 222.jpg|France, 13th century. Citole and harp from the School of Mont-Saint-Michel, ms 222 Bibliothèque d'Avranches. File:Queen Mary Psalter centaur playing citole.jpg|England, c. 1320. Centaur with citole, from the Queen Mary Psalter, shows a free neck (the hand could slide up and down the neck). It didn't have a thumbhole. File:Peterborough Psalter citole page 154.png|England. Angel with a citole. Art from right margin of Peterborough Psalter (Brussels copy), c. before 1321. Citole's thick neck is just visible at the edges of the fingerboard. File:Ormesby Psalter Citole.jpg|England, East Anglia. Angel playing citole in a c. 1310 illustration from the "Ormesby Psalter". File:Citole and dog.png|England. Citole, before 1321, Peterborough Psalter, Brussels. File:Lincoln Cathedral Citole.jpg|England, a citole from the Lincoln Cathedral, 14th century. This image show an instrument with 8 frets (the ninth is an end fret, like the nut on a guitar or mandolin). It also has six pegs, indicating six strings. File:Angels with ciole and vielle.jpg|Two angels (with citole at left and vielle. The vielle has frets. From the Missale, Winterteil, early 14th century. ==Sources==