MEDIAEVAL MUSIC

Often overlooked in a case in the British Museum's wonderful gallery of mediaeval treasures is this, the only surviving Citole, a very fashionable plucked string instrument of around 1300. The thing was carved from a single piece of wood, in England, and is an astonishing demonstration of virtuoso carving and rich imagination, and a vivid record of the courtly arts that then flourished in this country.

In Elizabethan times it was crudely converted into a violin and given a silver plate with the arms of both Elizabeth I and her favourite Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (it was his, presumably.) That the thing survived at all is a miracle. It shows vividly the sad decline in English artistic skills and standards from 1300 to 1560. Below is a detail from the Peterborough Psalter of around 1300 showing a man playing a long-necked citole; like this one, it has a dragon's head.

The openwork carving of the ivy on the neck is amazingly naturalistic, as are all the many exquisite, tiny details that reveal themselves only slowly, with endless little figures appearing among the writhing foliage.

Two details of the intricate, fantastic work, with a hunter in the forest, above, and a swineherd, below, knocking acorns from oak trees to feed his pigs (the traditional 'labour of the month' for November.) Gazing at these details, you can totally immerse yourself in that vanished world, shutting out today completely.