page_title: Crwth
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Crwth / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A 20th century crwth in the Horniman Museum, London, UK. Made by Arnold Dolmetsch
context_page_description: The crwth, also called a crowd or rote, is a bowed lyre, a type of stringed instrument, associated particularly with Welsh music and with medieval folk music of England, now archaic but once widely played in Europe. Four historical examples have survived and are to be found in St Fagans National Museum of History, National Library of Wales, Warrington Museum & Art Gallery, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
context_section_description: A variety of string instruments so designated are thought to have been played in Wales since at least Roman times. Continuous, clear records of the use of crwth to denote an instrument of the lyre (or the Byzantine bowed lyre) class date from the 11th century. Medieval instruments somewhat resembling the crwth appear in pictures (first in Continental Europe) as far back as the 11th century, shortly after bowing was first known in the West. In Wales, the crwth long took second place to the harp in the musical hierarchy.
  Schlesinger in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica mentioned the crwth in an article about transition of instruments from the lyre to plucked and bowed instruments:
  ...The rotta represents the first step in the evolution of the cithara, when arms and cross-bar were replaced by a frame joined to the body, the strings being usually restricted to eight or less...The next step was the addition of a finger-board and the consequent reduction of the strings to three or four, since each string was now capable of producing several notes...As soon as the neck was added to the guitar-shaped body, the instrument ceased to be a rotta and became a guitar (q.v.), or a guitar-fiddle (q.v.) if played with the bow."
caption: A crwth (foreground) in the Horniman Museum, London, UK.
exif: {"Image Make": "CASIO COMPUTER CO.,LTD.", "Image Model": "EX-Z9", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "1.02", "Image DateTime": "2015:01:11 16:40:54", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "224", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "22886", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7499", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/6", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:01:11 16:40:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:01:11 16:40:54", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "184427/62424", "EXIF ApertureValue": "297/100", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "297/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "31/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2448", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3264", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "22762", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "38", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}