Instruments ◊ The Gittern

The gittern is generally considered part of the lute family even though it was developed quite separately from the lute. It appears in Western Europe earlier than the lute and is to be found regularly (and more frequently) in illustrations of the 13th and especially 14th centuries. It remained in use until the 16th century and then lived as a classical instrument well into the Baroque period in the form of the mandora and mandoline.

The gittern, as the lute, was strung with gut strings and, unlike the lute, was tied with frets from the very beginning. While the lute probably became a built-up instrument during the middle ages, the body of the gittern was traditionally carved from a single piece of wood well into the 15th century. Like the lute, the gittern was played with a plectrum but remained a plectrum instrument throughout, thus never becoming a solo instrument for polyphony. It was, instead, used to play diminutions and by the 15th century it was probably mainly performing ‘ornamented’ top parts of polyphonic compositions. Another feature setting the instrument apart from the lute was that the strings were originally not attached to the bridge (as on the lute) but at the lower end of the instrument and running over the bridge thus pressing the (probably loose) bridge on to the top. This results in longer sustaining notes and more overtones. In the later 14^th century and especially in the 15^th century the number of pictures showing gitterns with a glued-on lute bridge increases and demonstrates that the lute became the leading instrument, with the gittern trying to imitate its sound.

The number of strings varies strongly in the depictions of the middle ages.  The groupings of strings are sometimes hard to specify, so it is difficult to say how many courses a standard gittern had (if there ever was such a thing as a ‘standard gittern’). One can find pictures with numbers of strings ranging from 3 to 11. The likely tuning for a gittern, as a treatise of the 14th century hints, is in 4ths and/or 5ths.

Distinguishing features of the gittern are that it was (and remained) a rather small instrument through the whole middle ages and had a peg box that was curved (not angled like in the lute), usually with a carved animal head on the end.

Text by Marc Lewon

also see The Lute