Another illustration is given of an organ of the 14th century (Fig. 34).
[Illustration: FIG. 34.――ORGAN (Grand Orgue), after an engraving in N. X. Willemin’s _Monuments Français Inédits_, Vol. I., pl. 133, taken from a psalter of the 14th century.]
The pedal is generally believed to have been invented by Bernhard, a German, who lived in Venice about the year 1470. There are, however, indications extant pointing to an earlier date of its invention. Perhaps Bernhard was the first who, by adopting a more practicable construction, made the pedal more generally known. On the earliest organs the keys of the finger-board were of enormous size, compared with those of the present day; so that a finger-board with only nine keys had a breadth of from four to five feet. The organist struck the keys down with his fist, as is done in playing the _carillon_ still in use on the Continent, of which presently some account will be given.
Of the little portable organ, known as the _regal_ or _regals_, often tastefully shaped and embellished, some interesting sculptured representations are still extant in the old ecclesiastical edifices of England and Scotland. There is, for instance, in Beverley Minster a figure of a man playing on a single regal, or a regal provided with only one set of pipes; and in Melrose Abbey the figure of an angel holding in his arms a double regal, the pipes of which are in two sets. The regal generally had keys like those of the organ but smaller. A painting in the National Gallery, attributed to Melozzo da Forlì (1438-1494) contains a regal which has keys of a peculiar shape, rather resembling the pistons of certain brass instruments. (Fig. 1, _Frontispiece_.) To avoid misapprehension, it is necessary to mention that the name _regal_ (or _regals_, _rigols_) was also applied to an instrument of percussion with sonorous slabs of wood. This contrivance was, in short, a kind of harmonica, resembling in shape as well as in the principle of its construction the little glass harmonica, a mere toy, in which slips of glass are arranged according to our musical scale. In England it appears to have been still known in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Grassineau describes the “Rigols” as “a kind of musical instrument consisting of several sticks bound together, only separated by beads. It makes a tolerable harmony, being well struck with a ball at the end of a stick.” In the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages there appear to have been some instruments of percussion in favour, to which Grassineau’s expression “a tolerable harmony” would scarcely have been applicable. Drums, of course, were known; and their rhythmical noise must have been soft music, compared with the shrill sounds of the _cymbalum_ (a contrivance consisting of a number of metal plates suspended on cords, so that they would be clashed together simultaneously) or with the clangour of the _cymbalum_ constructed with bells instead of plates; or with the piercing noise of the _bunibulum_, or _bombulom_; an instrument which consisted of an angular frame to which were loosely attached metal plates of various shapes and sizes. The lower part of the frame constituted the handle; and to produce the noise it evidently was shaken somewhat like the sistrum of the ancient Egyptians.[7]