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Rotte (psaltery)

Triangular psalteries held as harps in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, Musician's Codex, 1280 A.D. On the near face of each rotte, 17 strings are visible.
See Rotta for the medieval lyre, or Rote for the fiddle

During the 11th to 15th century A.D., rotte (German) or rota (Spanish) referred to a triangular psaltery with at least 10 strings, held like a harp in front of the musician.[1][2] The playing position was different from other psalteries, as the Rotte might be held like a harp, leaned sideways (flat against the musician's chest), or rested on the lap.[3] Two styles of rotte have been inferred from images: the first is a triangular box with strings on one side, the other has strings on both sides (both hands playing at once, resembling a harp).[1] The instruments are shown played with both plectrum and with fingers.[1]

The names chrotta, rotte, rotta, rota and rote have been applied to different stringed instruments, including a psaltery, lyre and to a Crwth (necked lyre played as a fiddle or lute).[2][4][5] In the 15th century it was also used to name a fiddle, synonymous with the rebec.[2]

Knowing a rotte (psaltery) from a triangular harp in the medieval minatures can be challenging; rottes may have sound holes visible, if the artist is putting that level of detail into the painting.[6] Similarly, harps show background through the strings if the artist painted sufficient detail.

  1. ^ a b c Alvarez, Rosario (June 1999). "El arpa-cítara (rota): su probable origen bizantino y su trayectoria mediterránea hacia la Europa Occidental" [The harp-zither (rota): its probable Byzantine origin and its Mediterranean trajectory towards Western Europe]. Journal of Musicology (in Spanish). 22 (1): 11–48. doi:10.2307/20797571. JSTOR 20797571. [translated to English from Spanish] There must have been two models of this type, judging from the images: one with a double row of strings and a sound box between them, with two soundboards, an instrument that was played in the same way as the harp...and another simpler one, with a single plane of strings under which a sound box or simply a plank ran...
  2. ^ a b c Sadie, Stanley, ed. (1984). "Rotte". The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Vol. 3. p. 260. a copyiest...complained that the ancient ten-string psaltery had been adopten by musicians and actors, who had...increased the number of strings...and given it the barbarian name 'rotta'...
  3. ^ Sadie, Stanley, ed. (1984). "Psaltery Frame zither". The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. pp. 39, 151–154. Volume 3.
  4. ^ Schlesinger, Kathleen (1911). "Cithara" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). pp. 395–397.
  5. ^ Sachs, Curt (1940). The History of Musical Instruments. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 262. ISBN 978-0-393-02068-7.
  6. ^ Alvarez, Rosario (June 1999). "El arpa-cítara (rota): su probable origen bizantino y su trayectoria mediterránea hacia la Europa Occidental" [The harp-zither (rota): its probable Byzantine origin and its Mediterranean trajectory towards Western Europe]. Journal of Musicology (in Spanish). 22 (1): 11–48. doi:10.2307/20797571. JSTOR 20797571. [prior to the 13th century] its images raise doubts, since there are times when we do not know whether we are in the presence of a harp in which the three sides of its outline are straight, that is, a chordophone without a sound box parallel to the strings, a symbolic psalterium or an authentic harp-zither.

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