Medieval music

In the 11th and 12th Centuries, troubadours and Minstrels were the poets and musicians that influenced Medieval Music. They sang songs of courtly love and romance. The Normans had conquered the English during the Battle of Hastings of 1066; and brought their culture and music to the English realm. The songs of French troubadours were heard in English courts as a result of England's political affiliations and royal marriages. Since the Norman Conquest, the language of the English court was French, so the songs and music of the French troubadours and minstrels were easily assimilated into English society. The aristocratic troubadours were poets that originated in the south of France, where they wrote the lyrics in Provencal (langue d'oc). The elite troubadours of the north of France wrote in French (langue d'oil) and were called called trouveres. The medieval poetry of the troubadours was invariably linked with music. The tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, originating with music and the poems of the English and Welsh Bards, were included in the lyrics of the troubadour and minstrels songs. Noble ladies of the Medieval period were famous for their patronage of Medieval Music. Eleanor of Aquitaine married King Henry II of England in 1152; and brought her love of music and the European troubadours to the English court, thus transferring the tradition to England.

The bladder pipe is a very distinctive loud instrument with a reed that is enclosed by an animal bladder. The performer blows into the bladder through its mouthpiece, a wooden pipe. Like the bag of a bagpipe, the bladder serves as a wind reservoir keeping the lips from touching the reed directly. The bladder pipe's sound is unusual because the player is unable to tongue or otherwise control the reed. This medieval instrument was one of the principal early wind cap instruments and is considered the forerunner to the crumhorn. Since it cannot overblow for an upper register, the fingering is even similar to the crumhorn.

In the Fifteenth Century, a new type of double reed instrument was developed. The player's lips did not touch the reed because the reed was enclosed inside a protective cap with a slot at one end. Strongly blowing through this slot causes the reed to vibrate as it does in the bagpipe chanter. The name "crumhorn" comes from the German krumhorn (also krummhorn, krumphorn), meaning curved horn (or the older English crump, meaning curve, surviving in modern English in crumpled and crumpet, a curved cake).

The name first occurs in 1489 as an organ stop. The crumhorn, used in the 14th to 17th Centuries in Europe, is wooden, with a cylindrical bore. The crumhorn is the earliest and most common instrument of the reed cap family that also includes the kortholt, cornamuse and hirtenschalmei. The crumhorn is thought to have developed from the earlier bladder pipe.

The cylindrical bore (as opposed to a conical bore) and the reed closing the end of the resonating tube mean that the crumhorn overblows a twelfth rather than an octave, giving the instrument a fingering system similar to the lower register of the clarinet. However, the lack of direct control of the reed of a windcapped instrument renders these higher notes extremely difficult to access. Thus, the normal range is limited to the simple fundamental sounds produced by successive opening of the holes giving a range of an octave and one note. Many larger surviving instruments have auxiliary holes that extend the range downwards to just over an octave. On modern reconstructions, additional keys are provided to extend the range upwards by one to three notes. And there is some evidence to suggest that crumhorns were sometimes played without the windcap, possibly to facilitate the production of higher notes.