Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Anglo-Saxon lyre" in English language version.
Last modified:
has seven notches, even though the lyre it belonged to was only strung with six strings. The additional notch presumably balanced the tension of the lowest and therefore strongest string. Its straight feet likely rested flat on the lyre and were positioned so that it sat between the sound holes
80.3 cm × 19.5 cm × 2 cm...from grave 58 in Trossingen. Only its strings, which were probably made of horsehair or gut, and the tailpiece are missing. ...sound holes were found in the yoke arms and the soundboard...light maple wood. The body and soundboard were glued together with bone glue...strung with six strings.
From its shape this lyre must, to differentiate it from the antique form, be characterized as the round lyre. [note: Specific date this book was published in the early 20th century is not certain. On page 103, the author refers to his original Danish work from 1915 as if that were in the past.]
Christ...is flanked on one side by David with a bird (inspiration in the form of the Holy Spirit) standing on his harp.
In St. Leopold's prayer-book in the Conventual Library of Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, may be seen a miniature of King David with his four followers : Ethan, Jeduthun, Asaph and Heman. Each of them handles an instrument, and three of these instruments are round lyres...
[note: last photo before section 3; photo by Ben Dijkhuis of the Monasterboice South Cross, east face; the lyre's bridge is visible as a horizontal line at the bottom, near the musician's knee.]
Date 1100-1199...Detached ivory from the cover of Add MS 37768 (the 'Lothar Psalter')
The Castledermot monastic settlement was established by St. Dermot and recorded as the target of extensive Viking raids in 841 and 867. The monastic community itself ceased to exist sometime after 1073.
cruitire, a player of a lyre or a harp...Irish sources provide many names for musical instruments. Primary among them are cruit or crot, and timpan, both metal-strung instruments. In its earliest period a cruit was probably a lyre...The plucked version was sounded with the fingernails, as were the cruit and later Irish harps.
one of the most widely used plucked instruments in north-western Europe from pre-Christian times to medieval times
...the only occurrence of this particular instrument among surviving pre-Norman carvings in England
[note: illustration of the instrument]
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2026 (link)Instruments of like character, but slightly different in outline, are illustrated on the Crosses of Monasterboice and Durrow, and also in an Irish manuscript (Brit. Mus. Vit. F. XI.) of the 9th century. But none of these instruments are harps, they are all of the lyre type...
triangular psaltery...the 12th century copyist of Notker Balbulus complained that the ancient ten-string psaltery had been adopted by musicians and actors...the musicians applied to the new instrument...the name of one already familiar to them...the Germanic lyre
an open harp on the Dupplin Cross...a pillar harp on one of the Monifieth sculptured stones...These Pictish representations are the earliest surviving images of European harps.
Found at Saxton Road, Abingdon-on-Thames. A major early Saxon (425-625AD) cemetery... North European Angles and Saxons migrated to Britain...settled here around Abindgon, as the defensive site had excellent farming potential and was on a major trade route... Measurements 120mm length approximately depth 10mm...Abingdon County Hall Museum
The word vihuela or vigola is connected with the Latin fidicula or fides, a stringed instrument mentioned by Cicero[1] as being made from the wood of the plane-tree and having many strings. The remaining link in the chain of identification is afforded by St Isidore bishop of Seville in the 7th century, who states that fidicula was another name for cithara...The fidicula therefore was the cithara, either in its original classical form or in one of the transitions which transformed it into the guitar...the transitions whereby the cithara acquired a neck and became a guitar are shown in the miniatures (fig. 3) of a single MS., the celebrated Utrecht Psalter,
[note: photograph by Jerry Bradshaw of High Cross of Durrow, showing a lyre (far left). Detail in this image shows a bridge (making this a lyre) and a separation at the top of the forepost (indicating it is a separate piece from the rest of the carved instrument.]
There is a hypothesis... the lyre-shaped gusli is an heir of the Northern lyre-shaped instruments...evolution. Little by little the lyre style playing technique, when a musician holds the instrument in vertical position, are giving place to a gusli style one, when a musician holds the instrument in horizontal position on his knees leaning it to his body. You may see from archeological finds, than a window becomes smaller and smaller.
Since the Old Irish word crott is a generic designation of the category of stringed instruments (including 'harp' and 'lyre')...
[note: mentioned in Beowulf, lines 89, 2107, 2262, 2458, 3023]
has now been confirmed as Europe's oldest bridge from a stringed musical instrument, from the Middle Iron Age. Its form indicates a flat wooden sound-board and is consistent with a fully developed instrument of 7 or 8 strings, probably a lyre. B...deposition at the High Pasture Cave site in the second half of the 4th century...almost a thousand years before the earliest known lyre-burials of South-East England and the near Continent.
A charred wooden object found during the last fieldwork season is believed to be the bridge from a lyre. The notches where strings would have been placed are easy to distinguish. The find was recovered from the rake-out deposits from a large slab-built hearth outside the cave entrance. The object has been dated to around 2,300 years ago
6.1.4 The Charred Wooden Bridge from a Musical Instrument...
The old English name for the lyre was hearpe, and until the tenth century or so this always meant the lyre, but from then on it meant the harp...Beowulf and his Anglo-Saxon contemporaries were said to play the harp – they didn't, they played the lyre.
city was an important commercial hub between its capture by the Vikings in AD 866 and the Norman Conquest of AD 1066
cruitire, a player of a lyre or a harp...Irish sources provide many names for musical instruments. Primary among them are cruit or crot, and timpan, both metal-strung instruments. In its earliest period a cruit was probably a lyre...The plucked version was sounded with the fingernails, as were the cruit and later Irish harps.
By contrast, the Viking lyre is played with exemplary conviction and scholarly awareness by Graeme Lawson on the first recording reviewed here.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2026 (link)Instruments of like character, but slightly different in outline, are illustrated on the Crosses of Monasterboice and Durrow, and also in an Irish manuscript (Brit. Mus. Vit. F. XI.) of the 9th century. But none of these instruments are harps, they are all of the lyre type...
The monastic site of Castledermot was founded by St. Diarmuid in c.812, although there is evidence to suggest that hermitages may have existed here since the 6th century.
the first time the complete form of an Anglo-Saxon lyre has been recorded. The wooden lyre had almost entirely decayed save for a soil stain within which fragments of wood and metal fittings were preserved in their original positions.
In the sixteenth century, the composer Sebastian Virdung (an honest man) wrote, 'What one man names harp (Harpffen), another calls a lyre (Leier).
[note: Photo by Alan Hitchcock (cropped) that shows the shape of the lyre and its strings.]
[note: photo of the lyre on the Durrow High Cross]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)Archaeologists excavating the High Pasture Cave on the Isle of Skye have discovered a wooden fragment that they believe came from a lyre or similar stringed instrument. The fragment was burned and part of it broken off, but you can clearly see the carved string notches that identify it as a bridge. It was discovered in the rake-out deposits of the hearth outside the entrance to the cave. The deposits date to between 550 and 450 B.C.
The largest bridge, found in 1971 and dating from the middle of the 13th century, is flat and has notches for seven strings. Kolltveit concludes that this is a bridge for a plucked lyre of the sort found in Germany and Scandinavia. The second bridge was found in Oslogate 6 during excavation in 1988. It dates from the second quarter of the 13th century... There are notches for five strings...clearly curved along the top...Kolltveit writes that this bridge must have been from a bowed stringed instrument..
þæt hīe ealle sceolden þurh endebyrdnesse be hearpan singan — þonne hē geseah þā hearpan him nēalǣcan, þonne ārās hē for scome from þǣm symble, and hām ēode tō his hūse. [translation from Old English, Caedmon's Hymn: they all in succession should sing to the harp — when he saw the harp draw near to him, he arose from the feast out of shame]
The Castledermot monastic settlement was established by St. Dermot and recorded as the target of extensive Viking raids in 841 and 867. The monastic community itself ceased to exist sometime after 1073.
Date 1100-1199...Detached ivory from the cover of Add MS 37768 (the 'Lothar Psalter')