The Psaltery

The psaltery is an ancient musical instrument, having its origin in the Near East in late classical times. The name "psaltery" is derived from the Greek word psalterion, which means "harp". It is also sometimes called a canon or instrumento di porco. This last name refers to the shape of the psaltery as it appears in the later Middle Ages resembling a pig's head and snout . The psaltery has plucked strings of gut, horsehair, or metal stretched across a flat soundboard. The shape is often trapezoidal, but also rectangular, triangular, or wing-shaped. And as mentioned above the popular pig's snout shape. The strings of the psaltery, just like with a harp, are open, none being stopped to produce different notes. Psalteries are members of the zither family. Non-Western psalteries are thus sometimes referred to as zithers.

The instrument reached Europe around the12th century as a variety of the trapezoidal Arabic psaltery, or qanun, hence the name canon. The picture on the right [1] shows drawings of musical instruments from a 10th century copy of "De Musica" a book by M. Severinus Boëthius, who lived at the end of the 6th century in Italy. The first word above the square instrument is psalteriu, which is mentioned again at the left side of the trapezoidal instrument. Possibly this means harp (psalterion), but one could argue the psaltery was known, if not used or popular, in Europe before the 12th century.

The psaltery is played by plucking the strings with the fingers or plectra (often quills were used). There are different positions in which the instrument can be held during play: on the player's lap, on a table or in the front of the player's chest. Also it can be held in one arm while being plucked with the other hand.

There are many different shapes in which the psaltery is found. Over time the shape evolved, with as latest developments the pig's snout shape, like the picture on the title page, and the wing shape (Ala Bohemica, illustration left [2]). Sometimes the pig's snout shape was halved and these instruments were called micanon or demiporco.

The original shape of the psaltery might have been a simple square box, like in this illustration on the right side [3].
Why did the shape change? This has everything to do with the properties of strings.
 

There are several ways in which the pitch of a string can be varied.

• Length: longer strings have lower pitch.
• Mass: the heavier (thicker) a string, the lower the pitch.
• Tension: the higher the tension on a string, the higher the pitch.

All during the Middle Ages the musicians and instrument builders kept experimenting with these variables. It became most common to keep the tension of all strings equal, to prevent distorting the instrument, but vary both the length and the mass of the strings. Naturally the length of the strings influences the shape of the instrument. Sometimes the strings were in pairs or even triple, so that two or three stings of the same pitch are plucked at once to increase the volume of the instrument.

The psaltery remained popular in Europe until about the 15th century. After its decline, it continued to be played on occasion in fashionable society.
 

The dulcimer (picture on the left [4]) is a psaltery having strings that are struck with hammers rather than plucked. Dulcimers are often double or triple strung. The psaltery gave rise to the harpsichord, which is a large psaltery with a keyboard mechanism for plucking the strings. In the harpsichord on the picture on the right side [5] you can clearly recognize the shape of the halved pig's snout or demiporco.