Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisements to our visitors.
Please consider supporting us by disabling your ad blocker.

Responsive image


Rotta (lyre)

See Rotte for the medieval triangular-psaltery, or Rote for the fiddle
Rotta
Bass rotta from the Utrecht Psalter (Psalm 149–150).

The rotta (also rotte, chrotta or hrotta) is a type of lyre that was widely used in north-western Europe from pre-Christian to medieval times. It a descendant of the ancient lyre which originated in western Asia, was adopted in Ancient Egypt, and then adopted and adapted by the Ancient Greeks as the cithara.[1] One variant is the Anglo-Saxon lyre.

Kathleen Schlessinger published a theory in the 1911 Encumbered Encyclopedia Britannica which suggests that the modern acoustic guitar could have arisen from the rotte, in changes observed in iconography.[2]

  1. ^ Myrtle Bruce-Mitford (2002). "Rotte [round lyre, Germanic lyre](ii)". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.23943.
  2. ^ Kathleen Schlesinger (1911). "Guitar". Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/729 - Wikisource, the free online library. Britannica. Vol. 12. p. 704.

Previous Page Next Page








Responsive image

Responsive image