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Talk:Rotte (lyre)

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@Hvækmínavn:, @Fwinzor:, @Klbrain: I have more edits to make, especially refs, but Rotta (lyre) and Anglo-Saxon lyre have been merged. Please make changes as you will. Best wishes Jacqke (talk) 23:57, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the heads up, I'm still not entirely convinced on the name Rotta for a lyre for the early medieval Germanic lyre. But regardless. I've managed to get my hands on the official report on the Ribe lyre fragment as well as some writings on the lyre by music historians Graeme Lawson and Benjamin Bagby that provide some useful information. I'll add it when I have time Fwinzor (talk) 18:42, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am not set on the name. If a consensus is reached, I'll go with that. I'd like more evidence than the dictionary and encyclopedia refs that I've put in. For now there is a historical name with some documentation. There may be better names. Best wishes, Jacqke (talk) 22:08, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]


I wrote the original page on the Anglo-Saxon lyre, painfully researched and thoroughly annoted. The page has become a mess. Structurally incoherent flying off on unrelated tangeants such as Celtic lyres which have no relation whatsoever the Germanic ones. Has had a loads of unannoted completely incorrect information added and is full of innacuracies top to bottom. The article needs half deleting and a complete rewrite of what remians.

For example the opening of the article 

     "Rotte or rotta is a historical name for the Germanic lyre, used in northwestern Europe in the early medieval period 
      (circa 450 A.D.) into the 13th century.[16] The plucked variants declined in the medieval era (spreading less often in 
      manuscripts in the 13th century), while bowed variants have survived into modern times.[16]"

The name Rotte was used exclusively in Germany to talk about the much later lyres that replaced this ones this article is about. In the langauge of the period it was Hearpe (anglo saxon), Harpa (norse) and Harpe (high german). 

     "Non-Greek or Roman lyres were used in pre-Christian Europe as early as the 6th century B.C. by the Hallstatt culture, by 
      Celtic peoples as early as the 1st century B.C., and by Germanic peoples.[16] They were played in Anglo-Saxon England, 
      and more widely, in Germanic regions of northwestern Europe. Their existence was recorded in the Scandinavian and Old- 
      English story Beowulf, set in pre-Christian times (5th-6th century A.D.) and written or retold by a Christian scribe 
      about 975 A.D.[22][23] The Germanic lyre has been thought to be a descendant of the ancient lyre which originated in 
      western Asia.[16] That same instrument was adopted in Ancient Egypt and also by the Ancient Greeks as the cithara.[16] 
      The rotte is shaped differently than these, however, and discoveries from further east has led to the possibility that it 
       arrived with invading tribes.[24]"

There have been no lyre finds in Hallstatt culture, that remotely relate to the Germanic lyres. The are no Celtic lyre finds, except the Lyre Gallois, exclusive to France and modelled on a Greek lyre. They were not played 'more widely in Germanic regions', overwhealmingly most information, images, evidence and lyres finds have been made in England. The lyre are not thought to be a descendant of the ancient lyre which originated in western Asia. There is a vagely similar instrument found there which may have been or may not have been a plucked lyre, we don't even know idf it was a plucked lyre. There is zero evidence of a connection between the two, the distance and time difference make is seem impossible with rewrting the archaeological record, which just one book has tried to do, the sources of thsi claim. If we're printing non-mainstream ideas as fact, perhaps we should see what Graham Hancock writes about the topic.

This is just the first two paragrphs, the whole article is like this.... toltecitztli

@User:Toltecitztli, I am sorry you feel the article is ruined. Like you, I spent a great deal of time in research, as you may see from the sources. I am well aware that hearpe was used in Old English, with variants in the Scandinavian languages. However rotte was also used as early as the 7th century onward (Hugo Steger, Philogia Musica, pages 13-17). The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments can hardly be called "non-mainstream", and under "Rotte (ii)" page 261, all the Germanic lyres from the early Anglo-Saxon to the later continental lyres and the Scandinavian are all under that name. It is the source of the paraphrased statement "the Germanic lyre has been thought to be a descendant of the ancient lyre which originated in western Asia", though it stated "was a descendant of the ancient lyre which originated in western Asia and Egypt."
I spent a lot of time on the sources. If you note down specific things not sourced, I'll be glad to double check them. As to the number of instruments found, please look at the list again.
I wrote a more inclusive article, not limited to England, because the Germanic lyres were all related. Not so, the Celtic.
I am working through sources to spin off all the Celtic material. I didn't make any of that up; it came from a variety sources from over a period lasting about 120 years. Hugo Steger in Philogia Musica went into great detail as to why the instruments had similar names. He made a good case for them being both separate instruments with different traditions, but also showed how variations of rotte arose separately in two different languages and converged, which caused people to link them together in sources going back into the Renaissance.
Look, I do not want to argue; I haven't received any feedback before this. I am willing to work with you to make this better. Jacqke (talk) 01:42, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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