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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:fiddes:271a72d9b42f",
    "title": "FIDDES",
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    "verified_text": "fiddes, richard (1671-1725), english divine and historian, was born at hunmanby and educated at oxford. he took orders, and obtained the living of halsham in holderness in 1696. owing to ill-health he applied for leave to reside at wickham, and in 1712 he removed to london on the plea of poverty, intending to pursue a literary career. in london he met swift, who procured him a chaplaincy at hull. he also became chaplain to the earl of oxford. after losing the hull chaplaincy through a change of ministry in 1714, he devoted himself to writing. his best book is a _life of cardinal wolsey_ (london, 1724), containing documents which are still valuable for reference; of his other writings the _prefatory epistle containing some remarks to be published on homer's iliad_ (london, 1714), was occasioned by pope's proposed translation of the _iliad_, and his _theologia speculativa_ (london, 1718), earned him the degree of d.d. at oxford. in his own day he had a considerable reputation as an author and man of learning. fiddle (o. eng. _fithele_, _fidel_, &c., fr. _viele_, viole, _violon_; m. h. ger. _videle_, mod. ger. _fiedel_), a popular term for the violin, derived from the names of certain of its ancestors. the word fiddle antedates the appearance of the violin by several centuries, and in england did not always represent an instrument of the same type. the word has first been traced in 1205 in layamon's _brut_ (7002), \"of harpe, of salteriun, of fithele and of coriun.\" in chaucer's time the fiddle was evidently a well-known instrument: \"for him was lever have at his beddes hed a twenty bokes, clothed in black or red. of aristotle and his philosophie, than robes riche or fidel or sautrie.\" (_prologue_, v. 298.) the origin of the fiddle is of the greatest interest; it will be found inseparable from that of the violin both as regards the instruments and the etymology of the words; the remote common ancestor is the _ketharah_ of the assyrians, the parent of the greek cithara. the romans are responsible for the word fiddle, having bestowed upon a kind of cithara--probably then in its first transition--the name of _fidiculae_ (more rarely _fidicula_), a diminutive form of _fides_. in alain de lille's _de planctu naturae_ against the word _lira_ stands as equivalent _vioel_, with the definition \"lira est quoddam genue citharae vel fitola alioquin de reot. hoc instrumentum est multum vulgare.\" this is a marginal note in writing of the 13th century.[1] some of the transitions from _fidicula_ to fiddle are made evident in the accompanying table: latin fidiculae medieval latin vitula, fitola. french viele, vielle, viole. provencal viula. spanish viguela, vihuela, vigolo. old high german fidula. middle high german videle. german fiedel, violine. italian viola, violino. dutch vedel. danish fiddel. anglo-saxon fithele. old english fithele, fythal, fithel, fythylle, fidel fidylle, (south) vithele. for the descent of the guitar-fiddle, the first bowed ancestor of the violin, through many transitions from the cithara, see cithara, guitar and guitar-fiddle. in the minnesinger and troubadour fiddles, of which evidences abound during the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, are to be observed the structural characteristics of the violin and its ancestors in the course of evolution. the principal of these are first of all the shallow sound-chest, composed of belly and back, almost flat, connected by ribs (also present in the cithara), with incurvations more or less pronounced, an arched bridge, a finger-board and strings (varying in number), vibrated by means of a bow. the central rose sound-holes of stringed instruments whose strings are plucked by fingers, or plectrum have given place to smaller lateral sound-holes placed on each side of the strings. it is in germany,[2] where contemporary drawings of fiddles of the 13th and 14th centuries furnish an authoritative clue, and in france, that the development may best be followed. the german minnesinger fiddle with sloping shoulders was the prototype of the viols, whereas the guitar-fiddle produced the violin through the intermediary of the italian bowed _lyra_. [illustration: from julius ruhlmann's _geschichte der bogeninstrumente_. minnesinger fiddle. germany, 13th century, from the manesse mss.] the fiddle of the carolingian epoch,--such, for instance, as that mentioned by otfrid of weissenburg[3] in his _harmony of the gospels_ (c. 868), \"sih thar ouch al ruarit this organo fuarit lira joh fidula,\" &c.,-- was in all probability still an instrument whose strings were plucked by the fingers, a cithara in transition. (k. s.) footnotes: [1] see c.e.h. de coussemaker, memoire sur hucbald (paris, 1841). [2] see the manesse mss. reproduced in part by f.h. von der hagen, _heldenbilder_ (leipzig and berlin, 1855) and _bildersaal_. the fiddles are reproduced in j. ruhlmann's _geschichte der bogeninstrumente_ (brunswick, 1882), plates. [3] see schiller's _thesaurus antiq. teut._ vol. i. p. 379.",
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