Text: Gaelic and Welsh Instrumental Music

Text Note: Giraldus Cambrensis's Topography of Hibernia (1188) is, of course, mostly about Ireland. But Giraldus also says that the instrumental music of Scotia (Gaelic Scotland) derives from that of Hibernia (Ireland), forming a two-fold Gaelic tradition distinct from that of his own native Cambria (Wales). So what he says about Irish style partly applies (at least in his view) to Scottish Gaelic music. However, he also says that the musical skill of the Gaelic Scots has subsequently surpassed that of their Irish cousins. Nonetheless, this is only given as a generally-held opinion — it's debatable whether Giraldus himself had direct knowledge of any Scottish tradition, let alone Gaelic.

"Gaelic and Welsh Instrumental Music"
— excerpt from Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hibernia (III.xi [§94])

Notes on this 2010 Edition: This excerpted edition is based on two extant editions (rather than my own), and is only provisional, just to get something vaguely useful online while I research the actual manuscript sources to develop my own transcription and translation directly from them.

For the Latin text, I'm temporarily using Dimock (pp.153-155; see below), who worked from no less than 16 manuscripts of the Topographia representing 4 different versions of the text, although generally deferring to the earliest version (c.1188) attested in a contemporary, C12th copy (Cambridge University Library MS. Mm. 5.30, often referred to as the "M" copy). Indeed, the date conventionally assigned to the Topographia Hibernia (1188) is, unusually for a medieval manuscript, almost a "publication date" for a "1st edition". Although Giraldus is known to have visited Ireland in several Norman expeditions between 1183-c.1206, and it is thought that his writing began with the first visit, records exist of a public reading of the "1st edition" in Oxford around 1188, and a copy was certainly being circulated among high-ranking clergy in that year. Indeed, it seems to have been a bit of a "best-seller", and its success encouraged Giraldus to produce several extended "editions" from then on, to the point that the final version ended up almost twice the original's size (becoming not only more verbose in the process, but also increasingly-surreal in its legendary and "ethnographic" content!). Happily, several early (and even contemporary) manuscript copies survive to this day, reflecting the complexity of this "publication series". A good critical guide to the sources (grouped by "edition"), along with an account of their reception history, is still Giraldus's most scholarly Victorian editor, James Dimock, who provides an English preface to his classic Latin edition in Opera V (London: Longman, 1867). Dimock's edition also includes Giraldus's later book on The Conquest of Ireland by the "English" Normans.

For the current English translation, I'm temporarily using Thomas Wright's in Historical Works (London: Bell, 1894), pp.126-127, re-paragraphed to align with Dimock's Latin text (and with my own translation of the Ovid paraphrase, which Wright leaves untranslated). Wright's translation, although anachronistically-Victorian, seems slightly less wobbly than some of his predecessors', although he's a bit vague about his sources (which seem to be mostly other translations). However, it does approximately line up with Dimock's Latin edition. One reason why a new translation is necessary is that English versions to date have often made a mess of Giraldus's musical terminology, and can contradict each other as a result (which is less than helpful for the average reader, and completely disastrous for the average student).

It should go without saying that to translate Scotia simply as "Scotland" is more than problematic when, only a few sections earlier (III.vii [§91]), Giraldus makes it perfectly clear (several times and several ways) that by "the Scots" he absolutely defintely means the-ethnically-Gaelic-Scots, who share a common ancestry with the Hiberni (Irish), being descended from the legendary progenitors, Gaidelus and Scotia and, more specifically, speak Gaidelach (Gaelic). So by "the Scots", Giraldus absolutely definitely does not mean all-inhabitants-of-the-Kingdom-of-Scotland-regardless-of-ethnic-background. Indeed, this definition is also reflected in a map included in one contemporary manuscript of the Topographia, which places the word "Scotia" very clearly above the Forth-Clyde line, while Southern Scotland remains nationally un-labelled (National Library of Ireland MS. 700). As with so many other Medieval usages of the word Scotia (including many from Scotland itself), this is an ethnic, not a national term here, meaning "the territories where the ethnic-Scots live" (eg. the Gaelic Highlands), and expressly not "the Kingdom of Scotland" as a whole. Equally, many other Medieval texts say that Lothian is "England" and Strathclyde is "Wales" (which is never intended to mean that they're in those political territories). This is so because of their linguistic/ethnic roots — regardless of the fact that both are in "the Kingdom of Scotland". By the same token, many Medieval Lowlanders say that the Highlands are "Ireland", because that's where the "Irish" language (ie. Gaelic) is spoken. So orthodox were these Medieval designations (which derive from ancient tribal ethnicities) that they can still be found in use well into the Renaissance. The idea that we're all just simply "Scots" (let alone "Jock Tamson's bairns") is, in fact, a completely Modern idea. Medieval Scotland was a particularly multi-ethnic kingdom, and its various peoples were very well aware of the fact — as were their neighbours (like Giraldus). But then this multi-ethnic condition is pretty much the norm across all of the larger kingdoms of Medieval Europe (in Medieval terms, Scotland wasn't actually that small at all — something a lot of folks forget these days).

So, when Giraldus is telling us about "Scottish" instrumental music, he's telling us about the Gaelic tradition, and the Gaelic tradition alone — he does not design his comments to shed any light at all on any Lowland tradition, and particularly not those of the (only recently) post-Anglo-Danish ("English") region of Lothian, or the still-vaguely-Brythonic ("Welsh") Strathclyde. On the other hand, his comments could possibly be read as having some relevance to the music of the still-ethnically-Gaelic enclave of Galloway in the far South-West. Note also that his comments are almost certainly not intended to tell us about the music of the Hebrides (which are, today, famous for Gaelic culture) — earlier on, Giraldus gives a description of Orkney and Shetland that vaguely references "various islands" and "many others" to the north of Ulster and Galloway, "almost all" of which are still very much Norwegian territories in his own day (IIxi [§44])). But regardless of whether or not he really does include the Hebrides in his definition of Scotia (and I really don't think he does), it's perfectly clear that the "Scotland" he means doesn't include the Northern Isles themselves. Overall, it's safest to take his comments about "Scottish" music as only referring to the Highland Gaelic traditions (albeit with the possible exception of Galloway).