criteria by which to select images for discussion.
Among the earliest and most interesting images are those from the Utrecht Psalter (Figure 1; from Kinsky, 1951, p. 32). These are pen-and-ink drawings in the margins and blank pages of a Carolingian hymn-book of about the year 860 owned by the Utrecht University library. The drawing in the top panel is focused on the image of Christ, who is seated about where a monarch or bishop would be seated in a basilica. This scene can reasonably be interpreted as an idealized depiction of a liturgical service at a Carolingian court. That is, given CharlemagneÆs recruiting of scholars to staff the royal cathedral school, this scene would represent a peak of musical sophistication unsurpassed in Europe for many centuries both before and after.
In Figure 1, the three musicians on the far left appear to be playing a bagpipe, a small drum vaguely like a doombeck (also shown in the central panel, 3), and a small harp, that is, the three basic types of musical instruments. Their counterparts on the far right include a harpist and two singers (and one figure that seems indecipherable). Below these two groups on either side are two more groups, each consisting of two trumpeters and three singers; the composition of the yard-long ôtrumpetsö can only be guessed at. Finally, at the bottom appears an organ, with two organists and four other men pumping the bellows (a similar organ appears in the bottom panel, 4). Panels 2, 3, and 5 show a bowed ôfiddle,ö a long-necked lute similar to the Indian tamboura, and two kinds of small harp. From the body stances of the musicians in the top panel, one gets the impression of a lively and not terribly solemn musical event, perhaps not very different from the liturgies performed in progressive Roman Catholic parishes and cathedrals since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Because David, King of Israel and founder of Jerusalem as the Israeli...