Part 14

Coming now to what may be literally considered crows, our attention is mainly directed to the black or carrion-crow (_Corvus corone_) and the grey, hooded or Royston crow (_C. cornix_). Both these inhabit Europe, but their range and the time of their appearance are very different. The former is, speaking generally, a summer visitant to the south-western part of Europe, and the latter occupies the north-eastern portion--an irregular line drawn diagonally from about the Firth of Clyde to the head of the Adriatic roughly marking their respective distribution. But both are essentially migrants, and hence it follows that when the black crow, as summer comes to an end, retires southward, the grey crow moves downward, and in many districts replaces it during winter. Further than this, it has been incontestably proved that along or near the boundary where these two birds march they not infrequently interbreed, and it is believed that the hybrids, which sometimes wholly resemble one or other of the parents and at other times assume an intermediate plumage, pair indiscriminately among themselves or with the pure stock. Hence it has seemed to many ornithologists who have studied the subject, that these two birds, so long unhesitatingly regarded as distinct species, are only local races of one and the same dimorphic species. No structural difference--or indeed any difference except that of range (already spoken of) and colour--can be detected, and the problem they offer is one of which the solution is exceedingly interesting if not important to zoologists in general.[1] Almost omnivorous in their diet, there is little edible that comes amiss to them, and, except in South America, they are mostly omnipresent. The fish-crow of North America (_C. ossifragus_) demands a few words, since it betrays a taste for maritime habits beyond that of other species, but the crows of Europe are not averse on occasion to prey cast up by the waters. The house-crow of India (_C. splendens_) is not very nearly allied to its European namesakes, from which it can be readily distinguished by its smaller size and the lustrous tints of its darkest feathers; while its confidence in the human race has been so long encouraged by its intercourse with an unarmed and inoffensive population that it becomes a plague to the European abiding or travelling where it is abundant. Hardly a station or camp in British India is free from a crowd of feathered followers of this species, ready to dispute with the kites and the cooks the very meat at the fire. (A. N.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] As bearing upon this question may be mentioned the fact that the crow of Australia (_C. australis_) is divisible into two forms or races, one having the irides white, the other of a dark colour. It is stated that they keep apart and do not intermix.

CROWBERRY, or CRAKEBERRY, the English name for a low-growing heath-like shrub, found on heaths and rocks in Scotland, Ireland and mountainous parts of England. It is known botanically as _Empetrum nigrum_, and has slender, wiry, spreading branches covered with short, narrow, stiff leaves, the margins of which are recurved so as to form a hollow cylinder concealing the hairy under face of the leaf--a device to avoid excessive loss of water from the leaf under the exposed conditions in which the plant grows. The minute flowers are succeeded by black, edible, berry-like fruits, one-fourth to one-third of an inch in diameter. The plant has a wide distribution, occurring in suitable localities throughout the north temperate zone, and on the Andes of South America.

CROWD, CROUTH, CROWTH (Welsh _crwth_; Fr. _crout_; Ger. _Chrotta_, _Hrotta_), a medieval stringed instrument derived from the lyre, characterized by a sound-chest having a vaulted back and an open space left at each side of the strings to allow the hand to pass through in order to stop the strings on the finger-board. The Welsh crwth, which survived until the end of the 18th century, is best represented by a specimen of that date preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and described and illustrated by Carl Engel.[1] The instrument consists of a rectangular sound-chest 22 in. long, 9(1/2) in. wide and 2 in. deep; the body is scooped out of a single block, the flat belly being glued on. Right through the sound-chest on each side of the finger-board is the characteristic open space left for the hand to pass through. There are two circular sound-holes; the left foot of the flat bridge, which lies obliquely across the belly, passes through the left sound-hole and rests inside on the back of the instrument. Six catgut strings fastened to a tail-piece are wound round pegs at the top of the crwth; four of these strings lie over the sound-board and bridge, and are set in vibration by means of a bow, while the two others, used as drones and stretched across the left-hand aperture, are twanged by the thumb of the left hand. The shape and shallowness of the bridge make it impossible to sound a single string with the bow; the arrangement of the strings suggests that they were intended to be sounded in pairs. The instrument is tuned thus: [Music notes].

At the beginning of the 19th century, William Bingley[2] heard a Welsh peasant playing national airs on a crwth strung as follows:--[Music notes]. Sir John Hawkins[3] relates that in his time there was still a Welshman living in Anglesea who understood how to play the crwth according to traditional usage. Edward Jones[4] and Daines Barrington[5] both give an account of the Welsh crwth of the 18th century which agrees substantially with Engel's; the illustration communicated by Daines Barrington shows the strings of the crwth drawn through holes at the top, and fastened on the back, as on the Persian rebab and other Oriental stringed instruments. On these somewhat scanty authentic records of the instrument, several historians of music have based an illogical claim that the crwth, or rather chrotta or rotta, mentioned by Venantius Fortunatus as a British instrument, was the Welsh crwth as it was known in the 18th century, and was the earliest bowed instrument, and therefore the ancestor of the violin. The lines of Fortunatus, who was bishop of Poictiers during the second half of the 6th century, ran thus:--[6]

"Romanusque lyra, plaudat tibi Barbarus harpa, Graecus Achilliaca, chrotta Britanna canat."

The bow is not mentioned by Fortunatus, and there is no ground whatever for believing that the Welsh crwth was played with a bow in the 6th century, or indeed for several centuries after. The stringing of the Welsh crwth with the two drone strings still twanged, the form of the body without incurvations, the flat bridge which rendered bowing, even in the most highly developed specimens of the 18th century, a difficult task, together with what is known of the early history of the chrotta and rotta derived from the lyre and cithara and like them twanged by fingers or plectrum, all make the claim untenable. Carl Engel was probably the first to expose the fallacy in his work on the violin.[7]

British lexicographers all agree in deriving the words crwth, crowd and other forms of the name, from some word meaning a bulging protuberant bellying form, while in German the etymology of the word _Chrotta_ is given as _Chrota_ or _Chreta_, the O.H.G. for _Krote_ = toad, _Schildkrote_ = tortoise. This word _Chrotta_ was undoubtedly the German equivalent term for the lyre of Hermes, having as back a tortoise-shell, [Greek: chelys] in Greek and _testudo_ in Latin. Chrotta was also spelt _hrotta_, and it is easy to see how this became rotta. A thoughtful and suggestive treatment of the whole subject will be found in Engel's work, to which reference has been made. Just as the lyre and cithara, which appeared to be similar to the casual observer, and are indeed still confused at the present day, were instruments differing essentially in construction[8]; so there were, during the early middle ages, while lyre and cithara were still in transition, two types of chrotta or rotta. (1) The rotta or improved cithara had a body either rectangular with the corners rounded, or guitar-shaped with incurvations, back and sound-board being nearly or quite flat, joined as in the cithara by ribs or sides. This rotta must be reckoned among the early ancestors of the violin before the advent of the bow; it was known both as rotta and cithara, and with a neck added it became the guitar-fiddle. (2) The tortoise or lyre chrotta consisted of a protuberant, very convex back cut out of a block of wood, to which was glued a flat sound-board, at first like the lyre, without intermediary ribs. This instrument became the crwth, and there was no further development. The first step in the transition of both lyre and cithara was the incorporation of arms and cross-bar into the body, the same outline being preserved; the second step was the addition of a finger-board against which the strings were stopped, thus increasing the compass while restricting the number of strings to three or four; the third step, observed only in the rotta-cithara, consisted in the addition of a neck,[9] as in the guitar. The crwth, crowd, crouth did not undergo this third transition even when the bow was used to set the strings in vibration.

The earliest representation of the crwth yet discovered dates from the Carolingian period. In the miniatures of the Bible of Charles the Bald,[10] in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, one of the musicians of King David is seen stopping strings on the finger-board with his left hand and plucking them with the right (fig. 2); this crwth has only three strings, and may be the crwth _trithant_ of Wales. A second example occurs in the Bible of St Paul,[11] another of the magnificent MSS. prepared for Charles the Bald, and preserved during the middle ages in the monastery of St Paul _extra muros_ in Rome (now deposited in that of St Calixtus in Rome). Other representations are in the miniatures of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. To Edward Heron-Allen (_De fidiculis opuscula_, viii., 1895) is due the discovery of a representation of the Welsh crwth, showing the form still retained in the 18th cent. On the seal of Roger Wade (1316) is a crwth differing but little from the specimen in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The 14th-century instrument had four strings instead of six, and the foot of the bridge does not appear to pass through the sound-hole--a detail which may have escaped the notice of the artist who cut the seal. The original seal lies in the muniment room at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire attached to a defeasance of a bond between the _crowder_ and his debtor Warren de l'Isle, and a cast (see fig. 3) is preserved at the British Museum. The British Museum also possesses two interesting MSS. which concern the crwth: one of these (Add. MS. 14939 ff. 4 and 27) contains an extract made by Lewis Morris in 1742 from an ancient Welsh MS. of "Instructions supposed to be wrote for the Crowd"; the other (Add. MS. 15036 ff. 65b and 66) consists of tracings from a 16th-century Welsh MS. copied in 1610 of a bagpipe, a harp and a _krythe_, together with the names of those who played the last at the Eisteddfod. The drawing is crude, and shows an instrument similar to Roger Wade's crowd, but having three strings instead of four.

The genealogical tree of the violin given below shows the relative positions of both kinds of rotta and chrotta.

Egyptian lyre-kissar Assyrian ketharah | | | +----------+---------+ Greek lyre or chelys | | | Greek cithara Persian cithara Roman testudo | | | Roman fidicula Arab cuitra, guitra +-------------+-------------+--------+ | or cuitara | | | | | | Latin Old High Germ. Anglo-Saxon Welsh Cithara in | chrotta, Chrota or crowd crwth transition, Moorish guitarra rotta, rote Chreta or rotta | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | | | Spanish viguela or Guitarra Latina Fidel, fidula, vihuela de arco or vihuela de mano fyella, fythele, | | &c. | | | | Spanish guitar | +-------+---------+---------------+ | | | | | Italian viola French vielle Guitar-fiddle Fiddle | or viole Violin

The Welsh crwth was therefore obviously not an exclusively Welsh instrument, but only a late 18th-century survival in Wales of an archaic instrument once generally popular in Europe but long obsolete. An interesting article on the subject in German by J. F. W. Wewertem will be found in _Monatshefte fur Musik_ (Berlin, 1881), Nos. 7-12, p. 151, &c. (K. S.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _Early History of the Violin Family_ (London, 1883), pp. 24-36.

[2] See _A Tour round North Wales_ (London, 1804), vol. ii. p. 332.

[3] _History of Music_ (London, 1766), vol. ii. bk. iii. ch. iii., description and illustration.

[4] _Musical and Poetical Relicks of Welsh Bards_ (London, 1794), illustration of crwth, also reproduced by Carl Engel; see note above.

[5] _Archaeologia_, vol. iii. (London, 1775).

[6] Venantius Fortunatus, Poemata, lib. vii. cap. 8, p. 245; see Migne's _Patrologia Sacra_, vol. 88.

[7] _Op. cit._ chapters "Crwth," "Chrotta," "Rotta."

[8] See Kathleen Schlesinger, _Orchestral Instruments_, part ii., "The Precursors of the Violin Family" (London, 1909), pp. 14 to 23, with illustrations.

[9] See also Kathleen Schlesinger, op. cit. ch. vii., "The Cithara in Transition," pp. 111-135 with illustrations.

[10] See Auguste de Bastard, _Peintures et ornements des MSS. de France_, and _Peintures, ornements, &c., de la bible de Charles le Chauve_, in facsimile (Paris, 1883).

[11] See J. O. Westwood, _Photographic Facsimile of the Bible of St Paul_ (London, 1876).

CROWE, EYRE EVANS (1799-1868), English journalist and historian, was born about the year 1799. He commenced his work as a writer for the London newspaper press in connexion with the _Morning Chronicle_, and he afterwards became a leading contributor to the _Examiner_ and the _Daily News_. Of the latter journal he was principal editor for some time previous to his death. The department he specially cultivated was that of continental history and foreign politics. He published _Lives of Foreign Statesmen_ (1830), _The Greek and the Turk_ (1853), and _Reigns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X._ (1854). These were followed by his most important work, the _History of France_ (5 vols., 1858-1868). It was founded upon original sources, in order to consult which the author resided for a considerable time in Paris. He died in London on the 25th of February 1868.

CROWE, SIR JOSEPH ARCHER (1828-1896), English consular official and art critic, son of Eyre Crowe, was born in London on the 25th of October 1828. At an early age he showed considerable aptitude for painting and entered the studio of Delaroche in Paris, where his father was correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_. During the Crimean War he was the correspondent of the _Illustrated London News_, and during the Austro-Italian War represented _The Times_ in Vienna. He was British consul-general in Leipzig from 1860 to 1872, and in Dusseldorf from 1872 to 1880, when he was appointed commercial attache in Berlin, being transferred in a like capacity to Paris in 1882. In 1883 he was secretary to the Danube Conference in London; in 1889 plenipotentiary at the Samoa Conference in Berlin; and in 1890 British envoy at the Telegraph Congress in Paris, in which year he was made K.C.M.G. During a sojourn in Italy, 1846-1847, he cemented a lifelong friendship with the Italian critic Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (1820-1897), and together they produced several historical works on art of classic importance, notably _Early Flemish Painters_ (London, 1857); _A New History of Painting in Italy from the Second to the Sixteenth Century_ (London, 1864-1871, 5 vols.). In 1895 Crowe published _Reminiscences of Thirty-Five Years of My Life_. He died at Schloss Gamburg in Bavaria on the 6th of September 1896.

Crowe and Cavalcaselle's great _History of Painting_ was under revision by Crowe up to the time of his death, and then by S. A. Strong (d. 1904) and Langton Douglas, who in 1903 brought out vols. i. and ii. of Murray's new six-volume edition, the 3rd vol., edited by Langton Douglas, appearing in 1909. A reprint of the original edition, brought up to date by annotations by Edward Huttons, was published by Dent in 3 vols. in 1909.

CROW INDIANS, or ABSAROKAS (the name for a species of hawk), a tribe of North American Indians of Siouan stock. They are now settled to the number of some 1800 on a reservation in southern Montana to the south of the Yellowstone river. Their original range included this reservation and extended eastward and southward, and no part of the country for hundreds of miles around was safe from their raids. They have ever been known as marauders and horse-stealers, and, though they have generally been cunning enough to avoid open war with the whites, they have robbed them whenever opportunity served. Physically they are tall and athletic, with very dark complexions.

CROWLAND, or CROYLAND, a market-town in the S. Kesteven or Stamford parliamentary division of Lincolnshire, England; in a low fen district on the river Welland, 8 m. N.E. of Peterborough, and 4 m. from Postland station on the March-Spalding line of the Great Northern and Great Eastern railways, and Peakirk on the Great Northern. Pop. (1901) 2747. A monastery was founded here in 716 by King Aethelbald, in honour of St Guthlac of Mercia (d. 714), a young nobleman who became a hermit and lived here, and, it was said, had foretold Aethelbald's accession to the throne. The site of St Guthlac's cell, not far from the abbey, is known as Anchor (anchorite's) Church Hill. After the abbey had suffered from the Danish incursions in 870, and had been burnt in that year and in 1091, a fine Norman abbey was raised in 1113. Remains of this building appear in the ruined nave and tower arch, but the most splendid fragment is the west front, of Early English date, with Perpendicular restoration. The west tower is principally in this style. The north aisle is restored and used as the parish church. Among the abbots was Ingulphus (1085-1109), to whom was formerly attributed the _Historia Monasterii Croylandensis_. A curious triangular bridge remains, apparently of the 14th century, but referred originally to the middle of the 9th century, which spanned three streams now covered, and affords three footways which meet at an apex in the middle.

The town of Crowland grew up round the abbey. By a charter dated 716, Aethelbald granted the isle of Crowland, free from all secular services, to the abbey with a gift of money, and leave to build and enclose the town. The privileges thus obtained were confirmed by numerous royal charters extending over a period of nearly 800 years. Under Abbot Aegelric the fens were tilled, the monastery grew rich, and the town increased in size, enormous tracts of land being held by the abbey at the Domesday Survey. The town was nearly destroyed by fire (1469-1476), but the abbey tenants were given money to rebuild it. By virtue of his office the abbot had a seat in parliament, but the town was never a parliamentary borough. Abbot Ralph Mershe in 1257 obtained a grant of a market every Wednesday, confirmed by Henry IV. in 1421, but it was afterwards moved to Thorney. The annual fair of St Bartholomew, which originally lasted twelve days, was first mentioned in Henry III.'s confirmatory charter of 1227. The dissolution of the monastery in 1539 was fatal to the progress of the town, which had prospered under the thrifty rule of the monks, and it rapidly sank into the position of an unimportant village. The abbey lands were granted by Edward VI. to Lord Clinton, from whose family they passed in 1671 to the Orby family. The inhabitants formerly carried on considerable trade in fish and wild fowl.

See R. Gough, _History and Antiquities of Croyland_ (Bibl. Top. Brit. iii. No. 11) (London, 1783); W. G. Searle, _Ingulf and the Historia Croylandensis_ (Camb. Antiq. Soc., No. 27); Dugdale, _Monasticon_, ii. 91 (London, 1846; Cambridge, 1894).