dulce melos

dulce melos, (French: “sweet song”), a rectangular stringed keyboard musical instrument of the late European Middle Ages, known entirely from written records; no original examples are extant. It is possible, however, that the instrument presented to the king of France by King Edward III of England in 1360 and called échiquier d’Angleterre was a dulce melos.

In the famous manuscript of Henri Arnaut of Zwolle (c. 1435), the dulce melos is pictured and described. It appears that its 12 pairs of strings stretched over the tails of 35 keys. The strings passed over bridges that divided each pair of strings into three sections, each producing a different pitch and controlled by a different key. Each section was caused to vibrate by means of a weighted wooden shaft that sat on the end of each key; when the key was depressed and suddenly halted (or checked), the shaft continued to fly upward, and a brass attachment on its side struck the string. The shaft then rebounded to rest on the key. In principle this action anticipated the modern piano’s hammer action; as in the piano and clavichord, the loudness of each note was controlled by the force with which the finger depressed the key.