| Images of angels playing the pipe and tabor are common. Demons, devils and Satan are uncommon. |
King James Version of Ezekiel 28:13 states:
"The workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created."
|
 1120-1150 demon, Vezelay,
region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
France [page 58]
|
 1129-1171 England |
 13th century,
tomb of King Dagobert I,
St.-Denis Abbey Church, Paris, France
Illustrating the legend that his soul
was saved from demons in a boat |
 13th century Catalonia, Spain |
 1288 playing for dancing France
|
 1288-1292 demon
entertaining at a banquet, Occitania, France |
|
| |
| 1313 Apocalypse of Saint John the Apostle, Meuse (Liège?), Belgium |
|
|
|
 65r |
|
|
|
| |
 1320 legend of the monk Theophilus
who made a pact with the devil |
medieval:
"Strange instruments made out of everyday objects like grills and distaffs,... mingle in the grotesque underworld
of marginal miniatures, in which the noble art of music is often replaced by the cacophonous noises suggested
by the devil"
[images of these 'strange instruments' here]
‘The Parody of Musical Instruments in Medieval Iconography’ by Sandra.Pietrin, 2017 |
|
 1322 devil, south Germany
frontispiece to 'Song of Songs' [f183v]
|
 14th century France,
demon
on a boat escorting a soul to hell
|
 1350-1400 Book of Hours
|
|
 after 1413
check link |
 1427-1457 St Michael’s
Schwäbisch Hall
Baden-Württemberg, Germany
|
|
|
| |
 1460-70 devil, Belgium |
 15th century fresco demon
Church of San Fiorenzo,
Bastia Mondovi, Piedmont, Italy |
|
 1475 devil playing for dancing demons, Paris |
1478 treatise discussing which instruments are ‘approved’ and ‘disapproved’:
‘trumpeters, pipers and drum players” come into the latter category…as infamous, based on Aristotle’s
condemnation of wind instruments”
‘Tractatus de Ludo’ by Stefano Costa |
 16th century Belgium
‘temptation-of-saint-anthony-in-a-panoramic-landscape’
by
Jan-Mandijn |
 |
|
|
4 images from 16th century Cathédrale del Pilar à Saragosse / Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain
The friezes and the walls of the choir in the Cathedral of Pilar are decorated
with satanic symbols and scenes
of confrontation between
Good and Evil carved in wood. The reputation of the salterio/string drum of being
a demonic instrument
was maintaned
for several
centuries
and so finds it's place here amongst
the dragons
and the Cerberus
guardians of Hell. |
|
|
|
1656 poem regarding Satan's influence:
"... For Satan thus
Tempts us the more that are more righteous.
…
Sounds not the Pulpit then which we belabor
Better and holier then doth a Tabor ;
Yet such is unregenerate mans folly,
He loves the wicked noyse, and hates the holy…”
‘Parnassus biceps. Or Severall choice pieces of poetry, composed by the best wits that were in both the universities before their dissolution.
With an epistle in the behalfe of those now doubly secluded and sequestred Members, by one who himselfe is none.’ |
13th / 14th century Toulose, France [f 201v]
1446-1460 Savoy, France 
1517
