poem by juan Ruiz, archipreste de Hita,1 containing an enumeration of the musical instruments of his day, includes el ravé grilador can su alla nola (the shrill rebec with its high note) and el mbé marisco. By a process of deduction we have no difficulty in identifying the long, narrow, boat-shaped instrument as el mbé morisco, since the instrument has survived almost unchanged among the Arabs of the present day' from the 13th century, and probably from the early centuries of our era. The shrill rebec (el ravé grilador) with thinner strings was the pear-shaped instrument. In the magnificent MS. known as the Cantigas di Santa Maria, assigned to the 13th century, ” there are three of those boat-shaped rebecs played with a bow and one twanged by the fingers; they have finger-boards and two strings, and are held like the violoncello. Rebabs of this type, but without bows, were in use in ancient Persia, c. 789 B.c., as is demonstrated by some little terra-cotta figures of musicians unearthed in a tell at Suzan* Two of the instruments, held, however, like the violin, are unmistakably the archetypes of this rebec.
The rebec did not escape the general tendency so noticeable in Europe from the 12th to the 15th century towards the ornamentation of musical instruments with grotesque heads. The socket of the chaunter of the bagpipe, the heads of the cittern and ghittern, the mandolin and the rebec, were all
human or animal heads, which in
cittern-heads.
The boat-shaped rebec survived
instrument widely used by dancing masters until the 19th century, when it was abandoned for the kit, a diminutive violin. The pochetie, as its name in French and also in German (Taschengeige) indicates, was small enough to be carried in the pocket; it measured from 15 to 18 in. and was played with a correspondingly small bow. The 15th- and 16th-century rebec or geige, as the pear-shaped variety was called in Germany (gigue in France), is figured by Sebastian Virdung;° there were three strings tuned to G, D, A, and it had a finger-board cut in one piece with the sound-board in some cases and forming a step. Some writers consider that the addition of the finger-board constituted the difference between the geige and the rebec. Facts hardly support this theory, since the lyra teutonica in the oth or 11th century already had a finger-board, and Farabi, the Arabic scholar of the 10th century, who was equally familiar with the Greek, Persian and Arabic musical systems, distinctly states that the rebab was also known as the lyra, . The modern Greek rebec with three strings is to this day played by rustic musicians under the name of lyfa. Moreover, in Germany, bowed instruments of all kinds were at first known as geige, in contradistinction to those whose strings were plucked, classed together as cylharas or some word derived from it, the most modern example of which is the zither. With the rise of the viols and later of the violin, which represent the most perfect type of construction for stringed instruments, the rebec tribe, inferior in every respect and without artistic merit, was gradually relegated beyond the pale,7 and by the 18th century had fallen into disuse except in certain rural districts, where for outdoor music, their shrill, penetrating tone continues to endear them to itinerant and village musicians. (K. S.) alike decorated with grotesque
England became proverbial as
as the sordino or pochellef an
See Mariano Soriano Fuertes, Historia de la Musica espanola (Madrid, 1855), vol. i. p. 105. Aymeric du Peyrac, in his Vita Carnli Magni (13th century), mentions the rebec; see 'Du Cange, Glossarium, 5.1). “ Baudosa." Hieronymus of Moravia mentions the rubebe, and states that it has three strings, whereas the vielle had five (MS. Fonds Latin, No. 16 [663 actuel.], Paris Bibl. Nat.). In the Minne Regel (“ Rules of the Minnesingers ”), 1404, line 415: “ Noch dan quinterna, gyge, videle, lyra, rubeba "; see Der Minne Regel von Eberhardus Cercne aus Minden, 1404, edited by Franz Xaver Woeber (Vienna, 1861), p. 24.
“For an illustration see Carl Engel, Researches into the History of Zia Violin Family, and E. Heron-Allen, The Violin, and how to ma e il.
3 Edward Buhle is of opinion that the miniatures in these MSS. are the work of a 14th-century artist. See Die Musik-iizstfumente in den Minalurhandschriften des Millelallers (Leipzig, 1903). 4 See J. de Morgan, La Délégation en Perse (Paris, 1900), vol. i. pl. viii., Nos. 8 and 9.
5There is a pochette in the Galpin Collection, c, 1700; for an illustration see Kathleen Schlesinger, The Instruments of the Orchestra, part ii., “ Precursors of the Violin Family, ” p. 201, fig. 158. 5 Musica getutschl und ausgezogen, Basel, 1511, reprinted in Publikalionend. Ges. f. Musikforschung, Berlin, 1883, Bd. xi. T Antoine Vidal in La Lutherie et les lulhiers, to show the contempt with which the rebec was viewed in France in the 15th century, quotes from the charges of King Charles VIII., 1483, where the following entry occurs: “ On donna sur son ordre 35 sols a une poure msensée qui jouoit du rebec." The lieutenant of Paris, in March 27. I§ 28, issued the following order: “Faisant defence a tous musicians de jouer dans les cabarets et mauvais lieux des dessus, basses on autres parties de violon ains seulement du rebec." A well-known passage in Chaucer testifies to a similar contempt in 14th-century England: “ Brother, quod he, here woneth an old rebekke, " &c. (Freres Tale. 7156).,
REBECCA RIOTS, the name given to some disturbances which
occurred in 1843 in the counties of Pembroke, Carmarthen,
Glamorgan, Cardigan and Radnor, after a slight outbreak of the
same nature four years previously. During a period of exceptional
distress the rioting was caused mainly by the heavy
charges at the toll-gates on the public roads in South Wales, and
the rioters took as their motto the words in Genesis xxiv. 60,
“ And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our
sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy
seed possess the gate of those which hate them.” Many of the
rioters were disguised as women and were on horseback; each
band was led by a captain called “ Rebecca,” his followers being
known as “ her daughters.” They destroyed not only the gates
but also the toll-houses, and the work was carried out suddenly
and at night, but usually without violence to the toll-keepers,
who were allowed to depart with their belongings. Emboldened
by success, a large band of rioters marched into the town of
Carmarthen on the 10th of June and attacked the workhouse, but
on this occasion they were dispersed by a troop of cavalry which
had hurried from Cardiff. The Rebeccaites soon became more
violent and dangerous. They turned their attention to other
grievances, real or fancied, connected with the system of land-holding,
the administration of justice and other matters, and
a state of terrorism quickly prevailed in the district. Under
these circumstances the government despatched a large number
of soldiers and a strong body of London police to South Wales,
and the disorder was soon at an end. In October a commission
was sent down to inquire into the causes of the riots. It was
found that the grievances had a genuine basis; measures of
relief were introduced, and South Wales was relieved from the
burden of toll-gates, while the few rioters who were captured were
only lightly punished.
REBELLION, the act or continuance in act of a rebel or rebels
(Lat. rebellio, rebellis, a compound of re-, against, and bellum,
war). A rebel is one who engages in armed resistance to the
government to which he owes allegiance. For the distinction
between Civil War and Rebellion, see War, Laws of. Where
individuals as distinguished from groups of men are concerned
the character of rebel is easier to determine. That the alleged
act of war was done by order of another cannot be in principle an
excuse for a subject or citizen of any state taking arms against
it. Under the rules of war adopted at the Hague in 1907,
moreover, any excuse for doing so is removed by the provision
that a belligerent is forbidden to compel nationals of the hostile
party to take part in operations of war against their own
country, “ even if they were in the belligerent's service before
the commencement of the war ” (art. 123). In the case of R. v.
Louw, known as the “ Calvinia Flogging case ” (Supreme Court
of the Cape Colony, Feb. 18, 1904), the question of the validity of
the excuse of acting under orders contrary to allegiance was
discussed in an uncertain spirit, and in a previous case, the Moritz
case, tried before the Treason Court at Mafeking (Nov. 7, 1901),
the court held that insurgent nationals “ who had joined the
burghers must be placed on the same footing as burghers fighting
against us.” There may be special circumstances operating
to qualify the application of a principle, but the above stated
principle, as such, must be regarded as the only legal basis of
argument on the subject. (T. Ba.)
REBUS (Lat. rebus, “ by things ”), a sort of riddle consisting of the representation of some sentence or thing by means of pictures or words, or a combination of both. Rebuses first became popular in France, where they were at first called rébus de Picardie, that province, according to G. Ménage (1613-1692), having been the scene of their origin, which he found in the satires written by the students and young clerks on the foibles of the day under the title “ De rebus quae geruntur.” Camden mentions an instance of this kind of wit in a gallant who expressed his love to a woman named Rose Hill by painting in the border of his gown a rose, a hill, an eye, a loaf and a well; this, in the style of the rebus, reads “ Rose Hill I love well.” This kind of wit was happily ridiculed by Ben Ionson in the humorous description of Abel Drugger's device in the Alchemist and by
