CITTERN (also CITHERN, CITHRON, CYTHREN, etc.), a medi aeval stringed instrument of the guitar family (one of the many descendants of the ancient cithara), with a neck terminating in a grotesque . head of some kind, and twanged by fingers or plectrum. The popu larity of the cittern was at its height in England and Germany during the i6th and 17th centuries. The cittern consisted of a pear-shaped body similar to that of the lute but with a flat back and sound-board joined by ribs.
According to Vincentio Galilei (the father of the great astronomer) England was the birthplace of the cittern which probably owed its popularity to the ease with which it might be mastered and used to accompany the voice. Hence it was one of four instruments generally found in bar bers' shops, the others being the gittern, the lute and the virginal. The customers, while waiting, took down the instrument from its peg and played a merry tune to pass the time. The last development of the cittern before its disappearance was the addition of keys. The keyed cithara was first made by Claus & Co., of London, in 1783. The keys, six in number, were placed on the left of the sound-board, and on being depressed they acted on hammers inside the sound-chest, which, rising through the rose sound-hole, struck the strings.
Sometimes the keys were placed in a little box right over the strings, the hammers striking from above.
It is evident that the kinship of cittern and guitar was formerly recognized, for during the i8th century the cittern was known as the English guitar to distinguish it from the Spanish instrument. From the cittern was developed the zither (q.v.).