CROWD, CROUTH, CROWTH (Welsh crwth; Fr. crout; Ger. Chrotta, Hrotta), a mediaeval 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 i8th century, is represented by a specimen of that date preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The earliest representation of the crwth yet discovered dates from the Carolingian period. In the miniatures of the Bible of Charles the Bald, in the Biblio theque Nationale, Paris, one of the musicians of King David is seen stopping strings on the fin gerboard with his left hand and plucking them with the right ; this crwth has only three strings, and may be the crwth trithant of Wales. It will be understood that the crwth was not an exclusively Welsh instrument, but only a late survival in Wales of an archaic instrument once generally popu lar in Europe but long obsolete elsewhere than in Wales.
(K. S.)