VIOL, an ancient musical instrument, which is traced back as far as the 8th century, and may be considered as the parent of all modern instruments of the violin family.
The Viol was a fretted instrument, of three sorts—treble, tenor, and base, each furnished with six strings, and played on by a bow. The Treble Viol was rather larger than our violin, and the music for it was written in the treble clef. The Tenor Viol was in length and breadth about the site of the modern viola, but thicker In the body, and its notation was in the soprana or C clef. The Base Viol scarcely ditrered in dimensions from our violoncello : the music for it was written in the base clef.
" Concerts of viols," says Sir J. Hawkins (iv. 339), " were the usual entertainments after the practice of singing madrigals grew into disuse ; and these latter (that is, viols) were so totally excluded by the intro duction of the violin, that at the beginning of the 18th century Dr.
Tudway was but just able to give, in a letter to his sou, a descriptiou of a Chest of Viols. Ile tells us that it was a large huteh with seve ral apartments and partitions in it, each lined with green baize. Every instrument was sized in bigness according to the part played upon it ; the least size played the treble part.' tic. The hurnosous Thomas Mace, of Cambridge, in his Music's Monument' (p. 245), says, ' Your best provision (and most complete) will be a good chest of viols, six in number, namely, two bases, two tenors, and two trebles, all truly and proportionably suited. Of these the highest in esteem are by Bolles and Ross (one bass of Bolles' I have known valued at 1004). These were old ; but we have now very excellent workmen, who (no doubt) can work as well.'"