Cornish bagpipes

Cornish bagpipes (Cornish: Pibow sagh kernewek) are the forms of bagpipes once common in Cornwall in the 19th century. Bagpipes and pipes are mentioned in Cornish documentary sources from c.1150 to 1830 and bagpipes are present in Cornish iconography from the 15th and 16th centuries.

Pipes, type unspecified, are mentioned in many medieval Cornish sources: The word 'Tibicen' appears in the Vocabularium Cornicum of about 1150.

The first named 'piper' in Cornish records is that of Reginald Tibicen noted as holding land in Cuby before 1260/61. (probably a player of the flute or pipe, perhaps a bagpiper). The Accounts of the Earldom, 1296-7, mention Henri the pipere of Trigg: his wife Joan was paying a fine of 2s 6d. The assize record of the 1302 Cornwall Eyre mentions Osbmus Le Pibith and Richare/us Le Pybyth, both of Mousehole. A 1344 account tells of a disturbance at a Cornwall stannary in Redruth involving a man with the surname Pipere.

Pipers receive many mentions in Cornish-language plays from the 15th to early 17th centuries. These are:

For example Origo Mundi, Resurrexio Domini, Gwreans an Bys, and both halves of Beunans Meriasek (the latter play intended to be performed in two parts on two successive days) conclude with a speech in which a character urges the minstrels (menstrels) or pipers (pyboryon) to ‘pipe’ (peba) ‘so that we may go dancing’ (may hyllyn mos the thonssye, RD 2646; compare BM 2512, BM 4565, GB 2547).

The Records of Early English Drama conveniently summarise numbers of performances by Lord Botreaux's Pipers (sometimes also described as minstrels or servants) between 1416/7 and 1433. A piper was paid at Lostwithiel Riding in 1536/7. The 1549/50 Camborne churchwardens' accounts mention a pyper yn the playe. (Perhaps Beunans Meriasek, as Meriasek was their patron saint.) St. Ives Accounts for 1571/2 mention paying pypers for there wages in association with the performance of another play. These accounts do not tell us about the instruments used, except that they were conventionally referred to as pipes. Nonetheless, it is clear that the iconography of bagpipers in Cornwall does not exist in isolation, but in the context of a broad musical culture of which piping was a significant element.

Twin-chanter bagpipes appear in late-Medieval iconography in churches at Altarnun, Davidstow, St Austell and Braddock, Cornwall and at Marwood, and . A single chanter bagpipe and other instruments are depicted on the east wall of St Mary's, Launceston, Cornwall (c. 1520-1540). Such images must be considered with care.

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