The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #111446   Message #2347776
Posted By: Bonnie Shaljean
23-May-08 - 02:15 PM
Thread Name: Medieval instrument question
Subject: RE: Medieval instrument question
I'll go away after this, promise, but I couldn't resist this, courtesy of Google Books:

Francis, lying ill, had a wish ... for the soothing of some sound that would cheer him and that his spirit hard put by disease might find relief. For music changes our moods, as the minstrel moved Elisha. At the sound of a harp, a fool frolics; a decent man sings praise. But the honest wish no mortal was found to satisfy, God fulfilled in his kindness through the service of an angel. For at the time when it was night and he was still awake, all at once there sounded as of a harp's wondrous euphony a melody most rare, with so much of delight of feeling affecting him that amid the pleasures of paradise he thought, in ecstasy of soul, he was already present.

And then - at the bottom of the page - a banner reads:
"St Francis of Assisi, 70% off!!"

Good old Google. Sigh.