Whilst waiting for the page to load, came across this old comment of Wav's.
I'd heard, that the pipe and tabor were the original Morris instruments (seen a chap playing them at The Morpeth Gathering, a couple of times) but it was/is also well used for dance music on the continent.
That's because they are CONTINENTAL instruments with clear Middle-Eastern and North-African ancestors which were brought over too England. Not much different to the banjo or guitar.

Ruth, I posted an interesting link recently about west galleries which Wav has ignored, as he does with most of my posts, they do seem to unsettle him. That link talked about how the west galleries had rather complicated arrangements, lots of parts and harmonies and what was done to the melody was anything BUT top-line only. Hardy's father seems to have been known as a particularly daring arranger.
My question is, if you could sing hymns in church with harmony and chords, church music being far more important to them than folk songs, why wouldn't they sing the latter in a similar fashion?
Oh, one more thing, they didn't sing hymns in 'sweet' voices either.