The Bagpipe Society

An Amazing Discovery

Scientists for the University of Vigo believe they have found bagpipes, from the south of Galicia and Portugal, which have been in use from the Middle Ages.

Starting from the idea that the fingers wear the wood that surrounds the holes of a bagpipe chanter when playing, for six years we have been developing a method that tries to find out if it is possible to date a chanter by its wear. After measuring 144 old chanters from all of northwest Iberia, many experiments, and a lot of statistical analysis with the help of the mathematician Iván Area, we have managed to develop a mathematical model that calculates the time of use of a chanter by its wear.

Since what we had was just a model, we decided to verify if the predictions it made were true. So, we took the pointers that the model gave as the oldest chanters and dated their wood with the carbon 14-AMS technique (14C). When studied, the model would give a minimum age for the instrument (a time of use) and 14C a maximum age, (the age of the tree when it was felled and with which the chanter was built). The 14C dates confirmed all the predictions of the model and, since it was validated, we can know quite precisely how long a chanter was used just by using a calliper and a fairly simple algorithm. The methodology will now allow us to write the history of our instrument with an almost uncanny accuracy.

The most surprising conclusion is that we have bagpipes in the northwest Iberian Peninsula that have been used continuously since the Middle Ages. For example, the wood of the Xan de Campañó bagpipe chanter was 14C dated between 1420 and 1450, while the model gives it a minimum 490 years of use. We have 14C dated chanters from the 15th to the 18th century, all in continuous use ever since!

One of the conclusions we reached in that the oldest bagpipes only appear in the province of Pontevdra in the south of the region. In each sample, we always tested more than 30 old chanters. In Galicia and Asturias we found no examples over 300 years old but in Pontevedra, 44% were over 300 years and throughout Combra, Trás-os-Montes and Extremadura in Portugal, consistently 25% were over 300 years. This could be an indicator of how the north of the peninsula expanded after the 18th century.

The fact that there are bagpipes in continuous use since the end of the Middle Ages shows that the instrument always adapted to the music system in place at the time and that there was a continuous playing tradition through until about the mid‐19th century. Another surprising conclusion. You can find more information on the subject on our website: https://bit.ly/Chanter127