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The buzoon: an unidentified Lowland bagpipe? ONE OF the numerous sources of insight into the secular culture of the Scottish Lowlands before the Reformation is contained in the Records of the Incorporation of Hammermen of Edinburgh. The first volume of these records runs from 1494 to 1558, a period of flourishing cultural activity in Scotland, largely due to the influence of James IV. In the introduction to his edition of the records, John Smith wrote:

“Records of the various Trade Incorporations which flourished in the city during these two centuries … portray in a wondrous and vivid manner an account of the daily life and habits of these sturdy and independent men … One of the special features of everyday life in Pre-Reformation times, was the attention and time given to the observation of the numerous festival days held in honour of the patron saints of each particular craft.”

These festivals, Smith reminds us, included “the performance of rude dramatic representations of Scriptural subjects, which were at first acted in churches, and afterwards in the street on a movable stage … In the Records of the Crafts we find mention of these old plays being acted before the citizens of Edinburgh. In the year 1505 we gather the title of one from payments recorded in the accounts of that year to ‘Herod and his two daughters’ … These characters continued to be the stock company up till 1516, after which date all traces of them finally disappear.”1

But the main spectacle of the festival was the procession of the craft through the town on Corpus Christi day.2 Smith says “The details of these processions are stated minutely, and bring out in a vivid manner the trouble

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Seal of the Incorporation of

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and expense incurred to produce a spectacle worthy of the wealthy and powerful craft of the Hammermen of Edinburgh.

“Among the items noted in the accounts in connection with this festival,” says Smith, “the charge for ale and bread is one of the most frequent. And from this we conclude that the season was a time of considerable licence, which but ill-accorded with the sentiments this originally sacred institution was intended to evoke.”

This is all of very great general interest, but why should it be of particular interest to Common Stock readers? The answer lies in the next paragraph of Smith’s introduction:

“The mention of payment to the ‘Abbot of Narent’, or Lord of Misrule, and the sums given for powder, seem to indicate that the whole affair was of a somewhat noisy description. The procession was headed by a band of musicians with instruments of various descriptions, and the frequent payment for skins for the swash or drum shows the rough treatment it received. We are also informed of other musical instruments then available. Perhaps the most curiously named one was the ‘buzoon’ … This was the bagpipe, and we gather from the entries for repairs after the day of the procession, that it was not more tenderly handled than the drum.”

The buzoon? In all my researches into the story of piping in the Scottish Lowlands I have never seen a reference to such a thing, and Keith Sanger confirmed this. He did, however send me back to the original script to investigate the spelling; here are Smith’s transcripts of the records concerned:

1503: to Clofas to play on ye great buzoon ..... ij s 1505: to Clofois for to play on ye great buzoon ..... ij s

Keith’s suggestion was that the “z” in buzoon was a “yough” – “the letter that is a sort of cross between a ‘g’ and a ‘z’ and which was pronounced like the Scots pronunciation of the modern Z in Menzies or Dalzell or the Gaelic pronunciation of the modern Z in MacKenzie. This does at least bring a consistency with the other version of ‘Bovun’, with U V and W being sort of interchangeable.”

Keith’s mention of the “bovun” which Smith identifies with “buzoon” as the bagpipe, refers to the following entries in the records:

1516: For ane horse to ye man that playit on ye bovun

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1519:to John King, franchman our menstrall for ane greit bovun xij s

Note that these minstrels, like most of those mentioned at the processions, are French. Smith makes the following questionable point: “It would appear that only foreigners performed on the more intricate instruments, such as the trumpet and tabour; the talent of the native never rising above the ‘quhissil’, and the beating of the swash or drum.”

The matter of the ‘swasch’, ‘quhissil’ and ‘tabour’ and whether the natives were ever capable of rising to the challenge of playing them, must wait for another time, but there is one further entry that mentions the ‘bovun’ that gives us a clue to its nature:

1507:given for twa parchmont skynis to ye bovun .... xxxij d for an ounce of burg threid to ye bynding of it . . . . iiij d 3

Now I know bagpipes might require “burg thread to ye binding”, but I know of no bagpipe that requires two parchment skins. So, sadly, this is not a bagpipe, despite Smith’s claim, for which he gives no evidence. It must be some kind of drum. But what kind? It is not a “tabour” and it is not a “swash”. So what is it? Again, Keith Sanger suggested the clue (though he hasn’t commented on my inference from it):

“The word Bovun was probably pronounced somewhat like ‘Bowen’ which would be close to the pronunciation of the ‘yough’ [buzoon] version.”

And this word “bowen” appears in the Dictionary of the Scottish Language website as meaning “A flat broad-bottomed vessel, into which milk is emptied from the pail”; “a broad shallow dish made of staves, for holding milk”. Further investigation reveals that the word may also be used to mean a tub.4

Two parchment skins and thread for a bowl-shaped instrument? At once I thought, “This is the nackers”. Common in Europe after the 13th century crusades, nackers are a pair of small, shallow bowl-shaped drums whose heads are fastened with various rope arrangements.

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Naqqara player, Eritrea (courtesy of Scran)

The original word comes from Arabic naqqara and in various parts of the Arab world and in India, versions are played which could well be called “great”; they are often carried on the back of a camel.

It appears quite possible that we have here a Scottish version, previously unrecognised, but with its own Scots word and carried perhaps on horse-back.

The buzoon appears in these records over a period of 16 years, and such an instrument makes no other known appearance in Scotland until the late 17th century when a version is shown being played on horse-back, in the painting of The Riding of the Parliament now in the Museum of Scotland, perhaps the first revival of the great processions of the Craft Incorporations since before the Reformation.

As compensation for this “lost bagpipe” I offer the music for The Hammermens’ March, from Aird’s Airs, (thanks to Jack Campin); there is an earlier version in Oswald’s Caledonian Pocket Companion (c. 1750).

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Since writing this article I have learnt of a possible explanation for John Smith’s surprising and unsupported remark “‘buzoon’ … This was the bagpipe …” I turns out that the word, or something similar is indeed a bagpipe, as this entry in Wikipedia explains:

“The bousine is a small, droneless bagpipe from the south of Normandy. It is of Saxon origin, and arrived in Normandy in the 13th Century..This instrument is part of the family of Norman bagpipes, which also include the loure and the haute loure.”

I have yet to confirm this, but it seems on the face of it that Smith would have been familiar with such an instrument.In fact, it now seems that this name for a regional bagpipe may be derived from the location in the Indre district of central France called Buzancais, some 22 km northwest of Châteauroux. According to Francis Grose, in the entry for ‘Horn-Fair’ in his Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), the

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‘Kettle Drum, His Majestie’s Troop of Guards’ from The Riding of the Parliament 1685 (courtesy

National Museums of Scotland)

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area ‘was noted for the manufacture of bagpipes’.5 He quotes Urquharts’ translation of Rabelais:“you will be the hornpipe of Buzansay, that is to say, well-horned, hornified, and cornuted.” 6

References and notes

1. Smith, J., ed., The Hammermen of Edinburgh and their altar in St. Giles Church; being extracts from the records of the Incorporation of Hammermen of Edinburgh, 1494 to 1558, Edinburgh, 19062. A Christian festival of moveable date; usually falls in the first weeks of June.3. Burg=from the town of Bruges. “For ane pund small Birge threid to sew the Kingis jak with; (Treasurer’s Acts. 1507)”: Dictionary of the Scots Language, http://www.dsl.ac.uk [retrieved 11/11/2009]. An ounce seems a rather small amount.4. Ibid.”bowen”. Jon Swayne pointed out to me that the English equivalent is ‘basin’. According to Chambers’ Dictionary, ‘basin’ is from Old French ‘bacun’- Bassine, basing and baisoune, among others, where common in Scotland, ‘from ME. Basson’.5. Grose, Frsancis, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.6. Rabelais, GARGANTUA AND HIS SON PANTAGRUEL,Book III. Ch.XLV Translated into English by Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty and Peter Antony Motteux 1693

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