EARLY RECORDED HISTORY IN SCOTLAND

 
            Notable is the carving of a pig playing the pipes on Melrose Abbey, most probably from the rebuilding after the English raids in 1385.

 
            An inventory of instruments in St. James palace conducted in 1419 specifies “four bagpipes with pipes of ivory” and another “bagpipe with pipes of ivory, the bag covered with purple velvet.”

 
            In 1486, Edinburgh rejoiced in a band consisting of three pipers, and any household who declined to billet these “city musicians” in rotation was liable to be fined nine pence in accordance with a town council decree.

 
            It is not a little surprising that in the accounts of the Lords High Treasurers of Scotland there is a reference to pipers being “INGLIS.”  In the years 1489 and 1491 payments were made to “the English piper that came to the castle and played to the King,” and to “four English Pipers.”

 
            On October 6, 1503 an entry was made to record the King’s payment of 28 shillings to the pipers of Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

 
            In 1505, records exist indicating that Dumbarton, Biggar, Wigton, Glenluce and Dumfries had public pipers.

 
            The complete disappearance of any payments to pipers after the year 1508 may indicate that the bagpipe had ceased to be popular in the royal court of Scotland but as late as 1536 pipes were still employed at Roman Catholic services in Edinburgh.

 
            During 1556, the Queen Regent made a pilgrimage in honor of St. Giles and was accompanied by bagpipes and other musicians.

    In 1581, a payment was made “to a piper and young boy his son that play in Dalkeyth upon Sunday the 11 Day of June from the Kirk to the Castle before his Highness.”

 
            Presbytery records for Stirling, 1582, show the summoning of pipers William Wricht and Thomas Edmane before the Kirk for censure and fines. They played the pipes on the Sabbath at a wedding.

 
            The first written mention of the “Great Pipes” was in 1623 when a piper from Perth was prosecuted for playing on the Sabbath. 

 
            In the Scottish Lowlands, pipers formed part of the municipal institutions of all large towns.  In Jedburgh the office of piper was a hereditary one. 

          
            It was noted that in 1650, MacLeod of Dunvegan had a bard, a harper, a piper and a fool, all of which were provided for by the Chief.

           The records of the Burgh of Aberdeen, for 1664, contain an entry that granted Alexander Thomson the liberty to go through town playing his pipes and that he would receive payment as others in like employment had before.

 
            In Brechin, a small town between Dundee and Aberdeen, the town piper’s duties were to pipe up and down the town streets each weekday at five in the morning and seven at night.  In 1688, this official was assigned a salary of ten merks yearly.

 
            The Inverness Kirk Session records between 1688 and 1695 mention William Fraser, piper to Lord Lovet, as having paid four pounds Scots of a penalty for “doing what he ought not have done.”

 
            An advertisement in the Edinburgh Courant in 1708, asked for “any person that plays on the bagpipes who might be willing to engage on board a British man-of-war.”  Both British and Dutch ships were anchored in Leith Roads at the time.

 
            The pipes became popular in the Highlands in the 1400’s and came into general use before 1500.  The Highlanders labors were often accompanied by music, either vocal that of the harp and when occasion allowed the pipes. In 1565 George Buchanan indicates that the harp and the pipes were in use throughout the Highlands.  The decline of the harp occurred during the 1600’s as the pipes moved into the position as the instrument of the highland clans.