Page:The Early English Organ Builders and their work.djvu/28

 the first organ in Europe was that sent by the Emperor Constantine V to King Pepin in 756. In 812, Louis Le Debonnaire placed one in the Church of Aix-la-Chappelle; and one is mentioned as having been erected at Winchester in the tenth century.

Gervase the Monk, describing the destruction of the Cathedral of Canterbury by fire in 1174, especially mentions the burning of the organ; and Durandus, in the thirteenth century, alludes to the organ as common in the churches of his time. These facts completely refute the notion of Bingham and his followers that the instrument was first introduced into the Church by Marinus Sanutus in 1290.

The organ erected in the monastery at Winchester, just mentioned, requires more than a passing notice. It is described by a monk named Wulstan, whose fidelity, as Lingard remarks, cannot be questioned, since he dedicated his "Life of St.