User Contributed Dictionary
Extensive Definition
Waits or Waites were British
town pipers. From medieval times up to the
beginning of the 19th century, every British
town and city of any note had a band of Waites. Their duties varied
from time to time and place to place, but included playing their
instruments
through the town at night, waking the townsfolk on dark winter
mornings by playing under their windows, welcoming Royal
visitors by playing at the town gates, and leading the Mayor's procession on civic
occasions.
Their instruments also varied, but were for the
main part loud and penetrating wind
instruments such as the shawm, which was so closely
associated with them that it was also known as the Wait-pipe. Waits
were provided with salaries, liveries and silver chains of
office, bearing the town's arms.
As a result of the
Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, Waits were
abolished, though their name lingered on as Christmas
Waits, who could be any group of singers or musicians who
formed a band in order to sing and play carols for
money around their town or village at night over the Christmas period.
It is these largely amateur musicians who have today
become associated with the name 'Waits', rather than the historical
civic
officers and accomplished musicians who represented the
original Waits.
Most European countries had their equivalents of
Waits. In Holland they were called Stadspijpers, in Germany
Stadtpfeifer and in Italy Pifferi. See alta
capella.
External links
Scholarly research
- The Waits Website (designed to accumulate and disseminate historical information on Waits, and to advertise the growing number of revival bands, as well as their equivalents throughout Europe).
- Professor Richard Rastall Professor of Historical Musicology, University of Leeds. Includes downloadable copy of his thesis "Minstrels and minstrelsy in medieval Britain".
- The History of Lincoln Waites