>Presumably there were no frets. >dt Learned conjecture- taking into account iconographic, musical, and eyewitness accounts- leans to usually no frets. Francesco was famously credited with the advanced skill of playing "beyond the frets" but until it was sorted out that he did this on the plucked viola da mano it was assumed that he was playing thusly on the bowed viola da gamba. More definitive is John Dowland's assertion in the "Varietie" that Matthia Mason was the first to add THREE wooden body frets to the older eight fret lute (as opposed the momentarily "standard" 10 fret, 9 course lute that Dowland used at that time- ca. 1610). Three frets- the 11th, "m", had to be the one skipped. To throw a nice little monkey wrench into our tendency to adduce immutable "rules" governing the anarchic past there is of course the painting by Costa- late 15th century, (I think) showing a nice, fat five course lute with three very clearly defined dark, hardwood frets (three again!) on the belly. So go figure.
Incidentally, I've seen pictures of various guitar/vihuela family instruments that clearly had room for more tied frets than appear on the neck- taking into account the heel/neck block area of course. Also, I tried no wooden frets on my 6 course for a number of years- one can indeed get used to playing up there reliably with correct intonation, and even relatively clear sound. It gives the instrument another timbric register, so to speak, not mention opening the range a bit past an arbitrary octave limit- but in the end I wimped out and put the body frets back on. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
