The word "lituus" originally referred to a curved staff used for religious purposes or a curved war-trumpet in ancient Latin. This Latin term was still used until the 18th century as another way to describe the common names of different musical instruments.

Roman ritual wand

The lituus was a curved wand shaped like the top of some Western European crosiers. It was used by augurs in ancient Roman religion as a tool to mark a sacred area in the sky called a templum. The movement of birds through this area showed whether the gods supported or opposed a specific task or event.

The lituus also served as a symbol of authority for the group of augurs, helping to identify them as priests.

Music instrument

The ancient lituus was an Etruscan brass instrument with a high, loud sound. It was straight but bent at the end, shaped like a letter J, and similar to the Gallic carnyx. The Romans later used it for processional music and as a signaling horn in the army. For the Roman military, it may have been used mainly by the cavalry. Both the Etruscan and Roman versions were always used in pairs, like the prehistoric lurer. The Etruscan instruments had detachable mouthpieces and were generally longer than the Roman versions. The name "lituus" comes from Latin and is believed to have originated from an Etruscan word describing a soothsayer’s wand shaped like a shepherd’s crook, linked to religious practices and good omens. Early Roman and Etruscan art shows the lituus used in processions, especially funerals. People who played the lituus were called liticines. However, the name was sometimes used loosely by poets to describe other military brass instruments, like the tuba or buccina. In 17th-century Germany, a version of the bent lituus was still used as a signaling horn by nightwatchmen.

From the end of the 10th to the 13th centuries, writers of the Crusades used the word "lituus" in a general way to describe various instruments in Christian armies. These included other Roman military instruments like the tuba, cornu, buccina, and the French term trompe. However, it is unclear which specific instrument was meant, and it is unlikely these were the same as the Etruscan or Roman lituus.

In the early 15th century, Jean de Gerson listed the lituus among string instruments that were played by striking or beating, using fingernails, a plectrum, or a stick. Other instruments he named in this group include the cythara, guiterna, psalterium, timpanum, and campanula.

During the postclassical era, the term "lituus" continued to describe ancient and Biblical instruments but often referred to "bent horns" made of wood, such as the crumhorn and cornett. The crumhorn was especially linked to the lituus because of its shape. German writers strongly connected the crumhorn to the lituus. A 1585 English translation of a book defined "lituus" as "a twisted or crooked trumpet; a shawm." However, different languages used the term in various ways, such as German "Schalmey," Dutch "Schalmeye," French "Claron," Italian "Trombetta bastarda," and Spanish "Trompeta curua." The Baroque composer Michael Praetorius used "lituus" as a Latin term for the German "Schallmeye" (shawm) or "Krumbhoerner" (crumhorns), offering Italian translations like "storti" and "cornamuti torti."

A more specific term, "lituus alpinus," was used in 1555 by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner to describe the Alphorn. He wrote it was nearly eleven feet long, made from two curved pieces of wood hollowed out and joined together.

A study of 17th-century Swedish dictionaries showed "lituus" was translated as sinka (German Zink, cornett), krumhorn, krum trumeta (curved trumpet), claret, or horn.

In the 18th century, "lituus" again described modern brass instruments. For example, a 1706 inventory from the Ossegg monastery in Bohemia equated it with the hunting horn: "litui vulgo Waldhörner duo ex tono G." However, in 1732, Johann Gottfried Walther referred to earlier definitions, describing "lituus" as "a cornett, formerly also a shawm or, in Italian, tubam curvam, a HeerHorn." HeerHorn was a Middle High German name for a slightly curved military signal horn. In 1738, the famous horn player Anton Joseph Hampel was called "Lituista Regius" ("royal lituus player") at a baptism. By the late 18th century, "lituus" was sometimes used as a Latin name for the trumpet or horn.

Several Baroque-era compositions specify the lituus, including Bach’s motet O Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht (BWV 118), a partita by Jan Josef Ignác Brentner, and works by Johann Valentin Rathgeber. In 2009, scientists from Edinburgh University tried to recreate the lituus used by Bach, making a long wooden trumpet. They assumed the term referred to an instrument not used for 300 years, not a modern horn.