the 9th century by the Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih (d. 911); in his lexicographical discussion of instruments, he cited the lyre (lūrā) as the typical instrument of the Byzantines along with the (organ). The lyra spread widely via the Byzantine trade routes that linked the three continents; in the 11th and 12th centuries European writers use the terms fiddle and lyra interchangeably when referring to bowed instruments. Descendants of the Byzantine lyra have continued to be played in post-Byzantine regions until the present day with few changes, for example the Calabrian Lira in Italy, the Cretan Lyra, the Gadulka in Bulgaria, and the Pontian lyra in Turkey. Following the Fourth Crusade, the Venetians dominated the island and introduced later new instruments and styles of music. In particular the three-stringed lira da braccio was introduced. By the end of the 14th century, a poetic form called mantinada became popular, a rhyming couplet of fifteen syllables. Post-Byzantine era After the fall of Constantinople, many Byzantine and Venetian musicians took refuge on Crete and established schools of music. A French physician in 1547 (Pierre Belon) reported warrior-like dances on Crete, and an English traveler in 1599 reported the wild dances performed late at night. The oldest transcription of folk songs in all of Greece can be traced to the 17th century, when songs in the rizitika type (see below) were mentioned by monks at Iviron and Xeropotamou Monasteries on Mount Athos. The connection between music and religion continues in modern Crete; priests are said to be excellent folk singers, including the rizitiko singer Aggelos Psilakis. It was during this period, when the modern Cretan folk music was formed, that Francisco Leontaritis was active. The explicit musical connection between Cretan music and Byzantine chant was documented in the seminal study "La chanson grecque" by Swiss musicologist and archivist Samuel Baud-Bovy. Twentieth-century consolidation Cretan music underwent significant new developments in the twentieth-century, many related to professionalization, technology, and modernization, even as it remained closely interwoven with the fabric of many Cretans' everyday lives. Cretan music also continued to be widely performed by amateurs in everyday life as well. Early masters (πρωτομάστορες) The advent of recordings, the growing ease of travel between regions on the island, and the modernization of instruments such as the lyra all contributed to the construction of "Cretan music" as a single, island-wide Cretan, and thus somewhat less locally or regionally bound,