In war, a chamade was a certain beat of a drum, or sound of a trumpet, which was addressed to the enemy as a kind of signal, to inform them of some proposition to be made to the commander; either to capitulate, to have leave to bury their dead, make a truce, etc. Gilles Ménage derives the word from the Italian chiamate, from Latin clamare, to call.
Marin Mersenne recorded both a chamade drum pattern,1 and a chamade cavalry trumpet signal in his annotated copy of the Harmonie universelle.2
The word was taken from French into German from the late seventeenth century in the military phrase die Chamade schlagen, meaning 'to surrender', and became a geflügeltes Wort in the late nineteenth century.3
References
References
- van der Miesen, Leendert (2025). "Conclusion". Marin Mersenne and the Study of Harmony. Amsterdam University Press. pp. 309–310. doi:10.2307/jj.26844242. ISBN 978-90-485-6414-9.
- Long, John H. (1971). Shakespeare's Use of Music: The Histories and Tragedies. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. pp. 6, 271. ISBN 0-8130-0311-3.
- Brunt, Richard James (1983). "Chamade". The Influence of the French Language on the German Vocabulary (1649–1735). Studia linguistica Germanica. Berlin and New York: Walter De Gruyter. p. 187. ISBN 3-11-008408-2.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). "Chamade". Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al. p. 189.