The history of modal playing.

From what I understand, Dulcimers from the first half of the 20th century and earlier, tended to be in just intonation. I have learnt in the last few days that just intonation Dulcimers do not play well in modes other than the one they are tuned to. So my question is, did players in those days only play in Ionian and the modal playing fashion is a modern thing or did players have more than one dulcimer tuned in different modes or am I missing something.