The Lute Music of MS Royal Appendix 58

Abstract

THE OLDEST preserved examples of English lute music, about fortyfour in number, are found in three manuscripts: (1) British Museum Royal Appendix 58, fols. 51v-52, 54'-56 probably copied in sometime after 1551; (2) the same library's Stowe 389, fols. 1, 120-122v written by one Raphe Bowle to learne to playe on his Lutte in anno 1558; and (3) Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.a.159 (acq. no. 448.16), fols. 3-13, i.e. that part of the lute music copied out perhaps as early as the 1550's and certainly before 1571.1 In all three sources the tablature is crudely executed, difficult to decipher, clearly the work of amateurs; and though of no great artistic worth, the pieces are of great interest for what they tell us of English instrumental music at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign. Their many concordances, with each other and with other sources, literary and musical, give evidence of the importance this music had for the popular repertoire of the 1550's and 60's.