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Invisible Evidence: Finding Musicians in the Archives of the Inns of Court, 1446–1642

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Extract

The archives of the Inns of Court have been described as ‘a historical no-man's land’, occasionally dipped into only by ‘antiquaries’ on the one hand and ‘domestic chroniclers’ on the other. To these two categories might be added theatre-historians and musicologists, since we have long known that many of the leading playwrights of the Tudor-Stuart period were members of the Inns, and that their colleagues there were prodigious consumers as well as producers of music, dance and drama. Yet it has been difficult to reach any accurate conclusions about the archival evidence in the Inns because it has never been published in editions that are both reliable and complete.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1993

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References

Notes

1 Wilfrid R. Prest, The Inns of Court Under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts 1590–1640 (Totowa, N.J., 1972), vii.Google Scholar

2 Baugh, A.C., ‘A Fifteenth-Century Dramatic Performance at the Inns of Court', Tennessee Studies in Literature, 11 (1966), 71–4.Google Scholar

3 Baildon, W.P., ed., The Records of the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn: the Black Books, I, II (1422–1660) (London, 1897–8); Reginald J. Fletcher, ed., The Pension Book of Gray's Inn, 1569–1669 (London, 1901); F.A. Inderwick, ed., A Calendar of the Inner Temple Records, I, II (1505–1660) (London, 1896–8); C.T. Martin, ed., Minutes of Parliament of the Middle Temple, I, II (1501–1649) (London, 1904). Books based on these published calendars, such as Robert W. Wienpahl, Music at the Inns of Court during the Reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles (Ann Arbor, 1979), founder in speculation about what the ‘missing’ entries must say.Google Scholar

4 Tucker Orbison, ed., ‘The Middle Temple Documents Relating to George Chapman's The Memorable Masque' and “The Middle Temple Documents Relating to James Shirley's The Triumph of Peace', Malone Society Collections, 12 (1983), 1–84.Google Scholar

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6 All quotations are from the manuscript archives of the Inns. The abbreviated manuscript references which follow each quotation are keyed to the List of Archival Sources, Appendix II. The full texts of all musical and dramatic references in these archives will appear in my forthcoming edition, The Inns of Court, for Records of Early English Drama (University of Toronto Press). A separate edition of some recently discovered Middle Temple documents will appear in Malone Society Collections, 15 (1992).Google Scholar

7 Crewdson, H.A.F., The Worshipful Company of Musicians (London, 1950), 96.Google Scholar

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9 Longleat House, Wiltshire, Whitelocke Papers, Parcel 2, no. 9.Google Scholar

10 Crewdson, The Worshipful Company, 96.Google Scholar

11 Kent Archives Office, U269/A1/1.1 am grateful to Lynne Hulse for this reference. On Cardell, See Ward, I., Lute Society Journal, 21 (1979–81), 24; and Anne Batchelor, The Lute, 28 (1988), 3–12.Google Scholar

12 See Frank, Priska, ‘A New Dowland Document', The Musical Times, 124 (1983), 15–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Middle Temple Library, Brerewood Manuscript, quoted by Wienpahl, Music at the Inns of Court, 165–6.Google Scholar

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17 Robert Megarry, Inns Ancient and Modern (London: Selden Society, 1972), 27.Google Scholar