Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1613, new style) alongside the lute-song composer William Corkine and one Richard Goosey.4
Elsewhere, Lynn Hulse has shown that Dowland
and his son Robert were amongst the lutenists
who received patronage at the London residence of
William Cavendish, First Earl of Devonshire (1551
1626).5 The discovery in the 1970s of the Margaret
Board Lutebook, apparently connected with
Dowlands teaching activities during the final years
of his life, also provided valuable new information
about his career.6
Together, these discoveries cast further light on
Dowlands pursuit of what we might now describe
as a portfolio careerthat is, a series of interlocking
and sometimes overlapping professional activities
rather than a single salaried post. Just as presentday composers and performers normally undertake
some teaching during their working week, the same
was evidently true for early modern musicians,
whether in household service or within collegiate
or ecclesiastical institutions. We are fortunate to
possess two surviving manuscript lutebooks which
contain first-hand evidence of Dowlands teaching
practices but, while both have been studied in
detail (regarding dating, provenance and musical
content), little attempt has been made to situate
Dowlands teaching within the broader context
of his career. This study attempts to do just that,
gathering together the numerous shreds of evidence
concerning the pedagogical activities of Dowland
and his closest colleagues, and considering how
this complemented and nourished their other
professional activities as performers and composers.
The resulting picture reveals a group of highly
sought-after lute tutors (whose reputations were
enhanced by their royal patronage) enjoying the
favourable market conditions of Elizabethan and
Jacobean London, a hotbed of musical commerce
Early Music, Vol. xli, No. 2 The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1093/em/cat027, available online at www.em.oup.com
205
Dowlands contribution
f.9v
f.11v
f.12v
f.14r
f.16r
f.22v
f.23r
f.23v
f.84v
London, Royal Academy of Music
Ms. 603 (the Margaret Board Lutebook)
f.86r
f.[i]v
ff.11v12r
f.12v
f.13r
f.83v
Elsewhere, a number of other pieces in the Board Lutebook include hold-lines that appear to have been added as an
after-thought, for example the Gallyard by Mr Jo: Dowland Bacheler of Museque (based on a galliard by Daniel Bacheler) on ff.16v17r. It is impossible to ascertain by whom.
works in the Board Lutebook contain similar annotations: the setting of Lachrimae includes a number
of hold lines and two allemandes (one by Robert,
the other by John) also include other performancerelated details such as grace signs and right-hand
fingerings. Dowland clearly took great pride in the
preparation of his pupils study materials, but his
very prescriptive use of notation also suggests that
he was particularly concerned with how the music
would sound in performance.
It would be rash, however, to see this as an
attempt to maintain textual control over his works
it may simply reflect Dowlands anxiety that his
Source
1 John Dowland, My Lady Hunsdons Allmande (Folger Lutebook, f.22v), autograph copy (reproduced by permission of
the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC)
2 Almande Ro[bert] Dowlande (Board Lutebook, f.12v), copy in John Dowlands hand, with alternative final strain added
by (?)Margaret Board (reproduced by permission of the Royal Academy of Music, London)
3 Map of London, from John Norden, Speculum Britanniae. The firste part ([London], 1593), insert between pp.267. Detail
showing the western wall of the city (in the centre of the image) and the suburban areas immediately beyond it. Locations
mentioned in the text include: St Pauls Cathedral (11); Fleet Street (13, running horizontally); Fetter Lane (14); St Dunstanin-the-West (15); Aldersgate Street (h); Holborn (n, running horizontally); St Andrews, Holborn (p); Temple (for the Middle
Temple; bottom-left corner); Whitefriars (alongside); St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield (top centre) (Oxford,
Bodleian Library, Gough Cornw. 21 (2)) (reproduced by permission of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
in holborne. & in Fetter Lane.33 Since Ramseys preferred lute-maker was Mr Augustine in Crouched [=
Crutched] friars, this entry must refer to a maker of
other instruments, possibly the viol-maker Richard
Blunt, who is known to have been working in Fetter
Lane at around this time.34 Afew years previously, the
manuscript copy of Dowlands Second Booke of Songs
had been sold through George Eastland, another
resident of Fleet Street, to the printer Thomas East
who then hired John Wilbye (probably staying at the
Kytsons town-house in Austin Friars at the time) and
the lutenist Edward Johnson to undertake the proofreading.35 The ensuing legal melee, well documented
by Margaret Dowling, also saw none other than
Philip Rosseter asked to give evidence. This region of
London was evidently a hive of professional musical
activity, and it is difficult to suppress a mental image of
this close-knit circle of lutenists meeting in one of the
local taverns in between appearances at court, other
gigs and giving lessons in order to swap gossip and flag
up forthcoming opportunities.
Among all this, firm evidence of John Dowlands
teaching is difficult to come by, but it seems likely
that both he and Robert provided tuition during their
visits to the Cavendish household in Aldersgate Street
(again, just up the road from Holborn). There is also
circumstantial evidence that Dowland was acquainted
with John Ramsey, whose London town-house was
located in the neighbouring parish of St Bartholomew
the Great.36 In fact, Cavendish and Ramsey apparently
patronised the same circle of musiciansLynn Hulse
has noted Cavendishs 1613/14 payments to one Mr
Pierce and that the lute-song composer Michael
Cavendish was employed within his household, and
there is some evidence that Ramsey engaged these
men too.37 Ramseys list of tradesmen also includes
a consorte from Powles [i.e. St. Pauls] where ye
boyes play. Mr Sturt. Mr Pearce.38 The mention of
John Sturt (d.1625) is of particular interest since, like
Dowland and Rosseter, he was a royal lutenist living
in Fetter Lane. Furthermore, he has been suggested
as the main scribe of another extant pedagogical
lute manuscript, the so-called M.L.lutebook, and it
seems likely that he too supplemented his income by
giving lute lessons in the area.39
John Ramsey also showed a keen broader interest in musical culture, copying lyrics from madrigal
and lute-song prints by Robert Jones, John Wilbye,
4 Part of John Ramseys list of Gentlemen, including composers John Dowland and Michael Cavendish (Oxford, Bodleian
Library, Douce 280, f.103v) (reproduced by permission of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
Conclusion
So what did those participating in these social transactions hope to gain from them? For wealthy young
ladies like Margaret Board or Lettice Newdigate, the
musical skills they acquired played an important
role in their performance of widely held notions
of femininity and domesticity.51 By studying with
a prestigious teacher, they could also stay in touch
with the latest musical trends being shaped at court
and across the higher echelons of society. But above
all, the engagement of so famous a music-master was
a status symbol, a testament to the students good
taste, wealth and connectionsand so well worth
displaying both through musical performances and
the ownership of associated material objects.
For Dowland and his colleagues, the arrangement was no less advantageous. Giving lute lessons
represented both an additional income stream
and was, just as importantly, another way of getting seen and heard in the right circles. It provided
access to patronage networks, and the evidence
Michael Gale is a PhD candidate at the University of Southampton and a Research Affiliate in the
Music Department at the Open University, UK. His thesis is a study of lute instruction in England,
c.1550c.1640, exploring the ways in which this musical accomplishment was used in constructions of
socialstatus. Between 2001 and 2006, he was involved with the Electronic Corpus of Lute Music project
(www.ecolm.org). His wider research interests include English musical culture 15001700, jazz studies,
and computer-assisted methodologies for musicological research. mdg@soton.ac.uk