Katherine Butler. Music in Elizabethan Court Politics

In this wide-ranging study, Katherine Butler explores how music functioned at the court of Elizabeth I. Although the fine arts as they relate to the milieu of the Virgin Queen in Tudor England have received attention from scholars such as Louis Montrose, Susan Frye, and Roy Strong, Butler takes a less theoretical approach by examining the music, musicians, patrons, court occasions, and progresses that provided the soundscape for Elizabeth’s life. Music, she argues, was one of the tools that queen, courtiers, and players used to craft their public image and convey messages. Whether in the privacy of the queen’s chambers or on the banks of the lake at the Earl of Hertford’s estate of Elvetham, music was an important element of the political exchanges between queen and subjects. The book’s structure moves expansively from the queen herself to the musicians of the royal household, then to the more public tournaments and masques, and concludes with the large audiences and participants in the progress entertainments. Butler focuses on secular music of the court and excludes the music of religious worship. Her historical and literary sources—the printed and manuscript collections of songs, treatises on music and education, accounts of entertainments commissioned by courtiers who hosted the queen, personal correspondence of participants, and musical manuscripts—reflect the interdisciplinary nature of her approach

Art · Art history · Craft · Estate · Literature · Media studies · Music education · Musical · Political science · Politics · Queen (butterfly · Sociology · The arts · Visual arts · Worship · Historical Art and Culture Studies · Historical Influence and Diplomacy · History · Law · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity