{ "viewingDirection": "left-to-right", "metadata": [ { "label": "Origin Place", "value": "England." }, { "label": "Provenance", "value": "

Frederick William Cosens (1819-1889): armorial bookplate, with the motto 'Sub robore virtus' encircling a lion over a Maltese Cross (front pastedown<\/a>).<\/p>

Purchased by Bernard Quaritch: Puttick and Simpson, March 1866, lot 174. <\/p>" }, { "label": "Extent", "value": "Codex: i + 185 + i leaves. Leaf height: 290 mm, width: 190 mm." }, { "label": "Funding", "value": "" }, { "label": "Date of Creation", "value": "c. 1610." }, { "label": "Classmark", "value": "Cambridge, University Library, MS Add. 3056" }, { "label": "Donor(s)", "value": "Jenkinson, Francis, 1853-1923" }, { "label": "Additions", "value": "

'p 4 pounds and ten shelling to shelling and six pence': note by an 18th-century hand (f. 185v<\/a>).<\/p>" }, { "label": "Subject(s)", "value": "Lute music" }, { "label": "Associated Name(s)", "value": "East, Thomas, 1540?-1608?" }, { "label": "Format", "value": "Codex" }, { "label": "Data Source(s)", "value": "This catalogue entry is based upon an inventory prepared by John H. Robinson of the Lute Society." }, { "label": "Language(s)", "value": "English, with some titles in French and Latin" }, { "label": "Binding", "value": "

Early 17th century binding. Full calfskin over pasteboards, blind-rolled and stamped with two rectangular frames whose motifs include portraits busts in roundels as well as foliate motifs. The central stamp on each cover is the portrait bust of a tribal figure wearing a headdress. <\/p>" }, { "label": "Condition", "value": "Folio 12 is detached. The sewing of the first few gatherings has deteriorated and now Quires 1-5 are loose. Some of the leaves that now protrude have small tears along the fore-edge." }, { "label": "Script", "value": "

Written by a single hand, with titles in italic<\/i> script.<\/p><\/div><\/div>" }, { "label": "Physical Location", "value": "Cambridge University Library" }, { "label": "Abstract", "value": "

In common with other handwritten books of this period, this lute manuscript lacks a title page and has consequently been called the 'Cosens lute book' after its 19th-century owner, Frederick W. Cosens. However, the initials 'C.K.' occur in about half a dozen of the titles to music known to be by other composers, suggesting that they are the initials of the owner and scribe. Although the initials do not match any likely candidate from the records, the neat tablature, uniform throughout, as well as the level of difficulty of much of the music, together suggest that the lute book is more likely to have belonged to a professional musician, rather than an enthusiastic amateur nobleman like many of the other surviving examples. Several of the popular English pavans and galliards by known composers, including three by John Dowland, are accompanied by a distinctive personal style of division writing, indicative of the owner making their own arrangements of the standard repertory, which a professional would be expected to do.<\/p>

The book comprises 187 leaves and was probably bought ready-bound from a commercial supplier, the 'T.E.' stamped on some pages probably being Thomas East, the London printer. Tablature was copied on only 60 or so of its leaves; the remainder are blank. The music is all for solo 6- or 7-course renaissance lute, and composers are known for most of the 71 items, some mainstream: John Dowland (8), Daniel Bacheler (4), Anthony Holborne (1), Thomas Robinson (1), Francis Cutting (1) - others with few surviving lute compositions: John Danyel (3), Edward Collard (1), Robert Ascue (1), Michael Cavendish (1) - and yet others whose lute music is only known from this manuscript: W. Hollis (1), Thomas Vautor (1) and Thomas Smyth (4). Curiously, the last name is also found written in the lute book of Richard Mynshall (London, Royal Academy of Music, MS 601). <\/p>

Apart from this core repertory of some of the best of English lute music, 22 pages in the middle are filled with Italian preludes and fantasias, several by Laurencini, now thought to be the papal lutenist-composer Lorenzo Tracetti, as well as the best known fantasia of Francesco da Milano (Ness, no. 33). Other ascriptions are to a prelude by the French lutenist Charles Bocquet and a fantasia by the German composer Melchior Neusidler, and other pieces quote from fantasias otherwise known in German manuscript sources. This suggests that the owner may have travelled, possibly accompanying diplomatic missions to the continent, or may have been foreign, or at least had access to music from the continent.<\/p>

John H. Robinson, Lute Society<\/p>" }, { "label": "Former Owner(s)", "value": "Cosens, F. W. (Frederick William), 1819-1889" }, { "label": "Title", "value": "Cosens lute book" }, { "label": "Author(s) of the Record", "value": "Suzanne Paul (November 2014), revised and expanded by James Freeman (June 2025), CUDL PID Workflow" }, { "label": "Material", "value": "Paper" }, { "label": "Collation", "value": "

The manuscript is formed principally of quires of 12 leaves, with one instance of a quire of 14 leaves (Quire 15). In two other places - Quires 8 and 14 - a single, probably blank leaf, has been excised, and this has been counted in the numbering (see Foliation). Quire 11 is an uncertain case. The composition of all but one of the other quires might suggest that this was originally a quire of 12 leaves, from which a whole bifolium - most likely the central bifolium - has been removed. However, this has not been noted in the foliation of the manuscript, and presumably it was thought instead to be a regular quire of 10 leaves.