{ "viewingDirection": "left-to-right", "metadata": [ { "label": "Origin", "value": "c. 1600-1605. Westminster.

Ian Harwood (1963) has identified Mathew Holmes as the copyist of MS Dd.9.33 and several other lute books. It has been possible to place Holmes' books in chronological order and MS Dd.9.33 is the third. It was copied at Westminster, where Holmas was precentor and singingman from 1597 until his death in 1621. Harwood (pp. 46-47) suggests that the two requests for prayers for the sick men Davie Were [Wier] and William Hoper [Hooper] which Holmes wrote on the last leaf of the manuscript may have been rough drafts for memoranda collected by Holmes as part of his duties within the Abbey. Thieving Lane, where Davie lived, was in the parish of St Margaret's, Westminster and most of its houses belonged to the Abbey. The parish register records the burial of Davie Wier on 18 March 1600. The Westminster parish register records the burial of William Hooper on 15 April 1601. Harwood (2010) suggests also that Holmes took his books from Christ Church Oxford (where he had been precentor and singingman between 1588 and 1597) to Westminster Abbey. Some of his later manuscripts were certainly copied there and it seems likely that all the manuscripts were together in Westminster at the time of Holmes' death in 1621. <\/p>" }, { "label": "Origin Place", "value": "Westminster." }, { "label": "Extent", "value": "Codex: iv + 96 + iv leaves. Leaf height: 305 mm, width: 210 mm." }, { "label": "Funding", "value": "" }, { "label": "Music notation", "value": "

French tablature on 6-line staves copied by Mathew Holmes.<\/p>" }, { "label": "Date of Creation", "value": "c. 1600-1605." }, { "label": "Classmark", "value": "Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.9.33" }, { "label": "Additions", "value": "

On f. 96v<\/a>, the final leaf of the manuscript and the only one not printed with musical staves, are two inscriptions, both by the hand of Mathew Holmes:
\"I am to desire you to pray for on Davie were dwelling in theving lane being prentice to Robert Wilson, who hath bene a very long time sicke and xviij weekes past all hope of mortall health to pray for his eternall life or speedy delivery. / 1600. febr. 28/\"
\"To the minister of the lordes holy word.
I hartely desire you that in Christian Charitye you will desire the Congregacion gathered together in Devocion that they will pray or ioyne with you in prayer to our lord and heavenly father that in his promised mercy / he will be mercifull to me a Sinner to restore my former helth if so it be his determinate pleasure or release me of this grievous sicknesse by his messenger, that I may enioy / a place prepared in his kingdome, for all such as he hath selected, of which number I hope I am / finishing their Daies in the faith of him that suffred upon the Cro[ss] for the redemption of man / into whose hands I come[nd] my sprite. / William Hoper / \"<\/p>

The classmark 'Dd-9-33' has been written in ink at the top of f. 1r<\/a> by an 18th-century hand.<\/p>" }, { "label": "Subject(s)", "value": "Lute music; Bandora music" }, { "label": "Associated Name(s)", "value": "East, Thomas, 1540?-1608?" }, { "label": "Format", "value": "Codex" }, { "label": "Data Source(s)", "value": "This catalogue entry is based on an inventory prepared by John H. Robinson of the Lute Society." }, { "label": "Language(s)", "value": "English" }, { "label": "Scribe(s)", "value": "Holmes, Mathew, -1621" }, { "label": "Binding", "value": "

Bound in 2006 at Cambridge University Library in an Espinosa limp vellum style binding, sewn on seven split alum-tawed supports laced through limp vellum covers with an alum-tawed spine, fastened with two bone clasps. <\/p>

The manuscript was previously quarter-bound in leather with marbled paper sides, with vellum tipped corners, sewn on four tapes. <\/p>" }, { "label": "Condition", "value": "

The manuscript has suffered considerable water and mould damage, particularly affecting the inner margin and bottom edges of the pages. The outer edges of the pages, particularly the lower outside corners have also been damaged.<\/p>

There is also insect damage to ff. 84-96 which on occasion impacts on the text and music. <\/p>

The manuscript has been extensively repaired with handmade Japanese paper.<\/p>" }, { "label": "Script", "value": "

A single hand is responsible for the words and music throughout, identified as that of Mathew Holmes (d. 1621), writing in secretary<\/i>, with occasional use of italic<\/i>.<\/p><\/div><\/div>" }, { "label": "Physical Location", "value": "Cambridge University Library" }, { "label": "Abstract", "value": "

MS Dd.9.33 is third of the four Mathew Holmes lute books, copied probably 1600-1605. Nine music manuscripts in Cambridge University Library were shown by Ian Harwood in the 1960s to have been copied by Holmes, who was Precentor and Singingman of Christ Church in Oxford from 1588 and then in Westminster Abbey in London from 1597 until his death in 1621. Four of the manuscripts, with the classmarks MS Dd.2.11<\/a>, Dd.5.78(3)<\/a>, Dd.9.33 and Nn.6.36<\/a>, form a chronological series largely devoted to tablature for the renaissance lute. The four comprise the most extensive and important source of English lute music to survive in the world, totalling over 650 separate items, some duplicated within or between manuscripts, crammed into all available space of more than 300 leaves (600 pages) in total. The manuscripts are the major source of the music of all the great English renaissance lute composers and preserve a complete cross-section of the repertoire in common use in England for the period 1580 to 1615. The other five manuscripts copied by Mathew Holmes are one for solo cittern (MS Dd.4.23), and four part books for the characteristic English mixed consort of lute (MS Dd.3.18), bass viol (MS Dd.5.20<\/a>), recorder (MS Dd.5.21<\/a>) and cittern (MS Dd.14.24), with part books for bandora and treble viol now lost.<\/p>

Holmes seems to have copied the four lute books sequentially, probably with some overlap: the first two manuscripts in Oxford from the late 1580s, continuing with the last two into the second decade of the 17th century after he moved to Westminster Abbey. It is noticeable that his handwriting is bold and clear in the first manuscript, but gradually deteriorates throughout the series, accompanied by fewer titles and with composers' names reduced to initials, together with progressive use of abbreviated notation of rhythm signs in the later manuscripts. The consort part books he also copied are presumed to have been used for teaching the choristers in his care and other pupils at Oxford and Westminster Abbey, but the purpose of the solo lute books is not at all clear. It is most likely that he chose to collect and record for his private use the lute music in circulation in the capital, which he first must have had access to when in Oxford and surely did when he moved to the centre of court life at Westminster Abbey. He may well have been acquainted with most of the resident and visiting composers still living, and could have been trusted to borrow their lute books long enough to copy a selection of his choice. From the high quality of much of the music, it seems he could play the lute to a high standard of proficiency and for his own personal recreation. Thankfully his hobby of filling up the four manuscripts obsessively with the huge amount of contemporary music that he laid hands on over a quarter of a century has turned out to be an invaluable legacy for the lute revival nearly 400 years later.<\/p>

The 163 items in MS Dd.9.33 comprise 149 solos, 5 duet parts and 1 consort part, for 6- or 7-course renaissance lute (apart from 1 in transitional tuning), as well as 6 for bandora and 1 for lyra viol. Unusually for Holmes, a few items in this lute book are copied by a hand other than his own (ff. 47r<\/a>, 65r<\/a>, 86v-87r<\/a> and 95v<\/a> - the lyra viol solo), that also copied music in Dd.4.22<\/a> and other lute books. This is probably also the hand that made corrections to the rhythm signs on much of Holmes\u2019 tablature between ff. 54<\/a> and 59<\/a> (i.e. probably during a limited period of copying by Holmes). John Dowland is the composer most frequently represented, with 30 of his lute solos present out of the total of just over a hundred extant. Other composers include some from an earlier generation such as Baruch Bulman (1), Francis Cutting (14), John Johnson (6), Peter Philips (1), Francis Pilkington (1), Nicholas Strogers (1), Thomas Tallis (2), John Taverner (1), as well as those that Holmes may well have encountered in London during his time at Westminster Abbey: Daniel Bacheler (6), Edward Collard (1), Anthony Holborne (10), Robert Johnson (3), Thomas Robinson (1), and the more obscure Robert Ascue (1) and Mr. Lusher (2). The genres are typical of English lute music (7 fantasias, 27 pavans, 33 galliards, 5 almaines, 2 jigs and settings of 21 popular ballad tunes, some in the characteristically English form of a set of variations). As a sign of the changing muscial fashions in early 17th-century England, MS Dd.9.33 includes a larger proportion of French lute music (24), copied in blocks around ff. 53-59<\/a> and 64-65<\/a>.<\/p>

Many lute solos in the Holmes manuscripts have titles with the names of dedicatees, including royalty, nobility, members of the merchant class, academics or actors from the London theatres. The more famous can be easily identified, but it is only rarely that the date or the occasions for which the music was written can be identified. Composers were probably either commissioned to write appropriately merry or sorrowful music for events such as marriages or funerals, or else they submitted music with the offer of a dedication to honour a patron or for direct financial reward, in the same way that they dedicated whole printed books of music to notable figures to acknowledge patronage or for financial gain. The 50 or so dedications in the Holmes lute books include on f. 23r<\/a>, John Dowland's galliard usually known as the Battle, or King of Denmark's Galliard which is here given the title Mr Mildmays Galliard<\/i>, presumably Anthony Mildmay of Apethorp (d. 1617) who is also the dedicatee of pieces in MS Dd.5.78(3). Several jigs are dedicated to famous comic actors, presumably celebrating such events as their rise to fame or their retirement from the stage, and it is likely that the actors danced the jigs to the music on stage. MS Dd.9.33 includes a jig probably for the actor Edward Alleyn/Allin (d. 1626) on f. 28r<\/a>.<\/p>

John H. Robinson, Lute Society<\/p>" }, { "label": "Title", "value": "Mathew Holmes lute book" }, { "label": "Author(s) of the Record", "value": "Suzanne Paul (November 2014), revised and expanded by James Freeman (June 2025)" }, { "label": "Material", "value": "Paper" }, { "label": "Collation", "value": "