Cosens lute book (MS Add.

3056)
The lute book Add.3056 lacks a title page bearing an owner's name and so it is now called
the Cosens lute book after its nineteenth-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 suggests 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 3 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.
The book comprising 187 folios was probably bought ready bound from a commercial
supplier, the T. E. stamped on some pages is probably Thomas East the London printer.
Tablature was copied on only 60 or so folios, 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), and curiously the latter is a name written in the lute book of
Richard Mynshall (London, Royal Academy of Music, MS 601).
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,
suggesting 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.
John H. Robinson, Lute Society
Information about this document

Physical Location: Cambridge University Library

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Classmark: MS Add.3056

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Subject(s): Lute music

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Origin Place: England

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Date of Creation: c. 1610 C.E.

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Former Owner(s): Cosens, F. W. (Frederick William), 1819-1889; Jenkinson,

Francis, 1853-1923

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Associated Person(s): East, Thomas, 1540?-1608?

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Extent: i + 187 (fols 96 and 137 missing; 5 leaves lost at end) The following
pages are blank: 36r, 49v, 50v-60r, 62r-63r, 64r-69r, 71r-80r, 81v-82r, 83r-187v;
of those fols 52r-59v, 64r-68v, 71r-79v, 83r-185r, 185v-187v have not been
photographed. Leaf height: 290 mm, width: 195 mm. Staff height: 15.5 mm,
width: 150-153 mm.

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Collation:

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The manuscript consists of 18 quires as follows:

One blank paper flyleaf (fol. i) (not photographed)

Quire 112 (fols 1-12)
Quire 212 (fols 13-24)
Quire 312 (fols 25-36)
Quire 412 (fols 37-48)
Quire 512 (fols 49-60)
Quire 612 (fols 61-72)
Quire 712 (fols 73-84)
Quire 812 (fols 85-95; lacking leaf 12 (fol. 96))
Quire 912 (fols 97-108)
Quire 1012 (fols 109-120)
Quire 1110 (fols 121-130)
Quire 1212 (fols 109-120)
Quire 1310 (fols 121-130)
Quire 1412 (fols 131-142; fol. 137 missing)
Quire 1512 (fols 143-154)
Quire 1612 (fols 155-166)
Quire 1714 (fols 167-180)
Quire 1812 (fols 181-187; stubs remain of leaves 7-12)
One paper flyleaf (fol. ii)

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Material: Paper

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Format: Codex

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Condition: The manuscript is in reasonable condition. However, the sewing of the

fourth quire is broken, leaving it partially detached and the whole of the textblock
is starting to detach from the spine.

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Binding:

Bound in early seventeenth-century 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.
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Script:

The manuscript is written in a single hand with titles in italic script.

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Foliation:

Modern pencil foliation in the top right hand corner on fols. 1-90, then on every
tenth folio to fol. 180 and on the final leaf (fol. 187).

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Layout:

Fols. 1-142 are printed with 8 staves per page, 6 lines per staff with vertical
printers' rules to either side of the staves, 158 apart. The total height of the staves
is 246. Printed by Thomas East (1540?-1608?) with his initials in the lower right
margin of each recto. This is Fenlon and Milsom's type 3g (Fenlon and Milsom
1984:148-152).

Fols. 143-187 are printed with 8 staves per page, 6 lines per staff. The total height
of the staves is 229. This is Fenlon and Milsom's type 4h (Fenlon and Milsom
1984:153-156).

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Additions:

At the foot of fol. 185v, an eighteenth-century hand has added "p 4 pounds and
ten shelling to shelling and six pence".

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Provenance:

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The volume was owned in the nineteenth century by Frederick William Cosens
(1819-1889) whose armorial bookplate, with the motto "Sub robore virtus"
encircling a lion over a Maltese Cross, is pasted inside the front cover.

It was sold in March 1866 as lot 174 of a sale at Puttick and Simpson and bought
by Bernard Quaritch Ltd. A label pasted inside the front cover records that it was
presented to the University Library in 1891 by the librarian, Francis Jenkinson
(1853-1923). It is not known whether he purchased it directly from Quaritch.

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Data Source(s): This catalogue entry is based upon an inventory prepared by

John H. Robinson of the Lute Society.

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Author(s) of the Record: Suzanne Paul

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Bibliography:

Early Editions

Besard, Jean Baptiste, Thesaurus harmonicus (Köln: Grevenbruch, 1603).

Robinson, Thomas, The schoole of musicke (London: Printed by Tho. Este, for

Simon Waterson, 1603).

Danyel, John, Songs for the Lute, Viol and Voice (London: T.E. for Thomas Adams,
1606).

Fuhrmann, Georg Leopold, Testudo Gallo-Germanica (Nürnberg: 1615).

Mertel, Elias, Hortus Musicalis Novus (Argentorati: Sumptibus ... Authoris, per

Antonium Bertramum, 1615).

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 

Modern Editions

Simpson, Claude M. (ed.), The British broadside ballad and its music (New

Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1966).

Ness, Arthur J. (ed.), The lute music of Francesco Canova da Milano (1497-

1543) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970).

Long, Martin (ed.), Daniel Bacheler: Selected works for lute (London: Oxford

University Press, 1972).

Souris, André and Monique Rollin (eds), Œuvres des Bocquet, Corpus des luthistes
français (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972).

Poulton, Diana and Basil Lam (eds), The collected lute music of John Dowland 3rd
(London: Faber & Faber, 1981).

Burgers, Jan (ed.), Francis Cutting: collected lute music (Lübeck: Tree Edition,

2002).

Spring, Rainer aus dem (ed.), Anthony Holborne: Music for lute and bandora Rev.
(Guildford: Lute Society, 2002) ISBN: 0905655206.

Secondary Literature

Newton, Richard, "English Lute Music of the Golden Age", Proceedings of the

Musical Association vol. 65 pp. 63-90 (1938) http://www.jstor.org/stable/765840.

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Lumsden, David, The sources of English lute music (1540-1620) (PhD thesis
Cambridge: University of Cambridge, 1957).

Boetticher, Wolfgang, Handschriftlich überlieferte Lauten- und Gitarrentabulaturen

des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts: beschreibender Katalog, International inventory of
musical sources (RISM). B vol. 7 (München: Henle, 1978).

Fenlon, Iain and John Milsom, ""Ruled Paper Imprinted": Music Paper and Patents
in Sixteenth-Century England", Journal of the American Musicological Society vol.
37 issue. 1 pp. 139-163 (1984) http://www.jstor.org/stable/831161 Accessed:
2014-06-25 10:43:05.

Craig-McFeely, Julia, English Lute Manuscripts and Scribes 1530-

1630 (2000) http://www.ramesescats.co.uk/thesis/ Accessed: 2014-02-25
17:29:56.

Spring, Matthew, The lute in Britain: a history of the instrument and its

music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Carlone, Mariagrazia, "The knights of the lute", Journal of the Lute Society of

America vol. 37 pp. 1-125 (2005).

Carlone, Mariagrazia, "The knights of the lute: Musical sources", Journal of the

Lute Society of America vol. 38 pp. 1-45 (2005).


Prelude (image 3, page 1r)Cradle of conceits  (image 4, page 1v)Piper's pavan (image 6,
page 2v)Piper's galliard (image 8, page 3v)Lacrimae (image 10, page 4v)Lady Russell's
Pavan (image 12, page 5v)John Blundevill's last farewell pavan  (image 14, page 6v)A
fancy (image 16, page 7v)Fantasia (image 18, page 8v)Walsingham (image 20, page
9v)A fantasy (image 22, page 10v)Galliard (image 23, page 11r)An answer to cuckoo
(cont.) (image 24, page 11v)A fancy (image 24, page 11v)An answer to cuckoo (image
26, page 12v)Pavan (image 30, page 14v)Mounsieur's almain (image 32, page
15v)Fantasia (image 36, page 17v)Rosamund (image 38, page 18v)Pavan (image 40,
page 19v)Spanish pavan (image 42, page 20v)Fantasia (image 44, page 21v)Preludium 
(image 46, page 22v)Preludium (image 47, page 23r)Preludium (image 48, page
23v)Preludium (image 50, page 24v)Preludium (image 51, page 25r)Preludium (image
52, page 25v)Preludium (image 53, page 26r)Preludium (image 53, page 26r)Preludium 
(image 54, page 26v)Preludium (image 55, page 27r)Preludium (image 56, page
27v)Preludium (image 57, page 28r)Preludium (image 57, page 28r)Preludium (image 58,
page 28v)Exercitium  (image 60, page 29v)Exercitium (image 61, page 30r)Exercitium 
(image 62, page 30v)A fancy (image 64, page 31v)Prelude (image 65, page 32r)Robin
Galliard (image 66, page 32v)Galliard (image 67, page 33r)Galliard (image 68, page
33v)Fantasia (fragment) (image 68, page 33v)Galliard (image 68, page 33v)Untitled 
(image 69, page 34r)Pavan (image 70, page 34v)Galliard (image 71, page 35r)Galliard 
(image 71, page 35r)Untitled (image 72, page 35v)Lacrimae (image 74, page
36v)Fantasia (image 76, page 37v)A fancy (image 79, page 39r)Fantasia (image 82, page
40v)Galliard (image 85, page 42r)Frog galliard  (image 86, page 42v)Mall Symms (image
87, page 43r)En me revenant (image 88, page 43v)Mounsieur's almain (image 90, page
44v)Lady North's galliard (image 94, page 46v)Galliard (image 95, page 47r)Almain 
(image 96, page 47v)The Earl of Essex galliard / Can she excuse  (image 97, page 48r)Ann
Markham's pavan (image 98, page 48v)Galliard (image 101, page 50r)Mrs Anne Green
her leaves be green  (image 105, page 60v)Pavan (fragment) (image 111, page 63v)John
come kiss me now  (image 113, page 69v)Pavan (image 117, page 80v)Galliard (image
121, page 82v)