Lutes and Viols Lutes and Viols Author Jessica Boyd Supervising Editor Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Jessica Boyd, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Literature and the Arts Music Published file. Updated metadata proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. Finished Key Sources. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Jessica Boyd Jessica Boyd

Jessica Boyd was a student at Utah Valley University.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
Historical Overview of Lutes and Viols

Though they are both stringed instruments, lutes and viols differ in the way they are played. While a lute is plucked or strummed with fingers or something resembling a pick, a viol uses a bow to create sound. Long-necked lutes are an ancient instrument, found depicted on Mesopotamian seals dating as far back as 2340–2198 BCE. The earliest depiction of viols being used in Europe can be found in a Mozarabic manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid from c. 930 CE. The Arabic version of the lute (the ūd) is the most successful and long lasting of its type. The viol, on the other hand, was popular in Europe throughout the early modern period and was the basis for modern violins.

The Lute

Many different styles of fingered string instruments are popular in different areas of the world, such as the Indian sitar and the Japanese samisen. In early modern England and most of Europe, the lute was the primary musical instrument, played by amateurs and professionals alike. It was second only to the human voice in its popularity.

Through the 16th and early 17th century, composition of lute music went through a golden age. Composers such as John Dowland (1563–1626) wrote extensively for the lute. Lute music conformed to an easier style of music reading called tabs. The three most popular forms of tablature (or tabs) were French, Italian, and German. Because of the much easier form of reading musical notation and therefore an easier way of teaching, the lute became extremely popular. King Henry VIII may have composed lute songs, as he is known to have been an accomplished musician.

The Viol

The viol developed long after the lute and its forebearers. The first style of the viol was known as the Viola da Gamba (a leg viol). This name refers to the style of how the viol was held. The Viola da Gamba is held vertically between the legs similarly to the cello, which did lead to some sexual innuendos. However, during the 15th century, the more popular style of playing was known as the Viola da Bassico, (or arm viol) which is a horizontally-held style on the arm, a precursor to the modern violin. Because the bassico was preferred, the 15th century was also the time that viols were made smaller and easier to hold on the arm.

Lutes and Viols in Shakespeare

Shakespeare famously features the lute in The Taming of the Shrew. During a music lesson, Katherina becomes enraged and smashes the lute over her teacher’s head, who tells the tale: Why, no, for she hath broke the lute to me. I did but tell her she mistook her frets, And bowed her hand to teach her fingering, When, with a most impatient devilish spirit, ‘Frets’ call you these? quoth she. I’ll fume with them! And with that word she struck me on the head, And through the instrument my pate made way(The Taming of The Shrew 2.1)

Shakespeare also refers to the lute in plays such as Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, Henry IV, Henry V, Hamlet, and others. These plays feature music not only because of the pervasive presence in music of the era, but because actors in the early modern period were also likely to be skilled musicians. Including numerous songs and types of instruments in the plays offered members of his playing company the chance to entertain audiences with more than words.

Key Print Sources Spring, Matthew. The Lute in Britain: A History of the Instrument and Its Music. Oxford University Press, 2004. Otterstedt, Annette. The Viol: History of an Instrument. Trans. Hans Reiners. Barenreiter-Verlag, 2001.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. Lutes and Viols. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria, 1 Jan. 2011. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/literature/music/lutes.html. Accessed 11 Feb. 2026. Pannicia, Melissa. Lutes in Shakespeare. Our Warwickshire. The Warwickshire Museum, https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/article/lutes-in-shakespeare. Accessed 14 Sep. 2024. Riley, Maurice. History of the Viola. Internet Archive. Primrose International. 1980. https://archive.org/details/historyofviola01rile.