Any scholar researching musical instruments of the Elizabethan age assuredly encounters two small details from the narrative portrait of Sir Henry Unton (c. 1596, National Portrait Gallery). One is an image of a broken consort—a flute, plucked strings, and bowed strings—performing from partbooks, sitting around a table. The second musical vignette depicts a five-person viol consort, once again gathered around a table. The scenes highlight the importance of the table as a site of domestic music making, an enduring reality further supported by Thomace Mace's description of the ideal music room one century later, with a table at its center (Musicke's Monument, 1676). Amazingly, the Unton painting represents the only surviving English image of a full viol consort at a time when composers were at their most active for this type of ensemble; such surviving iconography is precious. Enter the Eglantine Table. As Michael Fleming and Christopher Page, the editors of Music and Instruments of the Elizabethan Age: The Eglantine Table, write, “even if depictions of musical instruments in Elizabethan art were plentiful, the Eglantine Table would count as a major source of information about the appearance and fashioning of the kinds that were played during the Queen's reign” (113).
The Eglantine Table, probably a nuptial gift for Elizabeth, Bess of Hardwick, was constructed in the late 1560s and relocated to Hardwick New Hall in the 1590s, where it still resides. It is an extraordinary and rare piece with little else of comparison. When dealing with something so singular, there is always danger of drawing broad conclusions that could very well be specious or idiosyncratic. The contributors to Music and Instruments of the Elizabethan Age avoid this trap by going beyond mere material description (though they do this in spades), offering nuanced insight into English life, culture, and society in the mid-to-late sixteenth century through the lens of this peerless object.
The essays in the first section examines non-musical components of the table—heraldry, botany, playing cards, board games, and writing implements. Two common themes emerge. First, much of the imagery emanated from continental printed sources, utilized by the probable non-native craftsmen. As noted by Anthony Wells-Cole (chapter 1), this comprised Flemish prints, but also knowledge from Italian artisans and artists. The Eglantine Table is therefore representative of English art's nascent conversations with continental trends. More importantly, the opening chapters set a tone by asking the reader to consider the meaning behind each image with period eyes, ears, and minds. For example, the chessboard may have been used for real gaming, but Patrick Ball (chapter 3) reminds the reader of chess's allegoric association to the aristocratic game of love and the board's presence in context of a wedding present.
The essays in the second section focus both on written musical notation and sundry musical instruments. One major conclusion is that the music does not necessarily reflect tastes and experiences of the table's owners but was likely selected by the London-based artisans who probably had little knowledge of the families. Significantly, this once again places the imagery in the realm of allegory and symbolism rather than any specific, personal connection to a sacred song by Thomas Tallis. On that note, John Milsom questions the authorship of the song traditionally attributed to Tallis (chapter 5). Rather, he argues that the piece represents an oral/aural tradition of transmission that extends to the table's four rounds. One such round is quite a sophisticated work of polyphony, “an emblem of musical erudition and skill” (77). Each instrument and instance of notation receives its own dedicated chapter, though anyone wishing to understand the broader context of music in Elizabethan England will find much to digest here. Making distinctions between the precise nature of organological classification of bowed string instruments may be quite fascinating to people like Fleming and me, but as he writes, not so much “by those who portrayed them on the table” (134). The more substantial observation is the variety presented, as was expected in so many other allegoric portrayals of aurality. Moreover, as Karen Loomis writes about the harp (chapter 12), “a depiction need not be an accurate portrayal to convey meaning” (179).
The first two sections are primarily devoted to individual items across the table's three friezes. Milsom begins the third section by considering these objects in tandem and how they fit into a broader Elizabethan intellectual context. Christopher Marsh (chapter 15) shows how the image of the table and what it represented shifted between the late 1560s and the death of Bess of Hardwick in 1608. Claire Preston also details this in her discussion of botany (chapter 2). She argues that some of Hardwick New Hall was designed around the table, its owners hoping that it would become a site of a royal visit. Musical works, once created, go on to have lives of their own independent of their initial contexts. The same is revealed here of the Eglantine Table.
The three sections of Music and Instruments of the Elizabethan Age roughly mirror the table's three friezes, and the high-quality, color images in sixteen plates are not only very attractive but also serve as a useful reference for each author. Two appendices detail technical aspects of a major 1996 renovation and an inventory of Bess of Hardwick's other furnishings. Additionally, there are two fabulous internal appendices by Milsom and Matthew Spring (chapters 5 and 6), who transcribed the table's notation into modern staff notation. Finally, a glossary is a thoughtful supplement for a book that will certainly attract both scholars from multiple disciplines and a general readership interested in Tudor history. Music in early modern England did not exist solely in the aural sphere but occupied a central facet of allegory and thought. Because so much from the period was discarded, renovated, or torn down, the Eglantine Table offers a rare glimpse into the intellectual lives of Elizabethan subjects. It is a delight to see an entire book devoted to this one item from myriad viewpoints.
