[1] See Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, act v. sc. 2, where Boyet compares the countenance of Holofernes to a cittern head; John Forde, Lovers’ Melancholy (1629), act ii. sc. 1, “Barbers shall wear thee on their citterns.”
[2] Dialogo della musica (Florence, 1581), p. 147.
[3] The musical extracts from the commonplace book were prepared by Dr Rimbault for the Early English Text Society. Holborne’s work is mentioned in his Bibliotheca Madrigaliana. The descriptive list of the musical instruments in use in England during Leycester’s lifetime (about 1656) has been extracted and published by Dr F.J. Furnivall, in Captain Cox, his Ballads and Books, or Robert Laneham’s Letter (1575), (London, 1871), pp. 65-68.
[4] See Knight’s London, i. 142.
[5] See De Vita propria sermonum inter liberos libri duo (Haarlem, 1817) and E. van der Straeten, La Musique aux Pays-Bas, ii. 348-35O.
[6] Syntagma Musicum (1618). See also M. Mersenne, Harmonie universelle (Paris, 1636), livre ii. prop. xv., who gives different accordances.
[7] See Carl Engel, Catalogue of the Exhibition of Ancient Musical Instruments (London, 1872), Nos. 289 and 290.
[8] See note above. Illustration in A.J. Hipkins, Musical Instruments; Historic, Rare and Unique (Edinburgh, 1888).
[9] For a résumé of the question of the origin of this famous psalter, and an inquiry into its bearing on the history of musical instruments with illustrations and facsimile reproductions, see Kathleen Schlesinger, The Instruments of the Orchestra, part ii. “The Precursors of the Violin Family,” pp. 127-166 (London, 1908-1909).
[10] An oval cittern and a ghittern, side by side, occur in the beautiful 13th-century Spanish MS. known as Cantigas de Santa Maria in the Escorial. For a fine facsimile in colours see marquis de Valmar, Real. Acad. Esq., publ. by L. Aguado (Madrid, 1889). Reproductions in black and white in Juan F. Riaño, Critical and Bibliog. Notes on Early Spanish Music (London, 1887). See also K. Schlesinger, op. cit. fig. 167, p. 223, also boat-shaped citterns, figs. 155 and 156, p. 197. Cittern with woman’s head, 15th century, on one of six bas-reliefs on the under parts of the seats of the choir of the Priory church, Great Malvern, reproduced in J. Carter’s Ancient Sculptures, &c., vol. ii. pl. following p. 12. Another without a head, ibid. pl. following p. 16, from a brass monumental plate in St Margaret’s, King’s Lynn.