Love in the music room Thomas Whythorne and the private affairs of Tudor music tutors Nelson, Katie

RESUMEN: Musical skill was so fashionable in Tudor England that the music tutoring business flourished. But music tutors themselves have remained an entirely shadowy group, largely ignored even by musicologists due to a dearth of source material. This article attemptes to shed light on an unknown group through fresh readings of new and old sources. The manuscript autobiography of Thomas Whytorne a Tudor musician and sometime private music tutor, is rich with self-exploration, social commentary and intimate storytelling. Whythorne´s observations of this own status among servants,his relationships with the women of the household, even his attempts to woo his own pupils, all add life to our present skeletal body of knowledge of music tutors. By comparing his narrative to the revealing printed songs of contemporary music tutors, we find a rare window into the lives of these hidden figures of Tudor history. The article concludes that although static models of hierarchy and deference like the Great Chain of Being are attractive, the household arena wherein the music tutor operated was not so simple a polity. Music tutors were something quite distinct from court musicians. There was no designated place for the music tutor, so he dangerously manoeuvred, making his own place in the world . Power, sex, love, and intrigue combined with music´s power to arouse passions in the sometimes isolated music room, creating the setting for a romantic gamble that could result triumph or despair. A tutor could cicumnavigate the accepted forms of courtship and go straight for his mistress´s heart, and perhaps even her marriage bed. Keywords: Thomas Whythorne, Tudor music, education, class, autobiography.