The Anne Boleyn Music Book (Royal College of Music MS 1070). Facsimile with introduction by Thomas Schmidt, David Skinner, with Katja Airaksinen-Monier. (DIAMM facsimiles, 6.) Oxford: DIAMM Publications, 2017. [Pref., p. ii; introd., p. 1–32; bibliog., p. 33–36; appendices, p. 37–54; 269 color plates. ISBN 978-1-907647-06-2 (hardback). £70.]

Abstract

Manuscript 1070 of the Royal College of Music (hereinafter MS 1070) has had a colorful reception in modern musicology. Half a century ago, Edward Lowinsky (“MS 1070 of the Royal College of Music in London,” <i>Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association</i> 96 [1969]: 1–28) proposed an elaborate narrative of court musician Mark Smeaton (ca. 1512–1536) copying MS 1070 for Anne Boleyn (ca. 1501–1536) in the last years of her life as the illfated second queen of King Henry VIII.