Networks of Music and Culture in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries

Peter Philips (1561-1628) was an English organist, composer, priest and spy. He was embroiled in multifarious intersecting musical, social, religious and political networks linking him with some of the key international players in these spheres. In this book, Philips’s life and music serve as a touchstone for a discussion of various kinds of network in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The study of networks enriches our appreciation and understanding of musicians and the context in which they worked. The wider implication of this approach is a constructive challenge to orthodox historiographies of Western art music in the Early Modern period.