Walter Woodfill's book Musicians in English Society is fantastic and amazing, and I don't care that it's over 60 years old at this point. It is the most information I've been able to find in one place about music at court, so I love it.
The section I've concentrated on is about the Chapel Royal and the King's Musick, groups which regularly played at court. The Chapel Royal was the royal church choir, while the King's Musick was employed by the crown and had lodgings at court. The value placed on both groups is clear through Woodfill's text - boys were recruited for the Chapel Royal at a young age, but once they hit puberty and their voices changed, you'd expect them to be thrown back on the streets, right? Nope. The crown hooked them up with either a position in the clergy or at a royal school. The singers were truly valued; the same goes for the musicians of the King's Musick. These were musicians - everything from lute to trombone to viol - that belonged to the ruler. James and Charles had more than Elizabeth, but even Elizabeth had on average 30 musicians in the King's Musick (which, as far as I could tell in the book, doesn't change to Queen's Musick during her reign).
The most interesting bit of information I've found in here is on wages. The musicians of the King's Musick were paid ridiculously high sums for their work. Disregarding the money they were paid per annum for livery and the lodgings they received, they were paid on average upwards of 40 pounds at the end of Elizabeth's reign. For context, the headmaster of royal Eaton college was paid 10 pounds per annum. That is not only a substantial difference; it's almost unbelievable.
I am coming from a time period when musicians are valued for their art, but not paid accordingly. The fact that these musicians were more than compensated for their work blows my mind, and I can't get enough of this book.
Woodfill,
Walter L. Musicians in English Society
from Elizabeth to Charles I. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953. Print.
You're right. I think that musicians were also valued for their value for courtly entertainments, especially for foreign dignitaries. You know, they'd have to show off to others to prove that their court was just a cultured as someone else's.
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