Linlithgow Palace - Musician's Gallery

Description: An important part of feasts and banquets was the entertainment. Musician would have performed from this gallery and also on the floor of the Great Hall itself. Trumpets were played at the beginning and end of the banquet, and to signal each new course.

Some musicians might be permanent members of the royal household and travel with the queen from palace to palace. Others could be hired for special occasions or perhaps belong to an important guest's household.

Musicians would need to be multitalented and play a variety of instruments as well as sing. There were stringed instruments such as the viol, which was played upright with a bow. The lute which was plucked like a guitar, often using a quill as a plectrum. Mary Queen of Scots played the clarsach, a type of harp.

Wind instruments included brass, such as trumpets and sackbutts (a sort of early trombone). Shawms were wooden, reed instruments which were blown like oboes. There were also many different types of recorders and bagpipes.

Keyboard instruments included spinets and virginals which plucked the strings like a harpsichord. Small portable organs were popular chamber instruments, whilst larger versions were played in church. Mary also played the virginals.

Then there was a wide range of drums, cymbals, tambourines and other percussion instruments.

Teleport to the Chapel to see a 16th century organ.