Cymbal

This is a brass cymbal from a tambourine that was found in daub pit filled after the Starving Time winter of 1609-1610. Music was very important in 17th-century English society. Unlike today, there was not a vast separation between the popular music of the people and the cultivated music of composers. Most people sang, sometimes accompanying themselves with a lute or the simple tambourine. An Englishman in 1586 wrote, “every troublesome and laborious occupation useth musick for a solace and recreation.”