Cittern - Image 1

This small, delicately carved, four-course cittern from the time of Shakespeare is believed to be the only English-made Renaissance cittern to survive to the present day. A small English cittern is illustrated and described in Michael Praetorius' treatise, Syntagma Musicum (1619), where the author relates a mysterious anecdote regarding an English cittern player: About three years ago an Englishman came to Germany with a very small citterlein, the back of which was left half open and not glued. On it, he could bring about a strange but very lovely and beautiful harmony with fine, pure diminutions and trembling hand, so that it is heard with curious pleasure. [This sound/technique] might now be practiced in the same manner by some distinguished lutenists.
The oldest English cittern music dates back to the mid-sixteenth century and is written for instruments such as this one, with four or five double courses of strings. Popular method books written for the English cittern included Antony [sic] Holborne's The Cittharn Schoole (1597) and Thomas Robinson's New Citharen Lessons (1609). The cittern's popularity continued through the seventeenth century, as evidenced by collections of music such as Musick's Delight on the Cithren, Restored and Refined (1666), published in London by John Playford.