John Jenkins (1592-1678) was acknowledged by his English contemporaries as a supreme composer of instrumental music. A conference held in 1992 to commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of his birth, rather than focussing only on his life and work, set these in a wider context. Some of the papers included here were first presented at the conference, but are supplemented by others giving a broad conspectus of current work by leading scholars in the field of English consort music.

The collection embraces various aspects of Jenkins's work and that of his contemporaries (Gibbons, Ferrabosco II, Mico, Cobbold); musical instruments (lute, lyra, viol, organ); and consort manuscripts, including their patrons and copyists.