'By my own hand' - Women's manuscript collection and song culture in early modern Scotland (1630-1700).

From an ethnomusicological perspective, the demotic and oral traditions of Scotland's rich and vibrant song culture has been examined, analysed and celebrated from the local folk club scene to the large-scale, international festivals such as Celtic Connections. Meanwhile, 'musik fyne' (or 'court song') has also gained scholarly attention, building on the seminal work of Helena Mennie Shire and her contemporary Kenneth Elliott. My proposed research targets Scotland's less celebrated musical culture of the seventeenth-century which falls between these seemingly polarising corpora: early popular song culture. Current scholarship focussing on the seventeenthcentury culture emphasises male-centred, political-theological discussions; however, my particular study will investigate the, as yet, under-explored area of women and song, revealing a many-faceted, manuscript-based cultural network.