ABSTRACT
Music as theoretical speculation or a mathematical branch was considered a respectable and masculine science. The music used in the Hispanic theater during the first half of that century was not much different than the collections of songs from the end of the sixteenth century. Hispanic theorists from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are centered fundamentally in liturgical vocal music. The music of the women's convents in Spain is still quite unknown, especially in comparison with knowledge of contemporary Italian convents. One of the characteristics of the Renaissance is a moving from the concept of music as a liberal art. Non-musical literature such as novels, theatrical plays, poetry, essays, and treatises on education, medicine, theology, science and art are all valuable sources of information about music in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The extant popular poetry from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is plentiful in allusions to the songs of women in their homes or in the fields.
