ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author introduces the reader to the wise remarks of King Alfred the Great, who managed to fit in with the onerous duties of kingship a truly remarkable programme for furnishing English translations of certain key works essential to the education of the English people. In the Summer of 1984, while a student at Cambridge, the author was involved in a student production of Thomas Campion's Lord Hay's Masque in which, as musical director, he had the daunting task of synchronizing music and dancing. Although their dancing would have won no prizes, the whole event generated an atmosphere which may have recaptured something of the spectacle of the recreations at the Inns of Court in London where, between c.1565 and c.1675, there is detailed record of their regular performance. Their masque production awakened an interest in the simpler early English dances which quickly fused with his professional musicological, archival and historical interests.
