Songbirds and Social Distinction in Seventeenth‐Century England

Abstract

This article investigates the nuanced relationship between songbirds and social dynamics in early modern England. It demonstrates how a rhetorical discourse of social distinction was created by printed bird‐training manuals. This discourse was necessary because the same species of songbird existed across the social spectrum. For native songbirds, therefore, their inherent value, and the status they conferred upon their owners, was determined more by their skill and training than by their particular species. Printed manuals explained how songbirds could be raised to surpass the limitations of nature through learning the song of another species, learning musical phrases and by being taught to sing in the winter rather than the summer. Analysing printed literature, probate inventories and household accounts, this article demonstrates that the practice of songbird‐keeping was widely affordable. This can then be contrasted to the ‘gentlemanly’ model of bird‐keeping outlined by printed manuals, which emphasise the need for investment into the birds to cause them to surpass the limitations of nature. The authority of this ‘gentlemanly’ model was used to cast judgment upon those who did not follow the manuals' guidance, highlighting the fact that a songbird's true value lay in its abilities rather than its species.