1561—Spain and Mexico

Philip II of Spain issues the following order to the president and oidores of the royal audiencia of Mexico: “Because of the cost of maintaining the present excessive number of instrumentalists who consume their time playing trumpets, clarions, chirimías, sackbuts, flutes, cornetts, dulzainas, fifes, viols, rebecs, and other kinds of instruments, an inordinate variety of which are now in use in the monasteries,…and because the number of musicians and singers is reported to be increasing constantly in both large and small towns,…and because very many of those reared simply to sing and play on instruments soon become lazy scoundrels whose morals are reported to be extremely bad,…and because in many places they do not pay tribute and resist lawful authority, we require a reduction in the number of Indians who shall be permitted to occupy themselves as musicians” (Stevenson, Music in Mexico 65).