page_title: Thomas Whythorne
section_title: Autobiography
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Whythorne / Autobiography
caption_attribution_description: English: The English composer Thomas Whythorne (1528–1595) frontispiece to his Duos or Songs for Two Voices (published 1590). A painted portrait of the composer suggests this is a good likeness of the composer.
context_page_description: Thomas Whythorne was an English composer who wrote what some consider to be the earliest known surviving autobiography in English.
context_section_description: Around 1576 Whythorne collected his songs and poetry and linked them with autobiographical passages about his life and the situations which had led him to write each of the songs.  The resulting book, entitled booke of songs and sonetts with longe discourses sett with them, is said to be earliest surviving English autobiography and one of the songs included, "Buy New Broom", is considered the earliest written example of music for voice with instrumental accompaniment.
  In addition to its musical importance, Whythorne's autobiography reveals much about sixteenth-century social customs and habits.  On widows, for example, Whythorne writes "He that wooeth a widow must not carry quick eels in his codpiece" and "He who weddeth a widow who hath two children, he shall be cumbered with three thieves."
caption: Frontispiece to his Duos or Songs for Two Voices (published 1590). A portrait of the composer suggests this engraving is a good likeness of the composer.
exif: {}