In 17th century England music was a strong vehicle of coalescence and sometimes of social distinction; and in a populous city like London it could count on a vast audience of more or less excellent amateur music lovers. They were the primary interlocutors of the professional musicians, who were often engaged in aristocratic families as resident music masters. Along with these, there was these a flourishing specific production for consorts of viole da gamba, suitable for average performers and cultivated enough to appreciate the play of counterpoint of the pleasant affects derived from the model of the polyphonic madrigal: the main genre of English domestic music between the Elizabethan age and the reign of James I.

This is the context of reference for the production of John Jenkins, a virtuoso of the lute and the viola da gamba, a prolific composer with over 800 works, almost completely instrumental and preserved in manuscript. The context of circulation of his music was, furthermore, that of private societies, thus copies made by hand and preserved in family archives.