As explored in Chapters One and Two, naval and professional civilian performers brought courtly rituals and customs aboard ship. These rituals may have helped musicians like trumpeter John Brewer transition to a life at court after playing at sea. Genteel customs distinguished shipboard performers as a personnel category above seafaring labourers, though still below the voyages’ top officers. They followed their captain's orders and sent signals between parties on land and sea, communicated with Indigenous peoples and foreign contacts, and of course, entertained the captain and crew. As entertainers, maritime musicians and performers occupied the same spaces on the ship as the captain, high-ranking officers, and royal guests, usually during meals. However, they also entertained the mariners and lower-ranking sailors who made up most of the ship's crew, playing on deck during times of diversion. The performing middle class had to shift between these disparate groups and learn how to accommodate both.

For formal, courtly functions, musicians were tasked to give processional music for the appropriate occasion. Casual entertainments, on the other hand, included music, dance, and for pirates during the Golden Age, satirical shipboard theatre, which mocked courtly laws and practises.

Courtly Rituals

Queen Elizabeth was an enthusiastic patron of the arts, and she surrounded her court with various types of performers—singers, instrumental musicians, dramatic performers, and so on. She kept brass players, drummers, lutes, sackbuts, viols, flute and fife players, and musicians-in-ordinary, according to court livery documents.