Editing Virginals (section)

==Etymology==
The origin of the name is obscure. It may derive from the [[Latin]] {{lang|la|virga}} meaning a rod, perhaps referring to the wooden jacks that rest on the ends of the keys, but this is unproven.<ref name=Grove>{{Cite Grove |last=Ripin |first=Edwin M. |last2=Wraight |first2=Denzil |title=Virginal|name-list-style=amp}}</ref> Another possibility is that the name derives from the word ''[[virgin]]'', as it was most commonly played by young women,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://everything2.com/title/Virginal|title=Virginal|website=Everything2.com|access-date=19 April 2021}}</ref> or from its sound, which is like a young girl's voice ({{lang|la|vox virginalis}}).<ref name=Grove/> A further view is that the name derives from the [[Virgin Mary]], as it was used by nuns to accompany hymns in honour of the Virgin.

In England, during the [[Elizabethan era|Elizabethan]] and [[Jacobean era]]s, any stringed keyboard instrument was often described as a virginals, and could equally apply to a harpsichord or possibly even a [[clavichord]] or [[spinet]]. Thus, the masterworks of [[William Byrd]] and his contemporaries were often played on full-size, Italian or Flemish harpsichords, and not only on the virginals as we call it today. Contemporary nomenclature often referred to a ''pair of virginals'', which implied a single instrument, possibly a harpsichord with two registers, or a ''double virginals'' (see below).<ref>[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4167/4167.txt Diary of Samuel Pepys, August and September 1666. 2 September]  In describing the [[Great Fire of London|Great Fire]], [[Samuel Pepys|Pepys]] provides evidence of how popular the instrument had become: In a river “full of lighters and boats taking in goods…I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three that had the goods of a house in, but there was a pair of Virginalls.”</ref>