WAV, I've read, read, read what you posted just before Tootler's post, and I can't fathom what it's got to do with his comment, which was about being self-critical of one's own performance - essential if you aspire to be a musician.

I too watched the BBC programme about the guitar, and I agree, the cittern/gittern sounded quite pleasant, although it did not appear to be capable of as much expression as the guitar, for example,and I suspect I would grow soon tired of the sound. Which is probably why it fell out of use.

No one has said you are factually wrong about the use of the cittern in barbershops, simply that it has not been part of English culture for several centuries. Culture, especially a traditional culture, is on onging stream - you can't pick a particular element of it from at a particular time and claim that it, and it alone, is truly representative.

If you want to focus on a particular period, as the cittern player in the programme does, that's fine, but by your own logic you should then drop all the later songs, including all those hymns, from your repertoire.

Most of us recognise an ongoing tradition which had rejected the cittern and recorder in favour of fiddle, melodeon and concertina, and which welcomed new material from any source. A great many tunes well-established in the English tradition, including many Morris dance tunes, came from the popular theatre, including the minstrel shows. I suppose you would say these cannot now be performed.

Your problem, WAV, is that you imagine that there was a time when a "pure" English culture existed, free from nasty foreign influences. It never did, whether you go back 50 years or 500.