>
>Fourth, Were there any other transposing keyboard instruments? (What were
>Regals, Virginals, etc. like from this point of view?)
>
 
In Frank Hubbard's "Three Centuries of Harpsichord Building" there is quite
a long section devoted to the Ruckers family's transposing double manual
harpsichords, in a period from about 1580-1630. In these instruments, the
two manuals are offset, playing the same string choirs with different jacks
and keys, c''' over f''', making two pitch levels a fourth apart readily
available. That these are not considered as what harpsichord people call an
"epressive" double is born out that the upper keyboard does not even play
the lower strings, and that both keyboards are built with C/E short
octaves, necessitating some rather complex keytails in the upper manual.
 
Further, this was unknown in England in 1638, from which year Hubbard
quotes an Englishman as complaining that the new harpsichord he had sent
from Antwerp was a transposer:
 
<But the workman, that made it, was much mistaken in it, and it wants 6 or
7 keyes so that it is utterly unserviceable>, referring to the low C's of
the keyboards not being aligned.
 
Does that help?
 
Paul Opel