Top pop from seventeenth-century England. Broadside ballads were single-sheet songs that sold for a penny a piece. This website concentrates on over 100 resoundingly successful examples that you can investigate through recordings, images and a wealth of other materials. Whether you are interested in music, art, love, gender, tragedy, politics, family life, crime, history, humour or death, you will find something to engage you here. See also User’s Guide.

Bodies - Clothing   Emotions - Wonder  

Showing 1 to 20 of 37

5 The Ballad of the CLOAK:/ Or, The Cloaks Knavery [Pepys 2.218]
6 A most sweet Song of an English Merchant,/ borne at Chichester [Roxburghe 1.104-05]
13 The rarest Ballad that ever was seen,/ Of the Blind beggers daughter of Bednall-green [Euing 293]
14 A Godly Warning for all Maidens, by the exam/ple of Gods Judgement shewed on one Jermans Wife of Clifton [Pepys 1.504-05]
16 The Lamenting Ladies last farewel to the/ WORLD [Euing 183]
17 The Merchants Daughter of Bristow [Euing 210]
18 An excellent Ballad of a Prince of England's Courtship to the/ King of France’s Daughter, and how the Prince was disasterously slain [Roxburghe 1.102-03]
22 The Spanish Ladies Love [Euing 340]
25 A most notable example of an ungracious Son, who/ in the pride of his heart denyed his own Father [Roxburghe 1.226-27]
34 The Brides Buriall [Roxburghe 1.59]
40 A Pleasant new Ballad betweene King Edward the fourth, and a Tan-/ner of Tamworth [Roxburghe 1.176-77]
42 An Excellent Ballad of Patient Grissel [Euing 85]
45 A pleasant new Ballad of the Miller of Mansfield, in Sherwood and of King Henry the second [Roxburghe 1.228-29]
46 A lamentable Ballad of a Combat lately performed neere London,/ betwixt Sir James Steward, and Sir George Wharton  [Euing 195]
48 A pretty Ballad of the Lord of Lorn, and the false Steward [Pepys 1.494-95]
53 The Dead Mans Song,/ Whose dwelling was neere unto Bassings Hall in London [Roxburghe 1.72-73]
54 An Excellent Ballad of George Barnwel an Apprentice in Lon-/don, who was undone by a Strumpet [Pepys 2.158-59]
57 The Shepherd and the King, and of Gillian the Shepherds Wife, with her churlish Answer [Euing 332]
61 The Wandring Jew,/ OR, The Shoo-maker of Jerusalem [Pepys 1.524-25]
62 The Honour of a London Prentice [Pepys 3.252]

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