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.

Recreation - Weddings   Family - Inheritance  

Showing 1 to 12 of 12

6 A most sweet Song of an English Merchant,/ borne at Chichester [Roxburghe 1.104-05]
10 The Norfolke Gentleman his last Will and Testament [Roxburghe 1.284-85]
13 The rarest Ballad that ever was seen,/ Of the Blind beggers daughter of Bednall-green [Euing 293]
19 A Pleasant Ballad of Tobias, wherein is shewed/ what wonderful things chanced to him in his Youth [Euing 270]
23 The Countrey FARMER:/ OR, THE/ Buxome VIRGIN [Roxburghe 2.77]
34 The Brides Buriall [Roxburghe 1.59]
42 An Excellent Ballad of Patient Grissel [Euing 85]
43 Save a Theefe from the Gallowes and hee'l hang thee if he can [Manchester Central Library Blackletter Ballads 1.56]
48 A pretty Ballad of the Lord of Lorn, and the false Steward [Pepys 1.494-95]
55 A Warning to all lewd Livers./ By the Example of a disobedient Child [Roxburghe 3.262-63]
58 An excellent Ballad, Intituled, the unfortunate love of a Lancashire Gentleman,/ and the hard fortune of a fair young Bride [Euing 80]
92 An Excellent Ballad of the Mercers son of Midhurst, and/ the Clothiers daughter of Guilford [Euing 91 and 12]

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