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.

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Showing 1 to 13 of 13

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]
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]
27 A Pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry,/ Atchieved by that Noble Knight Sir Guy of Warwick [Roxburghe 3.50-1]
34 The Brides Buriall [Roxburghe 1.59]
42 An Excellent Ballad of Patient Grissel [Euing 85]
48 A pretty Ballad of the Lord of Lorn, and the false Steward [Pepys 1.494-95]
58 An excellent Ballad, Intituled, the unfortunate love of a Lancashire Gentleman,/ and the hard fortune of a fair young Bride [Euing 80]
60 A new Sonnet, shewing how the Goddesse Diana transformed Acteon into the/ shape of an Hart [Manchester Central Library Blackletter Ballads 1.29]
62 The Honour of a London Prentice [Pepys 3.252]
76 Saint Georges commendation to all Souldiers [Pepys 1.87]
102 Robin Hood newly reviv'd [Bodleian Wood 401 (27v-28r)]

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