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.

Drum   British Library  

Showing 1 to 9 of 9

15 The Lamentable and Tragicall History of Titus An-/dronicus [Folger L252a]
52 England New Bell-man:/ Ringing into all peoples ears Gods dreadful/ Judgements against this Land and Kingdom [Bodleian Wood 401 (159v-160r)]
63 A most godly and comfortable Ballad of the glorious/ Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ [Roxburghe 1.258-59]
77 The wonderfull example of God shewed upon Jasper Coningham. a Gentleman borne in/ Scotland [Crawford 714]
93 Ragged, and Torne, and True./ Or, the poore mans Resoltion [Roxburghe 1.352-53]
102 Robin Hood newly reviv'd [Bodleian Wood 401 (27v-28r)]
106 A Strange Banquet;/ OR,/ The Devils Entertainment by Cook Laurel [Pepys 4.284]
110 The doleful Dance, and Song of Death; Intituled, Dance after my Pipe [Pepys 2.62]
118 BELGICK-BOAR [Crawford 429]

Top Fives

Click any item to filter the ballad list.
Use the search function to find additional material.

Authors

Publishers

Topics

Instruments

Performers

Tunes

Woodcuts

Holding Libraries