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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.

Cittern   Couper, Victoria  

Showing 1 to 7 of 7

4 A lamentable Dittie composed upon the death of/ Robert Lord Devereux late Earle of Essex, who was beheaded in the/ Tower of London, upon Ashwednesday in the morning [Huntington Britwell 18290]
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]
85 A new Ballad, intituled, The stout Cripple of Cornwal [Euing 242]
90 Cupids Courtesie:/ OR,/ The young Gallant foild at his own Weapon [Euing 39]
91 A pleasant new Song, betwixt/ The Saylor and his Love [Pepys 1.422-23]
93 Ragged, and Torne, and True./ Or, the poore mans Resoltion [Roxburghe 1.352-53]
116 Love and Honour: Or,/ The Lovers Farewel to Calista [Roxburghe 2.306]

Top Fives

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Authors

  • Anonymous  (5)
  • Deloney, Thomas (d. in...  (1)
  • Dryden, John (1631-1700...  (1)
  • P., J.  (1)

Publishers

  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (5)
  • Onley, William  (5)
  • Passinger, Thomas  (5)
  • Thackeray, William  (5)
  • Clark, John  (4)

Topics

  • Emotions - love  (4)
  • Gender - masculinity  (4)
  • Bodies - clothing  (3)
  • Crime - robbery/theft  (3)
  • Death - execution  (3)

Instruments

  •   Cittern  (7)
  • Double bass  (1)
  • Drum  (1)
  • Fiddle  (1)
  • Recorder  (1)

Performers

  •   Couper, Victoria  (7)
  • Vitale, Steno  (7)
  • Lewin, Giles  (3)
  • Ellis, Vivien  (2)
  • Watts, Andy  (2)

Tunes

  • Bonny sweet Robin  (1)
  • Crimson velvet  (1)
  • Cupid's courtesy  (1)
  • Dulcina  (1)
  • Old Simon the King  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Country couple with lar...  (1)
  • Courtly garden  (1)
  • Cupid in circle  (1)
  • Little man on grass  (1)
  • Mad-man with horn and s...  (1)

Holding Libraries

  • British Library  (7)
  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (6)
  • No known copy  (6)
  • National Library of Sco...  (5)
  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (5)

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