• Ballads
  • Essays
    The ballad business Methodology Texts, tunes and pictures Audiences, performances and recordings The Musicians reflect Collectors and collections Broadside ballads and the origins of pop
  • Project
    The history of the project Project participants Funding and Partners Acknowledgements
  • Website
    A user’s guide to the website Conventions of presentation Licensing and citation Contact us
  • Search

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.

Vere, Thomas   Gender - Courtship   Cittern   National Library Of Scotland  

Showing 1 to 9 of 9

6 A most sweet Song of an English Merchant,/ borne at Chichester [Roxburghe 1.104-05]
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]
28 A most excellent Song of the love of young Palmus, and faire Sheldra, with their unfortunate love [Pepys 1.350-51]
34 The Brides Buriall [Roxburghe 1.59]
39 An Hundred Godly Lessons,/ That a Mother on her Death-Bed gave to her Children [Pepys 2.16-17]
45 A pleasant new Ballad of the Miller of Mansfield, in Sherwood and of King Henry the second [Roxburghe 1.228-29]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]
83 The dying tears of a true Lover forsaken,/ Made on his Death=bed [Euing 64]
94 An Excellent Ditty, called the Shepherds wooing Dulcina [Roxburghe 2.402-03]

Top Fives

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

Authors

  • Anonymous  (7)
  • Deloney, Thomas (d. in...  (2)

Publishers

  • Clark, John  (9)
  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (9)
  •   Vere, Thomas  (9)
  • Wright, John I  (9)
  • Wright, John III  (9)

Topics

  •   Gender - courtship  (9)
  • Gender - femininity  (8)
  • Emotions - love  (6)
  • Gender - masculinity  (6)
  • Bodies - looks/physique  (5)

Instruments

  •   Cittern  (9)
  • Fiddle  (4)
  • Recorder  (1)

Performers

  • Vitale, Steno  (9)
  • Lewin, Giles  (6)
  • Watts, Andy  (3)
  • Ellis, Vivien  (2)
  • Kerr, Nancy  (2)

Tunes

  • Come live with me and b...  (1)
  • Crimson velvet  (1)
  • Dulcina  (1)
  • In peascod time  (1)
  • Lie lulling beyond thee  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Couple with leafy fan  (2)
  • Akimbo man with clouds  (1)
  • Country couple with lar...  (1)
  • Countryman with staff  (1)
  • Declaiming man  (1)

Holding Libraries

  •   National Library of Sco...  (9)
  • No known copy  (9)
  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (9)
  • British Library  (8)
  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (7)

About the Project | Funding and Partners | Licensing and citation

© The 100 Ballads Project 2023