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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.

Vere, Thomas   Gender - Courtship   Cittern   University Of Glasgow  

Showing 1 to 10 of 10

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]
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]
22 The Spanish Ladies Love [Euing 340]
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]
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]
95 A new Ballad of the Souldier and Peggy [Roxburghe 1.370-71]

Top Fives

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Authors

  • Anonymous  (7)
  • Deloney, Thomas (d. in...  (3)
  • Crimsal, Richard, attri...  (1)

Publishers

  • Clark, John  (10)
  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (10)
  •   Vere, Thomas  (10)
  • Wright, John III  (10)
  • Gosson, Henry  (9)

Topics

  •   Gender - courtship  (10)
  • Gender - femininity  (10)
  • Gender - masculinity  (8)
  • Emotions - love  (7)
  • Bodies - looks/physique  (6)

Instruments

  •   Cittern  (10)
  • Fiddle  (4)
  • Guitar  (1)
  • Recorder  (1)

Performers

  • Vitale, Steno  (10)
  • Lewin, Giles  (6)
  • Ellis, Vivien  (3)
  • Kerr, Nancy  (2)
  • Portman, Emily  (2)

Tunes

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

Woodcuts

  • Couple with leafy fan  (2)
  • Akimbo man with clouds  (1)
  • Blind beggar with dog a...  (1)
  • Country couple with lar...  (1)
  • Couple with necklace  (1)

Holding Libraries

  • No known copy  (10)
  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (10)
  •   University of Glasgow  (10)
  • British Library  (9)
  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (8)

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