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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.

Humour - Mockery  

Showing 1 to 10 of 10

3 The Catholick Ballad:/ OR AN/ INVITATION/ TO/ POPERY [Euing 24]
7 THE/ Sale of Esau's Birth-right;/ OR,/ The New Buckingham Ballad [Crawford 3537]
8 A NEW SONG [Pepys 4.312]
40 A Pleasant new Ballad betweene King Edward the fourth, and a Tan-/ner of Tamworth [Roxburghe 1.176-77]
45 A pleasant new Ballad of the Miller of Mansfield, in Sherwood and of King Henry the second [Roxburghe 1.228-29]
57 The Shepherd and the King, and of Gillian the Shepherds Wife, with her churlish Answer [Euing 332]
89 Private Occurrences,/ OR,/ The Transactions of the four Last Years [Pepys 4.317v]
99 A Monstrous shape./ OR/ A shapelesse Monster [Bodleian Wood 401 (135v-136r)]
112 Rebellion given over House-keeping:/ OR,/ A General Sale of Rebellious Houshould stuff [Pepys 2.209]
117 The Protestant Court of England:/ OR, THE/ Joyful Coronation of K. William III. and Q. Mary II [Pepys 2.275]

Top Fives

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Authors

  • Anonymous  (7)
  • Pope, Walter (1628-1714...  (1)
  • Price, Laurence (fl. 16...  (1)
  • Ware, Robert  (1)
  • Wharton, Henry  (1)

Publishers

  • Publisher name unknown,...  (6)
  • Clark, John  (4)
  • Passinger, Thomas  (4)
  • Thackeray, William  (4)
  • Wright, John III  (4)

Topics

  •   Humour - mockery  (10)
  • Politics - domestic  (7)
  • Places - English  (5)
  • Politics - controversy  (5)
  • Religion - Catholic/Pro...  (5)

Instruments

  • Cittern  (5)
  • Curtal  (2)
  • Fiddle  (2)
  • Jew's harp  (2)
  • Bagpipes  (1)

Performers

  • Lewin, Giles  (7)
  • Watts, Andy  (6)
  • Vitale, Steno  (5)
  • Kirkpatrick, John  (3)
  • Banks, Steve  (1)

Tunes

  • Chevy Chase  (1)
  • Eighty-eight  (1)
  • Lilliburlero  (1)
  • Old Simon the King  (1)
  • Peggy Ramsey  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Akimbo man with raised...  (1)
  • Barber shaving owl  (1)
  • Catholick Ballad notati...  (1)
  • Gallant on rearing hors...  (1)
  • Horseman slaying Cathol...  (1)

Holding Libraries

  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (10)
  • British Library  (9)
  • National Library of Sco...  (7)
  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (7)
  • Folger Shakespeare Libr...  (5)

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