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.

Morality - Social/economic  

Showing 1 to 5 of 5

39 An Hundred Godly Lessons,/ That a Mother on her Death-Bed gave to her Children [Pepys 2.16-17]
54 An Excellent Ballad of George Barnwel an Apprentice in Lon-/don, who was undone by a Strumpet [Pepys 2.158-59]
85 A new Ballad, intituled, The stout Cripple of Cornwal [Euing 242]
88 An excellent song, wherein you shall find,/ Great consolation for a troubled mind [Pepys 2.63]
115 The Crafty MISS:/ Or, An Excise man well fitted [Pepys 3.274]

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