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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.

Gilbertson, William   Places - English   Fiddle  

Showing 1 to 7 of 7

13 The rarest Ballad that ever was seen,/ Of the Blind beggers daughter of Bednall-green [Euing 293]
27 A Pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry,/ Atchieved by that Noble Knight Sir Guy of Warwick [Roxburghe 3.50-1]
41 The Woful Lamentation of Mistris Jane Shore, a Goldsmiths Wife/ in London, sometime King Edward the Fourth's Concubine [Euing 394]
44 The Lamentation of Master Pages wife of Plimmouth, who being enforced by her Parents to wed him against/ her will, did most wickedly consent to his murther [Pepys 1.126-27]
45 A pleasant new Ballad of the Miller of Mansfield, in Sherwood and of King Henry the second [Roxburghe 1.228-29]
106 A Strange Banquet;/ OR,/ The Devils Entertainment by Cook Laurel [Pepys 4.284]
110 The doleful Dance, and Song of Death; Intituled, Dance after my Pipe [Pepys 2.62]

Top Fives

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Authors

  • Anonymous  (3)
  • Deloney, Thomas (d. in...  (1)
  • Hill, Thomas  (1)
  • Jonson, Ben (1573-1637)  (1)
  • Lloyd, Richard  (1)

Publishers

  • Clark, John  (7)
  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (7)
  •   Gilbertson, William  (7)
  • Passinger, Thomas  (7)
  • Thackeray, William  (7)

Topics

  •   Places - English  (6)
  • Gender - courtship  (5)
  • Bodies - looks/physique  (4)
  • Gender - marriage  (4)
  • Bodies - clothing  (3)

Instruments

  •   Fiddle  (7)
  • Cittern  (4)
  • Drum  (2)
  • Double bass  (1)
  • Guitar  (1)

Performers

  • Lewin, Giles  (7)
  • Vitale, Steno  (4)
  • Watts, Andy  (4)
  • Kirkpatrick, John  (2)
  • Mizrake, Raph  (2)

Tunes

  • Come live with me and b...  (1)
  • Cook Laurel  (1)
  • Fortune my foe  (1)
  • Guy of Warwick  (1)
  • The French levalto  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Blind beggar with dog a...  (1)
  • Couple in cave  (1)
  • Queen Elizabeth  (1)
  • Scholar with scroll  (1)
  • Walk of death  (1)

Holding Libraries

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

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