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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.

Banks, Steve  

Showing 1 to 8 of 8

15 The Lamentable and Tragicall History of Titus An-/dronicus [Folger L252a]
27 A Pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry,/ Atchieved by that Noble Knight Sir Guy of Warwick [Roxburghe 3.50-1]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]
63 A most godly and comfortable Ballad of the glorious/ Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ [Roxburghe 1.258-59]
93 Ragged, and Torne, and True./ Or, the poore mans Resoltion [Roxburghe 1.352-53]
99 A Monstrous shape./ OR/ A shapelesse Monster [Bodleian Wood 401 (135v-136r)]
101 Saint Bernards Vision./ OR,/ A briefe Discourse (Dialogue-wise) betweene the Soule and the Body of a dam/ned man newly deceased [Roxburghe 1.376-77]
102 Robin Hood newly reviv'd [Bodleian Wood 401 (27v-28r)]

Top Fives

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Authors

  • Anonymous  (6)
  • Lloyd, Richard  (1)
  • Price, Laurence (fl. 16...  (1)

Publishers

  • Clark, John  (6)
  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (5)
  • Gilbertson, William  (5)
  • Milbourn, Alexander  (5)
  • Passinger, Thomas  (5)

Topics

  • Gender - femininity  (5)
  • Bodies - looks/physique  (4)
  • Emotions - love  (4)
  • Environment - animals  (4)
  • Gender - masculinity  (4)

Instruments

  • Fiddle  (5)
  • Cittern  (4)
  • Drum  (4)
  • Curtal  (2)
  • Double bass  (2)

Performers

  •   Banks, Steve  (8)
  • Lewin, Giles  (8)
  • Watts, Andy  (6)
  • Vitale, Steno  (5)
  • Davis, Jub  (4)
  • Ellis, Vivien  (3)
  • Couper, Victoria  (2)
  • Kirkpatrick, John  (1)

Tunes

  • Fortune my foe  (2)
  • Guy of Warwick  (1)
  • Lie lulling beyond thee  (1)
  • Old Simon the King  (1)
  • Robin Hood and the stra...  (1)
  • Rogero  (1)
  • The Spanish pavan  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Akimbo man with clouds  (1)
  • Christ's Resurrection  (1)
  • Countryman with staff  (1)
  • Couple in cave  (1)
  • Couple with leafy fan  (1)

Holding Libraries

  • No known copy  (7)
  • British Library  (6)
  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (6)
  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (4)
  • National Library of Sco...  (4)

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