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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.

Thackeray, William   Fiddle   Watts, Andy  

Showing 1 to 8 of 8

27 A Pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry,/ Atchieved by that Noble Knight Sir Guy of Warwick [Roxburghe 3.50-1]
45 A pleasant new Ballad of the Miller of Mansfield, in Sherwood and of King Henry the second [Roxburghe 1.228-29]
61 The Wandring Jew,/ OR, The Shoo-maker of Jerusalem [Pepys 1.524-25]
63 A most godly and comfortable Ballad of the glorious/ Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ [Roxburghe 1.258-59]
83 The dying tears of a true Lover forsaken,/ Made on his Death=bed [Euing 64]
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]
112 Rebellion given over House-keeping:/ OR,/ A General Sale of Rebellious Houshould stuff [Pepys 2.209]

Top Fives

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Authors

  • Anonymous  (5)
  • Hill, Thomas  (1)
  • Jonson, Ben (1573-1637)  (1)
  • Lloyd, Richard  (1)

Publishers

  • Clark, John  (8)
  • Passinger, Thomas  (8)
  •   Thackeray, William  (8)
  • Wright, John III  (8)
  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (7)

Topics

  • Employment - crafts/tra...  (6)
  • Bodies - looks/physique  (4)
  • Gender - courtship  (4)
  • Places - English  (4)
  • Bodies - clothing  (3)

Instruments

  •   Fiddle  (8)
  • Cittern  (5)
  • Drum  (3)
  • Curtal  (2)
  • Recorder  (2)

Performers

  • Lewin, Giles  (8)
  •   Watts, Andy  (8)
  • Vitale, Steno  (5)
  • Kerr, Nancy  (3)
  • Mizrake, Raph  (3)
  • Banks, Steve  (2)
  • Davis, Jub  (2)
  • Ingham, Edward  (2)
  • Graham, Benny  (1)
  • Prior, Maddy  (1)

Tunes

  • Come live with me and b...  (1)
  • Cook Laurel  (1)
  • Guy of Warwick  (1)
  • In peascod time  (1)
  • Old Simon the King  (1)
  • Rogero  (1)
  • The French levalto  (1)
  • The shaking of the shee...  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Barefoot giant  (1)
  • Christ's Resurrection  (1)
  • Couple in cave  (1)
  • Declaiming man  (1)
  • Scholar with scroll  (1)

Holding Libraries

  • British Library  (8)
  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (8)
  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (7)
  • National Library of Sco...  (7)
  • No known copy  (6)

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