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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.

Bodies - Clothing   Watts, Andy   British Library  

Showing 1 to 8 of 8

6 A most sweet Song of an English Merchant,/ borne at Chichester [Roxburghe 1.104-05]
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]
93 Ragged, and Torne, and True./ Or, the poore mans Resoltion [Roxburghe 1.352-53]
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)]
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  (6)
  • Deloney, Thomas (d. in...  (1)
  • Hill, Thomas  (1)

Publishers

  • Clark, John  (7)
  • Passinger, Thomas  (7)
  • Thackeray, William  (7)
  • Wright, John III  (6)
  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (5)

Topics

  •   Bodies - clothing  (8)
  • Places - English  (6)
  • Environment - animals  (4)
  • Humour - extreme situat...  (4)
  • Recreation - music  (4)

Instruments

  • Cittern  (4)
  • Fiddle  (4)
  • Drum  (3)
  • Bones  (1)
  • Curtal  (1)

Performers

  • Lewin, Giles  (8)
  •   Watts, Andy  (8)
  • Vitale, Steno  (5)
  • Banks, Steve  (3)
  • Couper, Victoria  (3)
  • Davis, Jub  (2)
  • Ellis, Vivien  (2)
  • Kerr, Nancy  (2)
  • Kirkpatrick, John  (2)
  • Mizrake, Raph  (2)
  • Ingham, Edward  (1)
  • Prior, Maddy  (1)

Tunes

  • Old Simon the King  (2)
  • Chevy Chase  (1)
  • Fortune my foe  (1)
  • Robin Hood and the stra...  (1)
  • The French levalto  (1)
  • The rich merchant man  (1)
  • The shaking of the shee...  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Mad-man with horn and s...  (1)
  • Merchant's execution  (1)
  • Naked man awakening  (1)
  • Piper with dog  (1)
  • Shop-keeping woman  (1)

Holding Libraries

  •   British Library  (8)
  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (7)
  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (6)
  • No known copy  (6)
  • National Library of Sco...  (5)

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