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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.

Anonymous   Bodies - Looks/physique   Fiddle   Drum   Vitale, Steno   Ellis, Vivien   No Known Copy  

Showing 1 to 9 of 9

13 The rarest Ballad that ever was seen,/ Of the Blind beggers daughter of Bednall-green [Euing 293]
41 The Woful Lamentation of Mistris Jane Shore, a Goldsmiths Wife/ in London, sometime King Edward the Fourth's Concubine [Euing 394]
45 A pleasant new Ballad of the Miller of Mansfield, in Sherwood and of King Henry the second [Roxburghe 1.228-29]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]
61 The Wandring Jew,/ OR, The Shoo-maker of Jerusalem [Pepys 1.524-25]
77 The wonderfull example of God shewed upon Jasper Coningham. a Gentleman borne in/ Scotland [Crawford 714]
83 The dying tears of a true Lover forsaken,/ Made on his Death=bed [Euing 64]
93 Ragged, and Torne, and True./ Or, the poore mans Resoltion [Roxburghe 1.352-53]
98 The Nightingales Song; Or The Souldiers rare Musick,/ and Maids Recreation [Pepys 4.41]

Top Fives

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Authors

  •   Anonymous  (9)

Publishers

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

Topics

  •   Bodies - looks/physique  (9)
  • Gender - courtship  (5)
  • Gender - femininity  (5)
  • Gender - masculinity  (5)
  • Emotions - anger  (4)

Instruments

  • Cittern  (9)
  •   Fiddle  (9)
  •   Drum  (2)
  • Double bass  (1)
  • Guitar  (1)

Performers

  • Lewin, Giles  (9)
  •   Vitale, Steno  (9)
  • Watts, Andy  (4)
  • Banks, Steve  (2)
  • Davis, Jub  (2)
  •   Ellis, Vivien  (2)
  • Couper, Victoria  (1)
  • Graham, Benny  (1)
  • Ingham, Edward  (1)
  • Kerr, Nancy  (1)
  • Kirkpatrick, John  (1)
  • Mizrake, Raph  (1)
  • Portman, Emily  (1)
  • Prior, Maddy  (1)

Tunes

  • Come live with me and b...  (2)
  • In peascod time  (1)
  • Lie lulling beyond thee  (1)
  • Lord Willoughby  (1)
  • Old Simon the King  (1)
  • Peg and the soldier  (1)
  • The French levalto  (1)
  • The blind beggar  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Akimbo man with clouds  (1)
  • Barefoot giant  (1)
  • Blind beggar with dog a...  (1)
  • Couple with leafy fan  (1)
  • Declaiming man  (1)
  • Mad-man with horn and s...  (1)
  • Partridge  (1)
  • Queen Elizabeth  (1)
  • Woman spinning  (1)

Holding Libraries

  •   No known copy  (9)
  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (8)
  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (7)
  • British Library  (7)
  • Central Library, Manche...  (5)

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