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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.

Environment - Birds  

Showing 1 to 11 of 11

10 The Norfolke Gentleman his last Will and Testament [Roxburghe 1.284-85]
43 Save a Theefe from the Gallowes and hee'l hang thee if he can [Manchester Central Library Blackletter Ballads 1.56]
70 The wofull complaint, and lamentable death of a forsaken Lover [Pepys 1.354-55]
90 Cupids Courtesie:/ OR,/ The young Gallant foild at his own Weapon [Euing 39]
91 A pleasant new Song, betwixt/ The Saylor and his Love [Pepys 1.422-23]
94 An Excellent Ditty, called the Shepherds wooing Dulcina [Roxburghe 2.402-03]
96 Young Jemmy,/ OR,/ The Princely Shepherd [Roxburghe 2.556]
98 The Nightingales Song; Or The Souldiers rare Musick,/ and Maids Recreation [Pepys 4.41]
107 A good Wife, or none [Roxburghe 1.140-41]
114 The Woman to the PLOW;/ And the Man to the HEN-ROOST [Euing 397]
120 The Happy Husbandman:/ OR,/ Country Innocence [Pepys 3.45]

Top Fives

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Authors

  • Anonymous  (9)
  • Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689...  (1)
  • P., J.  (1)
  • Parker, Martin (fl. 162...  (1)

Publishers

  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (9)
  • Clark, John  (8)
  • Vere, Thomas  (8)
  • Wright, John III  (8)
  • Passinger, Thomas  (7)

Topics

  •   Environment - birds  (11)
  • Environment - flowers/t...  (7)
  • Gender - masculinity  (7)
  • Bodies - looks/physique  (6)
  • Environment - landscape  (6)

Instruments

  • Cittern  (6)
  • Bassoon  (1)
  • Fiddle  (1)
  • Recorder  (1)

Performers

  • Vitale, Steno  (6)
  • Lewin, Giles  (3)
  • Couper, Victoria  (2)
  • Davis, Jub  (2)
  • Ellis, Vivien  (2)
  • Watts, Andy  (2)
  • Ingham, Edward  (1)
  • Kerr, Nancy  (1)
  • Portman, Emily  (1)

Tunes

  • Dulcina  (2)
  • Cupid's courtesy  (1)
  • Fortune my foe  (1)
  • I have for all good wiv...  (1)
  • London is a fine town  (1)
  • My young Mary  (1)
  • Peg and the soldier  (1)
  • Rogero  (1)
  • The blazing torch  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Countryman with staff  (3)
  • Akimbo man with plumed...  (1)
  • Countrywoman with crook  (1)
  • Couple with leafy fan  (1)
  • Cupid in circle  (1)

Holding Libraries

  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (10)
  • British Library  (10)
  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (10)
  • No known copy  (9)
  • National Library of Sco...  (7)

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