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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.

Gender - Adultery/cuckoldry  

Showing 1 to 8 of 8

7 THE/ Sale of Esau's Birth-right;/ OR,/ The New Buckingham Ballad [Crawford 3537]
15 The Lamentable and Tragicall History of Titus An-/dronicus [Folger L252a]
24 An Excellent Ballad, intituled, The Constancy of/ Susanna [Bodleian Douce 1 (30a)]
37 The lamentable Ditty of Little Mousgrove,/ and the Lady Barnet [Pepys 1.364-65]
41 The Woful Lamentation of Mistris Jane Shore, a Goldsmiths Wife/ in London, sometime King Edward the Fourth's Concubine [Euing 394]
66 Advice to the Ladies of/ LONDON, In the Choice of their Husbands [Pepys 4.85]
72 A Lamentable Ballad of Fair Rosamond, King Henry the Second’s Concubine,/ Who was put to death by Queen Elinor, in Woodstock Bower near Oxford [Pepys 1.498-99]
105 The New Courtier [Bodleian Wood E25 (89)]

Top Fives

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Use the search function to find additional material.

Authors

  • Anonymous  (6)
  • D'Urfey, Thomas (1653?–...  (1)
  • Deloney, Thomas (d. in...  (1)

Publishers

  • Clark, John  (6)
  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (6)
  • Passinger, Thomas  (6)
  • Thackeray, William  (6)
  • Vere, Thomas  (6)

Topics

  •   Gender - adultery/cucko...  (8)
  • Gender - masculinity  (6)
  • Gender - sex  (5)
  • Morality - romantic/sex...  (5)
  • Politics - domestic  (5)

Instruments

  • Cittern  (4)
  • Fiddle  (3)
  • Curtal  (1)
  • Drum  (1)
  • Jew's harp  (1)

Performers

  • Lewin, Giles  (5)
  • Ellis, Vivien  (4)
  • Vitale, Steno  (4)
  • Kirkpatrick, John  (2)
  • Banks, Steve  (1)
  • Kenny, Elizabeth  (1)
  • Kerr, Nancy  (1)
  • Mulroy, Nicholas  (1)
  • Skeaping, Lucie  (1)
  • Watts, Andy  (1)

Tunes

  • Chevy Chase  (1)
  • Cloris, since thou art...  (1)
  • Come live with me and b...  (1)
  • Fortune my foe  (1)
  • King Solomon  (1)
  • Ladies of London  (1)
  • Peggy Ramsey  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Queen Elizabeth  (2)
  • Barber shaving owl  (1)
  • Countryman with staff  (1)
  • Couple on triangular ti...  (1)
  • Dark-clothed couple  (1)

Holding Libraries

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

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