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.

Davis, Jub   Banks, Steve  

Showing 1 to 15 of 15

8 A NEW SONG [Pepys 4.312]
15 The Lamentable and Tragicall History of Titus An-/dronicus [Folger L252a]
26 The Whig Rampant:/OR, EXALTATION [Euing 389]
27 A Pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry,/ Atchieved by that Noble Knight Sir Guy of Warwick [Roxburghe 3.50-1]
43 Save a Theefe from the Gallowes and hee'l hang thee if he can [Manchester Central Library Blackletter Ballads 1.56]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]
63 A most godly and comfortable Ballad of the glorious/ Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ [Roxburghe 1.258-59]
69 Ile never Love thee more/ being a true Love Song between a young/ Man and a Maid [Pepys 3.266]
76 Saint Georges commendation to all Souldiers [Pepys 1.87]
79 Win at first, lose at last; or, a New Game at Cards [Bodleian Wood 401 (149v-150r)]
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]
99 A Monstrous shape./ OR/ A shapelesse Monster [Bodleian Wood 401 (135v-136r)]
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)]

Top Fives

Click any item to filter the ballad list.
Use the search function to find additional material.

Authors

Publishers

Topics

Instruments

Performers

Tunes

Woodcuts

Holding Libraries