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 - Looks/physique   Houghton Library, Harvard University  

Showing 1 to 14 of 14

6 A most sweet Song of an English Merchant,/ borne at Chichester [Roxburghe 1.104-05]
23 The Countrey FARMER:/ OR, THE/ Buxome VIRGIN [Roxburghe 2.77]
44 The Lamentation of Master Pages wife of Plimmouth, who being enforced by her Parents to wed him against/ her will, did most wickedly consent to his murther [Pepys 1.126-27]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]
59 Flora's farewell: Or,/ The Shepherds Love-passion Song [Euing 121]
60 A new Sonnet, shewing how the Goddesse Diana transformed Acteon into the/ shape of an Hart [Manchester Central Library Blackletter Ballads 1.29]
68 Poor Robin's Dream, commonly call'd, Poor Charity [Euing 285]
70 The wofull complaint, and lamentable death of a forsaken Lover [Pepys 1.354-55]
71 The Scotch Lasses Constancy/ OR/ Jenny's Lamentation for the loss of Jockey [Crawford 1217]
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]
96 Young Jemmy,/ OR,/ The Princely Shepherd [Roxburghe 2.556]
103 A Friends advice:/ In an excellent Ditty, concerning the variable Changes in this World [Roxburghe 1.116-17]
120 The Happy Husbandman:/ OR,/ Country Innocence [Pepys 3.45]

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