• Ballads
  • Essays
    The ballad business Methodology Texts, tunes and pictures Audiences, performances and recordings The Musicians reflect Collectors and collections Broadside ballads and the origins of pop
  • Project
    The history of the project Project participants Funding and Partners Acknowledgements
  • Website
    A user’s guide to the website Conventions of presentation Licensing and citation Contact us
  • Search

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.

Emotions - Anger   Vitale, Steno  

Showing 1 to 12 of 12

15 The Lamentable and Tragicall History of Titus An-/dronicus [Folger L252a]
23 The Countrey FARMER:/ OR, THE/ Buxome VIRGIN [Roxburghe 2.77]
34 The Brides Buriall [Roxburghe 1.59]
41 The Woful Lamentation of Mistris Jane Shore, a Goldsmiths Wife/ in London, sometime King Edward the Fourth's Concubine [Euing 394]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]
60 A new Sonnet, shewing how the Goddesse Diana transformed Acteon into the/ shape of an Hart [Manchester Central Library Blackletter Ballads 1.29]
61 The Wandring Jew,/ OR, The Shoo-maker of Jerusalem [Pepys 1.524-25]
79 Win at first, lose at last; or, a New Game at Cards [Bodleian Wood 401 (149v-150r)]
83 The dying tears of a true Lover forsaken,/ Made on his Death=bed [Euing 64]
85 A new Ballad, intituled, The stout Cripple of Cornwal [Euing 242]
90 Cupids Courtesie:/ OR,/ The young Gallant foild at his own Weapon [Euing 39]
107 A good Wife, or none [Roxburghe 1.140-41]

Top Fives

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

Authors

  • Anonymous  (10)
  • P., J.  (1)
  • Price, Laurence (fl. 16...  (1)

Publishers

  • Coles (aka Coules), Fra...  (11)
  • Clark, John  (10)
  • Vere, Thomas  (10)
  • Wright, John III  (10)
  • Passinger, Thomas  (9)

Topics

  •   Emotions - anger  (12)
  • Bodies - looks/physique  (8)
  • Gender - masculinity  (8)
  • Gender - femininity  (7)
  • Gender - courtship  (6)

Instruments

  • Cittern  (12)
  • Fiddle  (6)
  • Recorder  (2)
  • Drum  (1)

Performers

  •   Vitale, Steno  (12)
  • Lewin, Giles  (9)
  • Watts, Andy  (4)
  • Ellis, Vivien  (3)
  • Banks, Steve  (2)

Tunes

  • Come live with me and b...  (2)
  • In peascod time  (2)
  • A new game at cards  (1)
  • Cupid's courtesy  (1)
  • Fortune my foe  (1)
  • Lie lulling beyond thee  (1)
  • Rogero  (1)
  • The blazing torch  (1)
  • The blind beggar  (1)
  • The country farmer  (1)

Woodcuts

  • Couple with leafy fan  (2)
  • Queen Elizabeth  (2)
  • Akimbo man with clouds  (1)
  • Akimbo man with plumed...  (1)
  • Alehouse scene with can...  (1)

Holding Libraries

  • Pepys Library, Magdalen...  (12)
  • British Library  (11)
  • Bodleian Library, Oxfor...  (10)
  • No known copy  (10)
  • National Library of Sco...  (7)

About the Project | Funding and Partners | Licensing and citation

© The 100 Ballads Project 2023