The Wandering Jew's Chronicle | |
---|---|
Genre | Broadside ballad |
Meter | Ballad Meter |
Published | 17th Century: England |
The Wandering Jew's Chronicle is an English broadside ballad dating back to the 17th century, with The Wandering Jew as its narrator. From the point of view of the titular character, this ballad tells the history of the English monarchs, beginning with William the Conqueror, and continuing through King Charles II in early versions, and King George II in later versions. The ballad, according to Giles Bergel, dates back to an initial publication of 1634. [1] Copies of the ballad can be found at the British Library and Magdalene College. Online facsimiles of the text are also available for public consumption. [2] [3]
The ballad, often printed with woodcut illustrations of all the monarchs named, begins with the narrator, the Wandering Jew, declaring that he was fifteen years old when William the Conqueror came to England, and that he can recall and recount with accuracy all that has happened since. He goes on to spend one stanza (sometimes less, sometimes more) telling the story of each subsequent English monarch until the time from which he is narrating. In the case of a few monarchs (Edward I, Henry VII, and Henry VIII, for example) he indicates a more personal knowledge, claiming either to have served in their armies, or as their servants at court. In addition to the monarchs, he names several other figures important to Medieval and Early Modern British monarchical history (see below for examples). The ballad is written in a variation of traditional Ballad Meter, alternating couplets of Iambic tetrameter with single lines of Iambic trimeter, resulting in six-line stanzas with an A-A-B-C-C-B rhyme scheme.
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America.
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
The Wandering Jew is a mythical immortal man whose legend began to spread in Europe in the 13th century. In the original legend, a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion was then cursed to walk the Earth until the Second Coming. The exact nature of the wanderer's indiscretion varies in different versions of the tale, as do aspects of his character; sometimes he is said to be a shoemaker or other tradesman, while sometimes he is the doorman at the estate of Pontius Pilate.
An anapaest is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. In classical quantitative meters it consists of two short syllables followed by a long one; in accentual stress meters it consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. It may be seen as a reversed dactyl. This word comes from the Greek ἀνάπαιστος, anápaistos, literally "struck back" and in a poetic context "a dactyl reversed".
Regnal numbers are ordinal numbers used to distinguish among persons with the same name who held the same office. Most importantly, they are used to distinguish monarchs. An ordinal is the number placed after a monarch's regnal name to differentiate between a number of kings, queens or princes reigning the same territory with the same regnal name.
Common metre or common measure—abbreviated as C. M. or CM—is a poetic metre consisting of four lines that alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The metre is denoted by the syllable count of each line, i.e. 8.6.8.6, 86.86, or 86 86, depending on style, or by its shorthand abbreviation "CM".
Tail rhyme is a family of stanzaic verse forms used in poetry in French and especially English during and since the Middle Ages, and probably derived from models in medieval Latin versification.
"Strange fits of passion have I known" is a seven-stanza poem ballad by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Composed during a sojourn in Germany in 1798, the poem was first published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800). The poem describes the poet's trip to his beloved Lucy's cottage, and his thoughts on the way. Each of its seven stanzas is four lines long and has a rhyming scheme of ABAB. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter.
"King John and the Bishop" is an English folk-song dating back at least to the 16th century. It is catalogued in Child Ballads as number 45 and Roud Folk Song Index 302.
Mary II has been depicted in novels, film and television.
The Gaisford Prize is a prize awarded by the Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford for a composition in Classical Greek Verse and Prose by an undergraduate student. The prize was founded in 1855 in memory of Dr Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855). The prizes now also include the Gaisford Essay Prize and the Gaisford Dissertation Prize.
Honouring individuals buried in Westminster Abbey has a long tradition. Over 3,300 people are buried or commemorated in the abbey. For much of the abbey's history, most of the people buried there besides monarchs were people with a connection to the church – either ordinary locals or the monks of the abbey itself, who were generally buried without surviving markers. Since the 18th century, it has become a prestigious honour for any British person to be buried or commemorated in the abbey, a practice much boosted by the lavish funeral and monument of Sir Isaac Newton, who died in 1727. By 1900, so many prominent figures were buried in the abbey that the writer William Morris called it a "National Valhalla".
A new loyal song, upon King William's Progress into Ireland is an English broadside ballad believed to have been composed roughly around the 1690s. Online facsimiles of the ballad, as well as recordings of the ballad sung in its original tune, are available for public consumption. The ballad praises the future exploits William III of England will make in Ireland, specifically at the Battle of Boyne. Though the ballad is believed to have been composed around 1690, just one year after William deposed James II of England, the title of the ballad makes clear the fact that the composer was a supporter of William and his Glorious Revolution.
The Wandering Jew is an English broadside ballad dating back to the late 17th century. The ballad, subtitled "The Shoemaker of JERUSALEM. Who lived Jesus Christ was Crucified, and by him appointed to Wander till his Coming Again," tells the story of the legendary figure of the Wandering Jew, his interaction with Jesus Christ, and his subsequent eternal wanderings. Variations in the text reveal a stronger sense of antisemitism in the ballad.
England's Happiness in the Crowning of William and Mary is an English broadside ballad composed in 1689 and takes as its primary focus the coronation of William III and Mary II. William and Mary's joint reign began in February 1689 when the Convention Parliament, summoned by William after his invasion of England in 1689, offered him the crown. Though this ballad never comments explicitly on William and Mary's 1689 penning of the English Bill of Rights, it nevertheless focuses heavily on one specific component of the act, namely the reestablishment of Protestant liberty, as William III and Mary II were both Protestants: "For a Protestant King and a Protestant Queen, / The like in old England long time hath not been."
"St. George and the Dragon," or "An Excellent Ballad of St. George and the Dragon" is a 17th-century ballad that considers the account of England's patron saint, St. George, and his famous defeat of a dragon. Printed on a broadside, "St. George and the Dragon" is a ballad with less of a narrative about the St. George and the Dragon episode in the Romance genre, and more of a continued assertion that St. George's defeat of the dragon is the most heroic episode in known myth or history. The collections of various libraries house surviving copies of the ballad printed on broadsides, including the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the Huntington Library. Online copies of the ballad facsimiles are also available.
An Admirable New Northern Story is an English broadside ballad from the late 17th century. It tells the story of Constance and Anthony, two lovers who are constant to each other despite two years of separation. When Anthony has to leave England, Constance dresses like a man and joins his ship's kitchen crew in order to stay with him. After a shipwreck, they are separated for two years in Spain. When they finally see each other again by chance, they are reunited and return to England to be married. Also known as "Constance and Anthony." Sung to the Tune of "I Would Thou Wert in Shrewsbury." Copies of the broadside can be found in the British Library, the University of Glasgow Library, the National Library of Scotland, and Magdalene College, Cambridge. On-line facsimiles of the ballad are also available for public consumption.
The history of the monarchy of the United Kingdom and its evolution into a constitutional and ceremonial monarchy is a major theme in the historical development of the British constitution. The British monarchy traces its origins to the petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England and early medieval Scotland, which consolidated into the kingdoms of England and Scotland by the 10th century. The Norman and Plantagenet dynasties expanded their authority throughout the British Isles, creating the Lordship of Ireland in 1177 and conquering Wales in 1283. In 1215, King John agreed to limit his own powers over his subjects according to the terms of Magna Carta. To gain the consent of the political community, English kings began summoning Parliaments to approve taxation and to enact statutes. Gradually, Parliament's authority expanded at the expense of royal power.