A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in Britain, Ireland and North America because they are easy to produce and are often associated with one of the most important forms of traditional music from these countries, the ballad.
Ballads developed out of minstrelsy from the fourteenth and fifteenth century. [1] These were narrative poems that had combined with French courtly romances and Germanic legends that were popular at the King's court, as well as in the halls of lords of the realm. [2] By the seventeenth century, minstrelsy had evolved into ballads whose authors wrote on a variety of topics. The authors could then have their ballads printed and distributed. Printers used a single piece of paper known as a broadside, hence the name broadside ballads. [3] It was common for ballads to have crude woodcuts at the top of a broadside. [3] Historians Fumerton and Gerrini show just how popular broadsides had been in early modern England: the ballads printed numbered in the millions. [4] The ballads did not stay just in London but spread to the English countryside. [5] Owing to the printing press, publishing large amounts of broadsides became easier. Commoners were frequently exposed to ballads, in either song or print, as they were ubiquitous in London. [6]
The invention of the printing press helped the broadsides to become so popular. This new technology helped printers to produce these ballads cheaply and in mass quantities. Historian Adrian Johns explains the printing process as well as how and where people of this time bought ballads. The ballads retailed on the streets of London or in village squares for up to a penny, meaning almost everyone could afford this cheap form of entertainment. In the seventeenth century, people called "Stationers" printed and publish in the same place. [7] Stationers had great control over what was printed. [8] If a printer was Protestant or Catholic, they would publish broadsides in favor of their beliefs. This worked the same for political beliefs.
With primitive early printing presses, printing on a single sheet of paper was the easiest and most inexpensive form of printing available and for much of their history could be sold for as little as a penny. [9] They could also be cut in half lengthways to make 'broadslips', or folded to make chapbooks and where these contained several songs such collections were known as 'garlands'. [10]
The earliest broadsides that survive date from the early sixteenth century, but relatively few survive from before 1550. [11] From 1556 the Stationers Company in London attempted to force registration of all ballads and some 2,000 were recorded between then and 1600, but, since they were easy to print and distribute, it is likely that far more were printed. [12] Scholars often distinguish between the earlier blackletter broadsides, using larger heavy 'gothic' print, most common up to the middle of the seventeenth century, and lighter whiteletter, roman or italic typefaces, that were easier to read and became common thereafter. [13] A centre of broadside production was the Seven Dials area of London. [14]
Broadsides were produced in huge numbers, with over 400,000 being sold in England annually by the 1660s, probably close to their peak of popularity. [15] Many were sold by travelling chapmen in city streets and at fairs or by balladeers, who sang the songs printed on their broadsides in an attempt to attract customers. [16] In Britain broadsides began to decline in popularity in the seventeenth century as initially chapbooks and later bound books and newspapers, began to replace them, until they appear to have died out in the nineteenth century. [15] They lasted longer in Ireland, and although never produced in such huge numbers in North America, they were significant in the eighteenth century and provided an important medium of propaganda, on both sides, in the American War of Independence. [17]
Most of the knowledge of broadsides in England comes from the fact that several significant figures chose to collect them, including Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (1661–1724), in what became Roxburghe Ballads. [18] In the eighteenth century there were several printed collections, including Thomas D'Urfey's Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719–20), Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), and Joseph Ritson's, The Bishopric Garland (1784). [18] In Scotland similar work was undertaken by figures including Robert Burns and Walter Scott in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802–03). [18] One of the largest collections was made by Sir Frederick Madden who collected some 30,000 songs now in the 'Madden Collection' in the Cambridge University Library. [19] The mid-20th-century American singer-songwriter Phil Ochs described his own songs and those of Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, Leonard Cohen, and Graeme Allwright as contemporary equivalents of broadside ballads. [20]
Broadside ballads (also known as 'roadsheet', 'broadsheet', 'stall', 'vulgar' or 'come all ye' ballads) varied from what has been defined as the 'traditional' ballad, which were often tales of some antiquity, which has frequently crossed national and cultural boundaries and developed as part of a process of oral transmission. [21] In contrast broadside ballads often lacked their epic nature, tended not to possess their artistic qualities and usually dealt with less consequential topics. However, confusingly many 'traditional' ballads, as defined particularly by the leading collectors, Svend Grundtvig for Denmark and Francis Child for England and Scotland, only survive as broadsides. [22] Among the topics of broadside ballads were love, religion, drinking-songs, legends, and early journalism, which included disasters, political events and signs, wonders and prodigies. [23] Generally broadside ballads included only the lyrics, often with the name of a known tune that would fit suggested below the title. Music critic Peter Gammond has written:
Although the broadsides occasionally printed traditional 'rural' ballads, the bulk of them were of urban origin, written by the journalistic hacks of the day to cover such news as a robbery or a hanging, to moralize, or simply to offer entertainment. In their diversity they covered all the duties of the modern newspaper. The use of crude verse or doggerel was common, as this was thought to heighten the dramatic impact. The verses themselves would be based on the rhythms of various traditional airs that were in common circulation, sometimes credited, occasionally with the melody line printed. This gave the verses shape and substance and helped to make them memorable. A widely known tune like 'Greensleeves' was frequently used in this way; and the more popular items were employed ad nauseam. [14]
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 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.
Early British popular music, in the sense of commercial music enjoyed by the people, can be seen to originate in the 16th and 17th centuries with the arrival of the broadside ballad as a result of the print revolution, which were sold cheaply and in great numbers until the 19th century. Further technological, economic and social changes led to new forms of music in the 19th century, including the brass band, which produced a popular and communal form of classical music. Similarly, the music hall sprang up to cater for the entertainment of new urban societies, adapting existing forms of music to produce popular songs and acts. In the 1930s, the influence of American Jazz led to the creation of British dance bands, who provided a social and popular music that began to dominate social occasions and the radio airwaves.
"The Ballad of Chevy Chase" is an English ballad, catalogued as Child Ballad 162. There are two extant ballads under this title, both of which narrate the same story. As ballads existed within oral tradition before being written down, other versions of this once-popular song also may have existed.
"The Daemon Lover" – also known as "James Harris", "A Warning for Married Women", "The Distressed Ship Carpenter", "James Herries", "The Carpenter’s Wife", "The Banks of Italy", or "The House-Carpenter" – is a popular ballad dating from the mid-seventeenth century, when the earliest known broadside version of the ballad was entered in the Stationers' Register on 21 February 1657.
Robin Hood's Chase is Child ballad 146 and a sequel to Child ballad 145, "Robin Hood and Queen Katherine". This song has survived as, among other forms, a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad. It is one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child Ballads, a comprehensive collection of traditional English and Scottish ballads.
"Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham" is Child ballad 139, an original story that is part of the Robin Hood canon. This song has survived as, among other forms, a late 17th-century English broadside ballad, and is one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads.
Robin Hood and the Tanner is Child ballad 126. It is a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad and one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero Robin Hood that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads but has now been subsumed and surpassed by the Roud Folk Song Index.
Robin Hood and the Butcher is a story in the Robin Hood canon which has survived as, among other forms, a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad, and is one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads. It may have been derived from the similar Robin Hood and the Potter.
Robin Hood's Golden Prize is Child ballad 147. It is a story in the Robin Hood canon which has survived as, among other forms, a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad, and is one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads.
Robin Hood's Delight is Child ballad 136. It is a story in the Robin Hood canon which has survived as, among other forms, a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad, and is one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads.
Robin Hood and the Bishop is number 143 in Francis James Child's collection of Child ballads, and describes an adventure of Robin Hood. This song has also survived as a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad, and is one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads.
Robin Hood and the Shepherd is a story in the Robin Hood canon which has survived as, among other forms, a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad, and is one (#135) out of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads.
"Robin Hood and the Beggar" is a story in the Robin Hood canon which has survived as, among other forms, a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad, and is a pair out of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads. These two ballads share the same basic plot device in which the English folk hero Robin Hood meets a beggar.
An itinerant poet or strolling minstrel was a wandering minstrel, bard, musician, or other poet common in medieval Europe but extinct today. Itinerant poets were from a lower class than jesters or jongleurs, as they did not have steady work, instead travelling to make a living.
Music in early modern Scotland includes all forms of musical production in Scotland between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth century. In this period the court followed the European trend for instrumental accompaniment and playing. Scottish monarchs of the sixteenth century were patrons of religious and secular music, and some were accomplished musicians. In the sixteenth century the playing of a musical instrument and singing became an expected accomplishment of noble men and women. The departure of James VI to rule in London at the Union of Crowns in 1603, meant that the Chapel Royal, Stirling Castle largely fell into disrepair and the major source of patronage was removed from the country. Important composers of the early sixteenth century included Robert Carver and David Peebles. The Lutheranism of the early Reformation was sympathetic to the incorporation of Catholic musical traditions and vernacular songs into worship, exemplified by The Gude and Godlie Ballatis (1567). However, the Calvinism that came to dominate Scottish Protestantism led to the closure of song schools, disbanding of choirs, removal of organs and the destruction of music books and manuscripts. An emphasis was placed on the Psalms, resulting in the production of a series of Psalters and the creation of a tradition of unaccompanied singing.
Robin Hood and Little John is Child ballad 125. It is a story in the Robin Hood canon which has survived as, among other forms, a late seventeenth-century English broadside ballad, and is one of several ballads about the medieval folk hero that form part of the Child ballad collection, which is one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional English ballads.
Neptune's Raging Fury is an English Broadside Ballad. The ballad is told from the perspective of a sailor, who is explaining the perils of sea voyages to those who stay on land. Copies of the broadside can be found at the National Library of Scotland, the British Library, the University of Glasgow Library, and Magdelene College. Online facsimiles of the text are also available.
The English Broadside Ballad Archive (EBBA) is a digital library of 17th-century English Broadside Ballads, a project of the English Department of the University of California, Santa Barbara. The project archives ballads in multiple accessible digital formats.
Holland's Leaguer was the name of a Dutch English brothel in London between 1603 and January 1632. It has been referred to as the most famed brothel in 17th-century England. "Legeur" means military encampment.