by Sharon Ruth Hill

Created on: July 11, 2009   Last Updated: July 14, 2009

Several hundred years ago, when people needed each other to survive, communities thrived in local forums where they could socialize and show their appreciation for one another. These forums included small local fairs, taverns, weddings, and a variety of other events or meeting places. You can be sure that each gathering included individual or group singing using words to a song from a broadside ballad. We may now consider it merely quaint when we reflect upon the possible scene, however, singing was one of the major entertainment forms up until the first quarter of the twentieth century.

The broadside ballad is unique in that it combines the themes of history, art, sociology, printing, music history, and popular literary history of the age. For a penny or even half-a-penny, a one sided sheet of paper could contain the material for your next big evening or social engagement. Illustrations might also be included, such as woodcuts or ornate drawings related to the subject of the song or ballad. Literally tens of thousands of broadside ballads were produced between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. While they did not contain the actual musical notes there was written instruction with respect to the recommended tune for accompaniment.

Printed around the year 1506, "A Lytel Geste of Robyn Hood" is one of the earliest known broadside ballads. This particular ballad proved a popular one when, in an era of rampant illiteracy, one bookseller in Oxford, England sold over 190 copies in the year 1520. Ballad styles remained well-liked for generations, unlike many of our modern flash-in-the-pan music styles and genres. Printed in plain black letter print, "A Lytel Geste of Robyn Hood" is also an example of the definition of a black-letter ballad. Roughly two hundred years later, the broadside ballad was printed using a Roman typeset and these became known as white-letter ballads.

Broadside ballads eventually evolved to a document that was folded twice into small pamphlets, or chapbooks derived from the phrase cheap books. Marketers of chap books were known as chapmen and they traveled from town to town within a region offering both chapbooks and single sheet broadside ballads for sale. A garland was the term used to describe a collection of songs and ballads compiled in chapbooks, such as "A Handful of Pleasant Delites" printed in 1584. This garland is best known for the theme music Greensleeves, known to us today as belonging to the Christmas song "What Child is This".

An indication of the general fame of the broadside ballad is a monetary charge of four pence each to register each title. This investment was based on the surety that the title and ballad would sell enough to turn a profit, as evidenced by some three thousand ballad titles registered between 1556 and 1709 per the records of the Stationers' Company of London, England. Newspapers replaced the broadside ballad around the turn of the twentieth century, but not before the broadside ballad sustained a surged in popularity during the nineteenth century.

Sources:

The Contemplator's Short History of Broadside Ballads

Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads

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