[In the following excerpt, Würzbach analyzes the relationship between English ballads, theater, and commerce between 1550 and 1650.]

1.1 PERFORMANCE AND RENDITION

The text of the street ballad, available to us in broadsides and in edited collections, some of which are annotated, was usually sung and sometimes read to the audience of the time as part of the selling process. Performance and sale were closely linked, and it is only later analyses which artificially separated these two integral aspects of the street ballad.

‘Performance’ and ‘rendition’ are extremes of possible textual realization. They denote on the one hand dramatic role-play, which is evidently required in many of the texts, and simple rendition on the other. The latter follows the text and the tune, rendering the ballad without any special gesturing, mime, or varied voice inflection. In practice, the tendency towards simple rendition probably predominated, though a textual rendering in the manner of a performance after Richard Tarlton, as an ‘afterpiece’in the theatre or by an ambitions balladmonger, cannot be ruled out. Whatever the case, the performance and rendition of the street ballad had the function of communicating the text in as lively a way as possible and of catching and holding the attention of the audience.

Starting out with his arms and his pack full of broadsides, the singer would go to the doors of theaters, to markets, fairs, bear baitings, taverns, ale-houses, wakes or any other places where a crowd could gather, and begin his song.

(Rollins [1919a], pp. 308-9)

Such is the list which the street-ballad expert gives of the places where the balladmonger hawked his wares. The performance and distribution of the street ballad took place on the periphery of certain, mainly popular, festivities but was not integrated into them to the same extent as were the songs of the minstrel into court occasions, Lord Mayors' processions, May games, weddings or christenings. It was the printer and the publisher who commissioned the ballad-singer, not a festival organizer. The singer would go along independently to places where crowds were expected, since it was his responsibility to distribute the printed copies he had been commissioned to sell. So the balladmonger, who had only his performance and the copies themselves to attract an audience and potential customers and hold their attention, was dependent on the success of his rendition. He would make use of any possible raised position, a bench or simple stall, for instance, though he could also attract an audience without such aids.¹ Unlike the German Bänkelsänger, the balladmonger did not have the use of a series of pictures on a board with a pointing-stick, as both eyecatcher and text illustration. The woodcut on the broadside was of only limited illustrative use as it usually depicted single figures and not scenes, far less a series of scenes. In addition, the illustrations were often hackneyed and had little or no connection with the actual text.² Apart from the fact that the balladmonger was his own manager and dependent on his performance of the ballad for success (with the help of the tune), he also had to contend with very fierce competition. There was a large and diverse selection of ballads on offer,³ especially in London, and this required of him the high degree of persuasive power and skill of a present-day salesman in order to arouse people's interest and attract their attention. The means to do this lie, as we shall see, in the text itself, and only had to be put into practice in the performance. In small towns and rural areas the pedlar⁴ selling his wares would often function as ballad-seller and performer as well, or the ballads might be performed as part of the entertainment offered at a fair. The urban performance of ballads had to compete with many other diversions and amusements, however.

The street-ballad texts themselves give some explicit references to the performance situation. The frequent request for attention was meant to keep the passer-by standing at the balladmonger's pitch or, in a public house, to keep the focus of interest solely on the ballad-singer, or again, to beat the showman at the fair at his own game. The exhortation to stop and gather round emphasizes this:

Good people all to me draw neer,
and to my Song a while attend,(5)
I Pray good People all draw near,
and mark these lines that here are pen'd,(6)
Give eare, my loving countrey-men,
          that still desire newes,
Nor passe not while you heare it sung,
          or else the song peruse;
For, ere you heare it, I must tell,
          my newes it is not common;
But Ile unfold a trueth betwixt.(7)

Frequent references to both the oral and written transmission of a ballad text appear juxtaposed in the text itself. This makes quite explicit the duality of text rendition on the one hand, and the sale of copies as back-up to the performance and opportunity for private perusal on the other. The printing of street ballads brought about the transition from purely oral tradition to duplication, distribution of written copies and a consequent fixing of the text. Although this also holds true for the development of book printing, we cannot overlook the close link between the writing of the street ballad and its performance, and the resulting more complex process of initial reception. Terms such as ‘written’ and ‘lines penned’ are often interchangeable with ‘Ile tell’ and ‘song’, without any distortion of meaning. There is always an invitation to listen implied, whereby the (past tense) allusion to the writing of the ballad often, significantly, referred to the process of writing which preceded the performance, so giving priority to the actual performance itself. This is also seen in the textual procedures which involve direct communication with the audience.

Let no body grudge,
Nor ill of me iudge
          because I haue pend
this same ditty.(8)
O whoe can wryte with pen,
or yet what tongue can showe,
What loue these blessèd men did to their maker owe?(9)
All you which sober minded are,
          come listen and Ile tell,
The saddest story Ile declare,
          which in our dayes befell:
Therefore 'tis for example sake,
          the business written is …(10)
Be silent, therefore, and stand still!
          marke what proceedeth from my quill;
          I speake of tokens
good and ill,(11)
Give eare, my loving countrey-men,
          that still desire newes,
Nor passe not while you heare it sung,
          or else the song peruse;(12)
Round boyes indeed.
          Or
The Shoomakers Holy-day.
Being a very pleasant new Ditty,
To fit both Country, Towne and Citie,
Delightfull to peruse in every degree.(13)

The balladmonger performing and selling his wares was such a common component of everyday life in the seventeenth century that many allusions to this figure can be found. There are several literary depictions of balladmongers, of which the best known is the character Autolycus in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale,¹⁴ although Nightingale's scene in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair (1614)¹⁵ is more informative on the subject of performance practices. The balladmonger formed part of the whole pattern of the fair, where ballads, as well as other items from mouse-traps to gingerbread, were offered for sale. Nightingale is the same kind of showman as a market-crier, and tries to entice his audience by describing and praising his wares (naming of themes). Although he has difficulty in making himself heard among the visitors to the fair he does find a ballad fan in Cokes, who is immediately ready both to listen and to buy. The rendition is prefaced by an address to the audience and a request to gather round; the fascination thus established is so strong that the pickpocket Edgeworth succeeds in relieving the listener Cokes of his purse while Nightingale is just delivering a warning about such practices. The ballad-monger keeps the interest of the audience constantly on the boil by means of his addresses, explanations, and responses to heckling. His success is confirmed by the sale of copies which then follows.

Similarly, the showmanlike and market-crier aspect of ballad performance is illustrated in A Song for Autolycus (c. 1620). The name ‘Autolycus’ as an allusion to Shakespeare's balladmonger shows the almost proverbial renown of the figure of the balladmonger under that name. Here also, the ballad itself is not given, but instead the typical behaviour of the balladmonger is reproduced. The same goes for a servants' scene in William Cavendish's The Triumphant Widow (1677), where the pedlar and balladmonger Footpad offers the rendition of a ballad as the high point of his selection of wares. He skilfully arouses the curiosity of his audience by giving a general description of theme and content, a typical procedure of the balladmonger. The documentary value of this literary treatment of the phenomenon of street-ballad performance and sale lies not only in the portrayal of the typical behaviour of balladmonger and audience. It is also of interest for the fact that knowledge of street-ballad texts and performance practice was taken for granted to such an extent that quoting the ballad texts themselves was found to be unnecessary for an albeit rudimentary portrayal of the process on stage. The mainly negative evaluation of ballad literature and ballad selling is biased, being based on the tenets of ‘orthodox’ literature.¹⁶

The musical quality of the ballad rendition was judged inferior by contemporaries.¹⁷ The coarseness of the tunes was deplored,¹⁸ and the untrained croaking or sentimental whining of the singers dismissed with contempt.¹⁹ Here too the decided rejection, already entrenched at the time, by men of letters of ballad literature and its enormous and enviable success was probably instrumental in distorting the reality of the situation. In fact those tunes which have survived, if in some cases altered by time, prove to be of better quality than contemporary commentators would have had us believe (see also Rollins [1919a], p. 312). Rollins accords them higher status than the popular hits of his time,²⁰ describing them as ‘attractive’ and clearly distancing himself from seventeenth-century opinion (ibid., p. 314). In any event the tune had an important phatic and mnemonic function, and it was one of the balladmonger's tasks to teach it to those who bought his printed copies (ibid., p. 312).

The transmission and distribution of the street-ballad text is characterized by its public nature, and the personal element in the phatic relationship between balladmonger and audience. This relationship was based partly on economic considerations, but also developed as a result of the showmanship involved in the performance of street ballads, which were instruments of amusement or of instruction. They were hawked and performed in places familiar to the public at which they were aimed: markets, street corners, public houses, and fairs. The absence of any elitist cultural nimbus makes these texts of the lower stratum of the populace particularly accessible. They involve no psychological block in relation to printed texts, no claims on the intellect, and no contact with the unfamiliar. The popular nature of the street ballad is evident in the affinity between audience and text in theme, language, straightforwardness of textual procedure, and ease of reception due to certain communication factors. It becomes even clearer when comparison is made with some analogous aspects of late medieval popular drama. The showmanlike demeanour of the balladmonger, which has its expression in the text itself, has characteristics in common with the presenter in popular drama. The latter stands at the edge of the stage or walks round it, thereby indicating a certain distance between himself and the action, which makes him an ideal go-between and commentator. His position near the audience on the platea, that part of the stage reserved for action representing ordinary life and the common people as opposed to the locus, confirms his close association with the audience and especially with those of the lower classes (R. Weinmann [1967], pp. 55, 164). This presenter, together with low-class characters only, addresses the audience directly from the plateau (ibid., pp. 39-40, 174-5, 181, 249). R. Weimann and H.-J. Diller have shown that the audience relationship as an explicit constituent of the text and dramaturgy is a device limited to popular drama only.²¹ It became a distinctive feature of the type of drama which evolved in the vernacular, while liturgical drama contains no genuine address to the audience which would interrupt the solemnity of the closed ritual (see Diller [1973], p. 148, passim). The orientation of the ballad performance towards the audience is even more obvious in the street ballad than in popular drama.

1.2 POSITION OF THE STREET BALLAD WITHIN THE CONTEMPORARY SPHERE OF LITERARY ACTIVITY

It is the coupling of the performance of street ballads with the sale of copies that gives this literary form, in very large measure, the character of ‘wares’. The institutional reasons for this lie in special features relating to the printing of the street ballad and to its distributors. The position of the street ballad within the literary sphere of the time is of interest to us from the point of view of both social history and literary scholarship. Here also there is reciprocal influence between the social, literary, and economic environments on the one hand, and the form of the text on the other.

1.2.1 PRINTING PRODUCTION, AND STREET BALLADS AS ‘WARES’

The position of the street ballad in the contemporary sphere of literary activity, as with other printed matter of the time, can be understood from two main aspects. These are on the one hand trade controls, after the establishing of the Stationers' Company in 1557 from which time entries in the Stationers' Register are to be found, and state decrees on the other. From the outset there are numerous ballad entries to be found (see Rollins [1924]) and as early as 1559 ‘ballates’ are expressly mentioned together with plays and prose works in the Injunctions given by the Queen's Majesty against ‘publicatyon of vnfrutefull, vayne and infamous bokes and papers … nothing therein should be either heretical, seditious, or vnsemely for Christian eares’.²² Queen Elizabeth was particularly concerned, together with the church, to retain influence over at least the most important and successful printers such as John Day, Richard Tottel, and John Jugge. This was achieved through the use of patronage, the conferring of privileges, and special commissions.²³ Although the role of the street ballad in this system of feudally controlled business competition has not yet been examined, there are indications that owing to certain circumstances the ballad became free from this constraint more rapidly than most of the other printed works of the time.

The business of the literature of entertainment, the cheap chapbooks and the ballads, must have flourished increasingly²⁴ alongside the bestsellers of the time. These were the Bible, the catechism, the ABC, Foxe's Martyrs, Sternhold and Hopkins's Singing Psalms, legal works and state proclamations, and they provided the main source of income for the leading printers in the Company. As early as 1557 there was a printer who specialized in the production and distribution of ballads: William Pickering, a founder member of the Stationers' Company, who had a shop at London Bridge (see F. A. Mumby [1956], p. 94). In the last two decades of the sixteenth century, the fierce competition between the printers, together with high printing costs, led to a gradual separation of printing and selling (ibid., p. 69). After that the booksellers, as a separate marketing group, began to gain influence over the printers. The demand for printed works—the needs of a public which also expected to be offered entertainment and moral instruction in an interesting form—in turn influenced the production of printed material. It was therefore possible to achieve success in the business outside the sphere of royal privilege. At the same time, this influence of public taste on what was printed was only possible in a social context where author and seller were dependent solely on financial profit, and not relatively protected from that necessity by membership of a rich and respectable social class, enjoying the patronage that went with it.²⁵

When the Stationers' Company became something similar to a joint-stock company in 1603 and was reorganized by James I into five sections, ballad literature was clearly such an important component that as Ballad Stock it was given its own defined area alongside Bible Stock, Irish Stock, Latin Stock, and English Stock.²⁶ Ballad production was thus drawn into the aegis of the Stationers' Company, whose monopoly position was becoming increasingly established. It can be assumed that the street ballad thus acquired a special financial back-up and a certain literary legitimacy. There are other indications, however, that the producers of street ballads were despised by the higher-status Company printers and tried to leave the monopoly, thus showing a greater willingness to take financial risks.²⁷

The broadside should be assigned, bibliographically and institutionally, to the periodical press rather than the book trade. Although it did not appear with an exact date nor in a series published periodically, it was a fly-sheet, like the first newsletters in the second half of the sixteenth century and the later news-sheets of the seventeenth century, and was sold under the same conditions.²⁸ Those who dealt with the sale of ballads on a large scale were often also involved in the publication of news-sheets and cheap, small-scale popular literature: printers and booksellers such as Bernard Alsop (1617-53?), Francis Coles (1626-81), Henry Gosson (1601-40), Francis Grove (1623-61), Thomas Pavier (1600-25), Thomas Symcock (1619-29), and John Wright (1605-58).²⁹ This cheap and popular material was not printed by the rich and influential members of the Company but most frequently by printers on the periphery of that institution. We do know of some printers, such as Henry Gosson, John Grismand (1618-38), Thomas Pavier, John Wright, and Edward Wright (1642-48), who were presumably shareholders in the Ballad Stock (see McKerrow [1910], pp. 302-3) and others, like Francis Coles, William Gilbertson (1640-65), and Thomas Vere (1646-80), who had business connections with them. But there seem to be no indications that any ballad-printer ever belonged to the higher echelons of the Company as warden or assistant, able to share in policy decisions. We know that the better-known ballad-printers were accepted as freemen, so they were certainly members. Whether this was as livery-men, with some communal influence on policy, or as mere yeomen, is not clear.³⁰ A large number of ballad-printers, whose activity can often be established only for a short period, were not members of the Company. These printers would probably dabble only occasionally in ballads and ephemera, dependent as they were on immediate profit.³¹

For any printer, whether a specialist in the genre or only an occasional producer, the ballad trade would, at the very least, have been profitable enough for them to do without privileges (monopoly), patronage, and subsidies.³² The popularity of the texts,³³ the low price of a broadside, and a comparatively effective distribution, where the product was taken directly to the buyer,³⁴ resulted in relatively high sales.³⁵ The price of a ballad copy (one halfpenny) was the same as the cost of half a loaf of bread; standing room in the stalls of the public theatre cost a penny, seats in the gallery tuppence, and comfortable chairs in the stalls threepence (see H. Castrop [1972], p. 120). Popular literature in book form could be had from a penny upwards, but more serious books cost a shilling, which was beyond the means of members of a class earning £10 a year (see E. H. Miller [1959], pp. 41-2).

Like the newspaper today, the broadside was so cheap that any apprentice could soon accumulate a collection, which had for the Elizabethan somewhat more permanency than present-day papers hold for their readers.

(L. B. Wright [1964], p. 419)

The ballad business was mostly fairly profitable for both printer and author.³⁶ Indeed it could be lucrative enough to enable a printer to start up on his own. The ballad producers' urge to make a profit even outweighed the fear of censorship and punishment during the Cromwell dictatorship. The large number of broadsides printed at that time was not only due to the need for news and political invective (see Rollins, CP, p. 14). Rollins calculated that the ballad-writer sometimes earned more than a playwright.³⁷

The importance of street ballads—as shown by the large quantity printed—contrasts with the low status of street-ballad publishers in the guild. At the same time there is a consequent independence of street-ballad publishers as an enterprise, as they were in receipt of absolutely no support through privilege or subsidy. All these are determinant components in the production of street ballads which contribute to the character of this literary form as one of ‘wares’. The method of distribution emphasized this aspect which was especially obvious when one considers that copies of a ballad were handed round at a low price like fruit and vegetables, as soon as there was a need for them. The printed copy was highly desirable both as an illustrated reminder of the performance experience and as a means of privately repeating it. The wide circulation of this printed product made it profitable for the printer/publisher and author in spite of its low price; nothing is known of the size of the balladmonger's cut.

The street ballad can be described as an early type of bestseller. Its production and distribution correspond to the increasingly capitalist economic system of the seventeenth century, where the spirit of enterprise and calculated risk held out the promise of success (see A. L. Rowse [1964], pp. 109-12), a motivation which no doubt had its effect in the field of literature. The Company's contempt for the street ballad, in spite of its incorporation in the Stock, is probably based not only on its trivial and ephemeral character but also on a certain competitive envy, which is often evident in other criticism of the ballad (see below, pp. 243-4).

1.2.2 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STATUS OF THE BALLAD WRITER AND SINGER/SELLER

The ballad writer stood completely outside the feudal system of patronage. This was a specifically medieval component of cultural life which was already diminishing in importance after 1600.³⁸ Only one or two authors of recognized serious literature still had noble patrons with whom they were in personal contact and who offered them permanent support and encouragement. In popular literature circles it was customary, even for insignificant hack writers who would not normally have come up to the cultural and aesthetic standards required by noble patrons, to try to establish an apparent connection with and extract money from a rich and socially well-placed gentleman, by means of flattering dedications. The ballad-writer dispensed with this, whether from a sense of financial independence or a realistic assessment of the success of such an attempt. Advancement through patronage or the conferring of public or private offices was similarly closed to him. Most ballad writers probably shared the proverbial poverty of Elizabethan writers,³⁹ unless writing was not their main source of income. It was the printers and publishers who made the money.

Like the street-ballad trade, which did not belong to a feudalistically organized printing ‘guild’, the balladmonger was under no corporate or social obligation. A comparison with the actor, with whom he shared the role of performer, makes this quite clear. The actor was a member of a troupe which enjoyed the patronage of a nobleman or the Master of the Revels of the royal court. He had a contract of service and his social status was determined by his rights and obligations. He could be fairly sure that his clothing and keep would be provided, as long as the theatres did not close for any length of time owing to the threat of plague. For its part the troupe had to put on the agreed number of performances, eliminate any subversive or seditious political opinion from the texts of their plays, and take preventive measures against theft or other immoral activities during their performance.⁴⁰ In contrast, the balladmonger's activity was merely included in the printing licence which the publisher had to obtain for each new ballad. The balladmonger could sell the ballads wherever and whenever he liked, thus supplementing his income. He needed no licence to trade or perform, and he as an individual was defined only by his ability or inability to perform the text and sell the broadsheets. Thus his value, or lack of it, as a member of society derived primarily from his individual standing and not from a fixed social position. As a result, the author of a ballad could risk expressing subversive opinions through the balladmonger, thereby slipping through the censor's net. Similarly, it was not uncommon for a balladmonger, while performing, to work sucessfully in collusion with a pickpocket.⁴¹

The financial success⁴² of the balladmonger, a certain legitimizing of his performance, and the popularity of his ‘wares’ also derived from the tradition of the minstrel.⁴³ The late medieval figure of the minstrel in his role of entertainer with various functions is certainly similar to that of the balladmonger. In contrast to the minstrel, however, with his diverse talents and functions—musician, actor, acrobat, story-teller, reciter, poet, singer, dancer, and comedian—the balladmonger was a specialist. At its widest, his range included very occasionally textual construction, but for the most part his job was to perform and sell. Performance did imply some acting and musical ability, however, and selling involved a certain amount of showmanship and salesmanship. The diversification of the balladmonger's tasks derived from the relatively large number of possibilities for textual shaping allowed the performer in that genre. We may also assume that wandering minstrels sometimes took over the balladmonger's business,⁴⁴ and that itinerant actors, too, would try their hand at the job.⁴⁵ We should keep in mind, however, that ballad production was a specifically urban activity which was dependent on the printers in and around London. On the other hand there would be fewer failed actors in London, and the activity of down-at-heel minstrels would be confined to the provinces. Other occasional writers and performers of ballads would probably have been the general unemployed, the work-shy, and cripples (see Rollins [1919a], pp. 306-10). In the provinces the ballads were marketed mainly by itinerant traders, whose assortment of cures, cosmetics, haberdashery, and calendars would sometimes include thin, often loosely bound, chapbooks and broadsides.

The figures of the ballad writer and the balladmonger of Elizabethan and Stuart times are difficult to define clearly. They belonged to the literary demi-monde but also to the vague no-man's-land between hack writer, itinerant trader, vagabond, and cony-catcher. If the texts were by more or less professional ballad authors such as William Elderton (d. 1592?), Thomas Deloney (1543?-1600?), Laurence Price (1628-80?), and Martin Parker,⁴⁶ and handled by booksellers and proficient balladsingers, one could expect a relatively high quality of ballad and a performance which did justice to the text. The products of occasional writers, and the marketing of them by traders and dubious individuals, tended to result in ballads and performances of inferior quality. The increasing mobility of the lower classes of the populace and especially of the vagabonds, due to social reshuffling and unemployment, made possible a larger-scale distribution of ballads. The author's and balladmonger's lack of social ties stems not least from this circumstance. The relationship between performer and audience can similarly be described as fluctuating. The ‘no obligation’ element of the performance was matched by the ready availability and ease of transportation of the broadsides, and in general the texts and tunes were simple and easily retained. There is therefore a correspondence between author status, performance and sales methods, reception, bibliographical format, and text construction, which can be summed up as mobility, independence, and availability.

1.2.3 CENSORSHIP AND PUBLIC TASTE

The extent of the ballad producers' and distributors' free hand was limited by two essential factors: censorship and public taste. Both were components of contemporary literary activity which represented links with social reality and could influence textual content and strategy only indirectly. Influence was exerted by means of directives, institutional measures, and sanctions on the one hand, and through the market mechanism of supply and demand on the other. In the case of the ballad, literary criticism as a possible regulator of literary production played only a marginal role. Evidence of the practicalities and functioning of censorship is sparse.⁴⁷ Censorship decrees have for the most part survived, but only isolated cases of their enforcement have come down to us.

Censorship was directed against seditious, politically or religiously inopportune, immoral, and obscene publications, and affected therefore in the first instance the content of texts and their vocabulary. The power and effect of censorship in our period of study is difficult to assess, especially as so little research has been done on the subject. The aim and the severity of censorship changed according to the political situation and the circumstances of the day. The strictness or laxity of its enforcement depended not least on the occupancy of the relevant posts, which were in the hands of the state and church. Before 1576 the censor's role was presumably performed by the Master and the wardens of the Stationers' Company, who were not infrequently represented by a clerk who kept the Register. In addition there were the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, who could delegate the job to other clerics,⁴⁸ and of course there were censors appointed in their own right.⁴⁹ There are very few references to, or records of, rejected publications,⁵⁰ although Rollins ([1919a], p. 285) estimates that half of the extant ballads were never recorded in the Register in the first place. Evidence of the punishment of individual printers or authors does not prove anything with regard to the general operation and effectiveness of the censorship system.⁵¹

From the middle of the sixteenth century onwards there was no lack of government edicts on the licensing and control of printed matter.⁵² In 1559 a royal edict decreeds that ballads, together with plays and shorter printed texts, could only be published with a licence from minor officials of the church and state. Control over the publication of more serious books was in the hands of higher-ranking officials (see F. S. Siebert [1952], p. 56). The Star Chamber Decree of 1586 reinforced the compulsory licensing of ballads (ibid., pp. 72-3). We know little of the individual operation of the controls. The issue of licences was mainly the responsibility of the Company, which tended towards a milder enforcement of controls, perhaps because of the in-fighting over monopolies (ibid., p. 59). E. H. Miller attributes to Elizabethan censorship nominal rather than actual success, surmising on the other hand that pressure of public opinion, which was predominantly loyal to the government and morally conservative, would have exerted a considerable controlling effect. Miller maintains that political criticism was more harshly dealt with than offences of a moral nature. He comes to the conclusion that ‘most authors were not seriously affected by the edicts and proclamations’ (see E. H. Miller [1959], p. 199).

During the first period of Stuart rule up to 1640, the system of censorship remained the same, but as the power of the crown diminished and political opinion became more differentiated it lost its effectiveness.⁵³ At the same time business interests, both of the members of the Company and of the journeymen, who were printing in secret, began to outweigh the interests of church and state. Everywhere, ways and means were being found to circumvent censorship controls.⁵⁴ Since ballads were checked less stringently than books, a typical ballad title would often serve as cover for the registering of a book (see F. S. Siebert [1952], pp. 143-4). There was generally less risk of being caught and punished for publishing without a licence than in the Elizabethan era, in spite of more stringent government measures (see H. S. Bennett [1970], pp. 45-8). The rapid burgeoning of print production made censorship doubly difficult (ibid., pp. 78-86). H. S. Bennett describes the situation as follows: ‘From the evidence available it would seem that the trade took a very liberal view of what it might publish, always remembering that the risks of meddling with matters of Church or State were considerable, so that other kind of business was desirable could it be obtained’ (ibid., p. 58).

It is the period 1640-60 which yields most information on censorship and its effectiveness (see Rollins, CP, pp. 3-29). Nearly every year Parliament passed new, stricter laws against any form of criticism of its policies, and against itinerant traders and balladmongers. At first the effect was only slight: ‘Hawkers and ballad singers flourished in spite of occasional mishaps’ (ibid., p. 29). But gradually the number of ballads and prose texts decreased, especially those of a royalist tendency; they were only sold clandestinely. In 1649 ballad-singers and sellers of broadsheets were no longer to be seen in the streets. Royalist news-books also disappeared. Ballads continued to be published: secretly in anthologies, in the royalist drolleries, and as insertions in prose texts. Between 1643 and 1656 no ballads were recorded in the Stationers' Register. After Cromwell's death in 1658 the censorship of ballads ceased and ballad production started up again with renewed vigour.

It is just as difficult to establish the influence of public taste on ballad production and textual form as it is to assess the effects of censorship. Author and seller were dependent on the profit from the sale of broadsides, the supply was large, and competition fierce.⁵⁵ It is tempting to assume here concessions to public taste and a backwash effect of public expectation on textual form. This is difficult to prove, however, as apart from the literary texts we have hardly any evidence of what that taste was. Investigations of the topic have always moved in the methodological circle of literary supply and the public taste which derived from it.⁵⁶ For popular literature, especially the street ballad, this is justified in so far as the sales success confirms a certain conformity between literary ‘consumer goods’ and ‘consumer needs’. The question remains, however, as to how far this consumer pattern, which derived from the methods of distribution described above, in turn generated certain public needs which it then proceeded to reinforce. It is only in isolated cases that we can observe a backwash effect of non-literary factors on the text. For the rest, we can only describe the tendencies of public taste in very general terms.

We must first establish the type and composition of the ballad public. If ‘public’ in this sense is defined as a group of persons characterized by a ‘common interest in some specific kind of social behaviour such as music, literature or sport’ (see A. Silbermann [1969], p. 11), it is necessary to make the difficult distinction between the regular ballad audience and customers, and occasional listeners. Certainly it can be assumed that there was a large regular public for whom the author wrote and the printer/publisher made his selection, although business interests must have encouraged them to try to extend the range of customers; the wide variation of form and content in the ballads supports this assumption.

The interest shown by the public in the ballad—a very small part of an individual's whole spectrum of behaviour—was not dependent on the nature of the ballad alone. There were certain preconditions which affected public reaction, involving the audience's own experience and cultural background as well as the social origins of the individual.⁵⁷ The mass of the ballad public belonged to the urban bourgeoisie—merchants and craftsmen and the servants of their household—and secondly to the urban and agricultural working classes.⁵⁸ There are various reasons for assuming this to be the case. For one thing the low price of the street ballad would bring it within the means of the poorer classes. Another important point is that the method of sale—market-crier and showman tactics—would tend to reduce built-in prejudices and inhibitions regarding a ‘culture’ which ordinarily would have been inaccessible to the common man. The middle-class audience brought with them not only their literacy—acquired in order to cope with the practical demands of business and further their knowledge and understanding of religion and the Bible (see L. B. Wright [1964], pp. 43-80)—but also curiosity, open-mindedness, and a need for information and entertainment, as can be generally deduced from the substantial and diverse selection of printed works on offer (ibid., pp. 81-200).

Since the primary reading interests of such a public were in works which were useful for their practical advice, and given their meagre literary background, very limited leisure and general lack of means, they were likely to have been passive rather than otherwise with regard to purchasing printed texts or influencing their content. It was in these circumstances that the street ballad came into its own, saving the potential customer the journey to the bookstalls near St Paul's⁵⁹ and providing short, manageable, straightforward listening and reading material. The ballad catered for a mainly lower-class, relatively uncultured, practically minded public with simple needs in the way of entertainment.

In the absence of more solid evidence we will assume a broad correspondence between public taste and ballad production. Cautious deductions concerning the needs of the ballad public will emerge during the course of this study when themes and textual procedures in the ballad are investigated. The uncomplicated nature of the entertainment and instruction, combined with strategies for simplifying reception, point to a certain element of audience expectation.

1.3 RELATIONSHIP OF TEXTS TO SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT

Transmission of the street-ballad text was characterized by improvisation—of a given text—by a ‘no obligation’ situation with the likelihood of interruptions, and a fluctuating audience. It must be assumed that this necessitated special techniques both for attracting and keeping the public's attention and also for ease of reception. Indeed these techniques can be found in the texts in both implicit and explicit form. The predominantly lower-class audiences and the atmosphere surrounding the performance would require an accommodation of both language and topic to the taste of the public. The on-the-spot mercantilism of the street-ballad trade demanded effective advertising strategies, which are similarly incorporated into the text. The balladmonger was under severe pressure from competition, and moreover he had to rely absolutely on his own performance techniques for financial success. He would therefore do his utmost to impress himself, and press his ‘wares’, as literary products, upon his audience, a factor that is also allowed for in the text. We know little about the actual vocal and mimetic interpretation of the ‘textual score’. The accounts we do have of street-ballad performances, although they are polemical in tone, indicate little exploitation of the possibilities inherent in the text. We must merely conjecture about the histrionic shaping of the text on the basis of the theatrical connections. The use of the street ballad as an ‘afterpiece’ in the theatre, the similarity of the dialogue ballad to the short ‘jig’—a play interpolated with songs⁶⁰—which was performed both in the theatre and at popular festivities and dance (see C. R. Baskerville [1929], pp. 32, 35, 164), and the possible coming together of the ballad-singer and unemployed actor in one person, imply an occasional very competent ballad performance which did justice to the text. The possibility of itinerant trader or market-crier doubling as ballad-singer also presupposes at least some mastery of the art of showmanship.

The assumption that textual composition was influenced by literary and social considerations,⁶¹ that is, that the author bore in mind the context of performance and sale at the time of writing, is reinforced by the fact that the ballad writer was paid once, in a lump sum (see Rollins [1919a], pp. 296-300). It was therefore in his interest, if he wanted further commissions from the printer/publisher, to ensure sales by bolstering up the function of the singer as salesman and producing a performer-friendly text. The effects of these conditioning factors on the nature of the texts performed should not be underestimated, especially as the genre, being in an early phase of development, was still fairly flexible.

Notes

1. Most of the references in contemporary documents describe only the ballad-monger's vocal and gestural efforts to attract an audience. There is however also mention of such aids as ‘stall’, and ‘pitch’: see B 22. In this connection see also H. E. Rollins (1919a), p. 320; A. B. Friedmann (1961), p. 48.

2. See above, p. 9 and p. 45. For the situation as regards the German street ballad, see K. V. Riedel (1963): ‘The presenter stands outside and above the action, directing the attention through his words and pictorial display’ (p. 39). L. Petzoldt (1974), pp. 57-8.

3. See H. E. Rollins (1919a), pp. 306-11; also below, pp. 18-21.

4. For the distribution of the street ballads by pedlars, see also documentary references in the appendix: B 3, B 23, B 45, B 68, B 83.

5. True Wonders, and strange news (c. 1670-5), POA, no. 32, pp. 191-4; v. 1,1-2, p. 192.

6. The Worlds Wonder (1677), POA, no. 33, pp. 195-9, v. 1,1-1,2, p. 196.

7. A Pleasant new Ballad you here may behold (1630), RB, II, pp. 366-71, v. 1,1-7, p. 367.

8. Euery Mans condition (1627), PG, no. 47, pp. 270-5, v. 11,1-3, p. 274. My italics.

9. A songe of foure Preistes that suffered death at Lancaster (1601), OEB, no. 11, pp. 70-8, v. 14,3-4, p. 74.

10. Terrible News from Brainford (1661), POA, no. 13, pp. 75-80; v. 1,1-6, p. 77.

11. Faire fall all good Tokens! (between 1624 and 1640), RB, I, pp. 341-6; v. 1,5-8, p. 342.

12. A Pleasant new Ballad you here may behold (1630), RB, II, pp. 366-71; v. 1,1-4, p. 367.

13. PG, no. 78, pp. 443-8; title, p. 444.

14. First performed c. 1609 or 1610; see appendix B 37 and 38.

15. See appendix B 42-4. The closeness to reality of this scene is confirmed by Robert Greene's earlier (1591/2) description of the teamwork between rogues and balladmongers; see appendix B 22.

16. For more detail see the evaluation of all documentary evidence below, pp. 242-5.

17. See also H. E. Rollins (1919a), p. 310 and W. Chappell (1859), II, p. 484.

18. See appendix B 16, B 60, B 61.

19. See appendix B 33, B 39, B 61.

20. Preface to PB, I, p. xiii, see quotation above, p. 5.

21. R. Weimann (1967), p. 20. Where stage play and audience are no longer indivisible in the ritual, an attempt is made to bridge the developing separation with the newly established audience relationship (ibid., pp. 33-47). H.-J. Diller (1973): see esp. ‘Die Zuschaueranrede’, pp. 148-216.

22. Quoted after R. B. McKerrow (1910).

23. Day had the privilege of printing the catechism, Tottel, that of printing all legal documents and Jugge printed all the Bibles. See F. A. Mumby (1956), pp. 66-7.

24. ‘It is remarkable how soon after its invention the art of printing became an instrument of popular amusement and instruction—an active agent in the development of the mind of the people’, remarks the private collector of old MSS and prints, Henry Huth (Introduction, AB, xv).

25. See ibid., pp. 76-7 and E. H. Miller (1959), pp. 94-136.

26. F. A. Mumby (1956), p. 90. C. Bladgen (1954) modifies the meaning of ‘Ballad Stock’ along the lines that this group of printers, in comparison with the other ‘Stocks’, were not so specialized in what they produced (p. 163).

27. P. M. Handover (1960) shows how the Company's monopoly and financial security stifled initiative in the printing trade (p. 50).

28. For the periodical press, see ibid., p. 98.

29. These dates are derived from McKerrow (1910) and H. R. Plomer (1907); dates given refer to verifiable activity.

30. F. Coles, H. Gosson, J. Grismand, H. Kirkham (1570-93), J. Trundle (1603-26), C. Wright (1613-39), J. Wright. For the hierarchical structure of the Company and conditions for membership, see McKerrow (1910), Introduction, pp. xvii-xxii.

31. W. M. Chappell's list of ballad-printers, RB, I, pp. xvii-xxii, contains numerous names not mentioned by McKerrow and Plomer. Such printers are therefore documented only in their inclusion in the Stationers' Register and not through their membership of the Company.

32. See F. A. Mumby (1956), p. 93. A ballad or short published work earned the author the same amount as the translation of a whole book - a few pounds (see H. S. Bennett [1970], p. 229).

33. The popularity of the street ballad is amply confirmed in secondary literature (see V. de Sola Pinto, CM, Introduction; H. E. Rollins [1919a], pp. 260-1; and others), and can be discerned in the contemporary comment of actual opponents of this literary form (see below, chapter 6).

34. In contrast to the sale of books, which was stationary and could count on a traditional type of customer.

35. See E. H. Miller (1959), pp. 75-7. H. E. Rollins (1919a) points out the fact that well-known and popular ballad authors at least were highly rated by publishers as commercial successes (pp. 304-5). Interest in the ballad business can be clearly seen in the competition for privileges.

36. P. Sheavyn (1909) talks of a ‘large, ready sale for ballads … proven by the very large numbers of “ballets” and broadsides registered by the stationers' company’ (p. 39).

37. He usually received a single, one-off fee; see H. E. Rollins (1919a), pp. 296-7.

38. See E. H. Miller (1959), pp. 94-136: ‘Like the concept of order and the moralistic hostility toward usury, patronage was in conflict with a world moving from an agricultural economy and closed society to a capitalistic system and open society’ (p. 94). See also G. A. Thompson (1914), pp. 26-35. For the following period there has to my knowledge been no research undertaken. L. L. Schücking deals with patronage from the aspect of the development of literary taste (1961), pp. 18-21.

39. ‘With the notable exception of Shakespeare and Spenser, the lives of Elizabethan authors comprise case histories of poverty’ (E. H. Miller [1959], p. 12).

40. See E. K. Chambers (1923), I, pp. 308-18; H. Castrop (1972), pp. 106-12.

41. See Ben Jonson's portrayal, appendix B 44 and B 22.

42. H. E. Rollins (1919a), pp. 318-19, surmises that the balladmonger frequently earned a fair amount, in spite of his minor sales role, through tips.

43. For this see E. K. Chambers (1954), I, pp. 1-88; E. Faral (1910).

44. See E. K. Chambers (1954), I, p. 69.

45. In The Actors' Remonstrance (1643) there is an indication that many actors who became destitute through the closing of the theatres went over to the ballad trade (see H. E. Rollins, CP, p. 14).

46. First verifiable ballad in 1624/25; last entry in the Stationers' Register in 1660.

47. Even a comprehensive investigation such as that of F. S. Siebert (1952) makes only occasional mention of the street ballad.

48. See W. W. Greg (1956), pp. 45-6 and 51. The Master of the Revels was responsible for the theatre, and after the beginning of the seventeenth century this position was in the gift of the Lord Chamberlain.

49. Captain Francis Bethen, appointed on 13 September 1648 and particularly strict in pursuing prose pieces and ballads, practically succeeded in banning the sale of ballads from the streets (see H. E. Rollins, CP, p. 40).

50. E. H. Miller (1959) maintains that there are no sources relating to this (p. 181).

51. See ibid., pp. 171-202. The case of John Stubbes, whose right hand was severed on 27 September 1579, led earlier scholars to overestimate censorship in Elizabethan times.

52. See R. B. McKerrow (1910), pp. x-xix, E. H. Miller (1959), pp. 171-202, W. W. Greg (1956), pp. 41-52, H. E. Rollins, CP, pp. 3-74, F. S. Siebert (1952), pp. 21-41.

53. F. S. Siebert (1952), p. 21; R. Fraser (1970) on the other hand maintains that it was precisely owing to the decrease in power that censorship measures became stricter.

54. F. S. Siebert (1952), pp. 143-6; H. S. Bennett (1970), pp. 45-58.

55. See H. E. Rollins (1919a), pp. 292-4; from 1557-1640, ballad titles comprised approximately half of the entries in the Stationers' Register (Rollins [1924], p. 1).

56. See L. B. Wright (1964), pp. 81-118; E. H. Miller (1959), pp. 63-93.

57. In this connection, see literary-sociological investigations by H. N. Fügen (1963), esp. pp. 169-76, and R. Escarpit (1961), esp. p. 83.

58. See H. E. Rollins (1919a), pp. 329-33; he also points out, however, that members of the higher ranks of society also read and listened to ballads. E. H. Miller (1959): ‘Ballads were the common man's delight—and sometimes, but of course surreptitiously, the nobleman's too … The reasons for their popularity were obvious enough. Ballads were brief, farcically humorous, or sentimentally tragic, frequently bawdy, almost always topical and “new”, poetic in the mechanical singsong fashion that the uncultivated admire, and generally set to a popular tune. In addition, they were inexpensive’ (pp. 75-6).

59. ‘To one person who visited the book-stalls there were of course hundreds who heard ballads sung’ (H. E. Rollins [1919a], p. 295).

60. ‘Ballad jig’, ‘farce jig’ and ‘stage jig’ are terms which describe the possible transitions. C. R. Baskervill (1929) gives the following assessment, based on his knowledge of the field: ‘a number of other ballads on one score or the other give evidence of dramatic presentation’ (p. 164).

61. Rollins (1919a) recognized, at least to a certain extent, that this applied to the street ballad: ‘Ballad singing affected ballad writing. Responding quickly to the exigencies of the trade, writers would insert lines or even whole stanzas, to help the singers, and many of these insertions eventually became part of the ballad-technique. For one thing, all ballads were made to insist upon their newness’ (p. 315).

Works Cited

Baskerville, C. R., The Elizabethan Jig and Related Song Drama (Chicago, 1929).

Bennett, H. S., English Books and Readers 1603 to 1640. Being a Study of the History of the Book Trade in the Reign of James I and Charles I (Cambridge, 1970).

Diller, H.-J., Redeformen des englischen Misterienspiels (Munich, 1973).

McKerrow, R. B., A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers in England, Scotland and Ireland, and of Foreign Printers of English Books 1557-1640 (London, 1910).

Miller, E. H., The Professional Writer in Elizabethan England. A Study of Nondramatic Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1959.

Mumby, F. A., Publishing and Bookselling. A History from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (4th edn, London, 1956).

Rollins, H. E., ‘The Black-Letter Broadside Ballad’, PMLA, 34 (1919a), pp. 258-339.

Rollins, H. E., An Analytical Index to the Ballad-Entries (1557-1709) in the Register of the Company of Stationers of London (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1924).

Rollins, H. E., ‘Introduction’, Cavalier and Puritan. Ballads and Broadsides Illustrating the Period of the Great Rebellion 1640-1660 (New York, 1923), pp. 3-74.

Siebert, F. S., Freedom of the Press in England 1476-1776 (Urbana, Ill., 1952).

Silbermann, A. (ed.), Reader. Massenkommunikation, vol. I (Beilefeld, 1969).

Weimann, R., Shakespeare und die Tradition des Volkstheaters. Soziologie. Dramaturgie. Gestaltung (Berlin, 1987).

Wright, L. B., Middle Class Culture in Elizabethan England (London, 1925, 2nd edn, 1964).

Abbreviations

Titles are given in shortened form.

AB: Ancient Ballads and Broadsides, H. Huth, ed. (London 1867)

BB: Ballads and Broadsides, H. L. Collmann, ed. (Oxford 1912)

BBBM: The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music, C. M. Simpson, ed. (New Brunswick 1966)

BBLB: Broadside Black-letter Ballads, J. P. Collier, ed. (published privately, 1868)

CM: The Common Muse, V. de Sola Pinto, ed. (London 1957)

CP: Cavalier and Puritan, H. E. Rollins, ed. (New York 1923)

OB: Old Ballads from Early Printed Copies, J. P. Collier, ed. (London 1840)

OEB: Old English Ballads: 1553-1625, H. E. Rollins, ed. (Cambridge 1920)

POA: The Pack of Autolycus, H. E. Rollins, ed. (Cambridge, Mass. 1927)

PB: The Pepys Ballads, 8 vols., H. E. Rollins, ed. (Cambridge, Mass. 1929-32)

PG: A Pepysian Garland, H. E. Rollins, ed. (Cambridge 1922)

PMO: Popular Music of the Olden Time, 2 vols., W. Chappell, ed. (London 1855-9)

RB: The Roxburghe Ballads, 9 vols., W. Chappell and J. W. Ebsworth, eds. (London, Hertford 1869-99)

SB: Songs and Ballads, T. Wright, ed. (London 1860)

SHB: The Shirburn Ballads, A. Clark, ed. (Oxford 1907)

System of quotation from the above ballad editions: reference to sources in these editions is by abbreviation, the number of the text (in so far as the texts are numbered in the particular edition), volume number in roman numerals (if there is more than one volume), and page number in arabic numerals. For example: PB, no. 84, II, pp. 224-8; PG, no. 8, pp. 49-53; RB, III, pp. 556-9. For reasons of consistency the verse number is given in every case, even if in the edition itself the verses are not numbered (in the case of RB the line number is also given). Where there is no division into verses, only the line number is given, even if lines are not numbered in the editions. For example: PG, no. 44, v. 10, pp. 52-3; ibid. 10, 1-3, p. 52; RB, II, vv. 3-5, lines 17-40, p. 263; AB, no. 22, lines 10-32, p. 125.