Chapter 11 The Emergence of the Scottish Broadside Ballad in the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries
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Abstract
This discussion charts the rise of the broadside ballad in Scotland between the late 1670s and late 1740s. It was in this period that the Scottish market for cheap print expanded and diversified in significant ways. Single-sheet songs were one expression of this efflorescence of publishing for a wide audience. The essay identifies the Edinburgh printers responsible for the majority of these surviving ballads, before examining the tunes to which they were set and the woodcuts with which they were illustrated. It demonstrates the way in which compositions of English provenance were reprinted in Scotland, and ‘Scotch’ tunes of London origin were adopted and naturalized north of the border. At the same time, it highlights the printing of a more genuinely indigenous repertoire and the use of a more authentic Scots vernacular. The diverse content of this material is examined, ranging from politics and religion, to current affairs and history, and romance and humour.