the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in england and scotland were rich in popular poetry and in ballads. we must define the meaning of "popular" and "ballad" poetry, as used in this chapter.
much confusion and much controversy exist regarding this matter of ballads and popular poetry. to understand the subject it is necessary to be acquainted with the results of research in the orally transmitted verse of peoples in every stage of culture; for till elementary instruction in reading and writing become universal, the untaught rural classes retain, in their songs, the literary methods of the quite uncivilized races of australia, north america, africa, and so on.
taking the, peoples lowest in civilization, we find that the australian blacks and the american red indians have several kinds of songs, usually sung in dances, whether festive or religious or magical. they have magic chants, and even hymns, often unintelligible to those who sing them in the dance, either because the language is obsolete, or because the songs have been borrowed from tribes of alien speech. it is clear that in europe, too, the ballad was originally a dancing song ("ballad" is from ballare, to dance), and where a story was told, that was given in recitative, while the dancers followed each line of narrative with a chorus or refrain, such as
there were three ladies lived in a bower,
oh wow! bonnie.
and they went out to pu' a flower
on the bonnie banks o' fordie.
the story told in the recitative, in surviving examples, was probably, at first, composed by one author, versifying a popular tale, of unknown antiquity, or narrating some recent event. even now in the remoter isles of the hebrides, various singers, each in turn, improvise and chant verses, and thus a kind of ballad is made collectively. but it is plain that for each of our oldest surviving narrative ballads there must have been one original author, whether his theme was an old story or a recent occurrence,—on the borders usually a cattle raid, the escape of a prisoner, or a battle. there would be no professional poet, as[pg 148] queen mary's ally, bishop leslie of ross tells us, in his "history of scotland," "the borderers themselves make their own ballads, about the deeds of their ancestors, or crafty raids or forays". such unwritten songs would be altered by every singer, as time went by, so that these ballads as they stand are thoroughly popular and "masterless," many hands have combined to bring them into their present state.
the robin hood ballads, or songs about robin hood, are mentioned by piers plowman as popular among the peasants at the end of the fourteenth century. they would be sung in connexion with the very ancient festivities of may day, held in england and scotland, when money was collected, rather roughly, from spectators and passers-by. now wynkyn de worde, the successor of caxton as a printer, published a "lytil geste" of robin hood (about 1490). but we are not obliged to suppose that the songs known to piers plowman were borrowed from the "long geste" of robin hood; more probably the "geste" was derived from the popular traditions and rhymes of the may day show of robin hood. how far these ballads as they now exist have been organized and improved upon by a professional minstrel it is hard to say. in any case the older ballads are worthy of merry england.
the ballads of king arthur are manifestly popularized and reduced to the simple ballad form from the long literary romances, and are probably the work of lowly professional minstrels.
the long ballad of "flodden field" is the work of a partisan of the stanley family, it is far too long (over 500 lines), and too full of historical detail, for a ballad made by the borderers themselves. "scottish field" (flodden) is another piece of the same sort, in alliterative measure.
the class of ballad which was made as a narrative of current events, or a satire on contemporaries (of such ballad-satires henry viii complained to james v) was usually, in england, the work of a versifying journalist of the humblest sort, and was printed. john knox tells us that ballads were made on queen mary's four maries (mary livingstone, mary fleming, mary beaton and mary seaton), and these, it is plain, were satirical. but the only survivor of these ballads, "mary hamilton," is romantic, and in all its many various forms transfers, to a non-existent mary, the misfortunes of a french waiting-maid of the queen, who, with her lover, an apothecary, was hanged for the murder of their child. in only one text is the lover an apothecary: the lady is sometimes not an apocryphal hamilton, but a campbell, daughter of the duke of argyll; or a daughter of the duke of york, or even "mary mild" (or mile) which is the name of our lady in old carols. for the lover, the poet chooses henry darnley, husband of queen mary, or that old offender, "sweet willie," or any one; and this is a good example of the changes which popular ballads underwent in recitation. as they stand, the multitude has collaborated in them, reciters have altered the original in many ways.
such ballads differ much from "lady bessy," with its 1080 lines, probably written by humphrey brereton in honour of the house of[pg 149] stanley and of lady bessie's revenge on richard iii. some verses are as spirited as those of "kinmont willie," a border ballad to which scott lent the vigour of the last and greatest of the border makers, for probably the finest verses in the song are by sir walter himself: at all events he improved what old verses he found.
at bosworth field, when all is lost, sir william harrington says to richard iii:—
"there may no man their strokes abide,
the stanleys' dints they be so strong,
ye may come in another time;
therefore methink ye tarry too long."
as lion-hearted as his namesake richard i, richard iii replies:—
"give me my battle-axe in my hand,
and set my crown on my head so high,
for by him that made both sea and land,
king of england will i this day die.
"one foot of ground i will not flee
while the strength abides my breast within,"
as he said so did it be,
if he lost his life he died a king.
the early history of our purely romantic ballads, such as "clerk sanders," "the douglas tragedy," "the dowie dens o' yarrow," "young beichan," "the wife of usher's well," "fair annie," "tamlane," and many more, is obscure. they have analogues in all european countries, from greece to scandinavia, and in popular tales, the oldest things in literature. their extraordinary charm, their touch of supernatural terror, their simplicity, their recurring formul? of words, their brevity and pathos, make them things apart. the heart of humanity is their maker, though in each country where they exist local allusions and local colour have been given to them by the singers. when such ballads have been worked over by some hack of the early press they are often worthless; the best have been collected from oral recitation, or old written copies.
there can be no universal theory of the origin of ballads; each ballad must be examined by itself before we can say whether it is a popularized shape of a literary romance, or a versified "m?rchen" worked over by many hands in many ages, or a mere mythical news-letter, like "king james and brown"; or the work, like "otterburne," of a humbler poet than the minstrels of the stanleys, but a better poet; or one whose work has been improved by the modifications of later singers; or whether the thing is a dance song, contributed to by each dancer in turn; or a brief and beautiful lament like "the bonny earl o' murray". the best traditional ballads have the colour and fragrance of wild flowers.
curious and very ancient traits of popular usages may be gathered from the songs of merrymaking, for example in the songs of ivy, the badge of the[pg 150] women, and of holly, the badge of the men. girls and lads bring ivy and holly into halls and a fight ensues, the girls are thrust out into the cold.
"nay, nay ivy it may not be, i wis,
for holly must have mastery, as the manner is."
the girls burned the "holly boy" of the men, the men burned the "ivy maid" of the girls. this ancient feud of the sexes, and of their patron birds, exists among the tribes of south-eastern australia, the men killing the bird of the women, the women the bird of the men, and an amorous kind of combat follows.
the old ballad of "chevy chace," a form of the older ballad on the battle of otterburn (1388) was warmly praised by sir philip sidney. later addison took delight in ballads: they began to be collected and printed in volumes towards the end of the seventeenth and early in the eighteenth century. in 1765 bishop percy printed many ballads and other early poems from a manuscript, the "folio" which he found, tattered and mutilated, in the house of a friend. percy, in his "reliques," omitted, altered and modernized the contents of the folio, but it was very popular. in 1803 and later sir walter scott published "the border minstrelsy," containing many excellent old ballads, in places modified by himself, from manuscripts, recitations, and printed copies. it is in "the minstrelsy" that we find the "classical" versions of the ballads; there are many other collections.
we have put into smaller type a short account of the probable origins and development of the ballad, because a study of these subjects is mainly based on folk-lore and on research into the unwritten poetry of backward races. the reader of poetry who is not concerned about an obscure and difficult subject, is best advised if he takes up scott's "border minstrelsy" and reads it "for human pleasure". he will find endless variety of strong, simple, passionate poetry, seldom made difficult by obsolete words, for the ballads are, however old, far less scots in language than the poems of burns. another good collection is the abridgement by professor kittredge, of the late professor child's vast collection of ballads in five volumes, a work indispensable to the special student.
though it is not a ballad, the most beautiful and loyal piece of masterless poetry of this age is "the nut brown maid," already old when it was published in 1502. this is a defence of woman's faithfulness in love, the maid will follow her outlawed lover to the greenwood, ay, even if he have another lady there. her lover replies:—
[pg 151]
lo yet, before, ye must do more,
yf ye wyll go with me:
as cut your here up by your ere,
your kyrtel by the kne;
with bowe in hande, for to withstande
your enemyes, yf nede be.
scott's song, "greta banks," in "rokeby," repeats the sentiment and metre of this beautiful poem, with its music and mastery of changing refrains and various measures. some of the carols too, such as "i sing of a maid," are the earliest notes in the bird-like music of the lyrists under elizabeth and charles i.
professional poetry.
skelton. barclay.
meanwhile professional poetry of society and the court was sinking to the lowest depth. the verse of the prolific priest and scholar, john skelton (born 1460? died 1529?), leads nowhere, and though it is full of historical and personal interest, must not detain us. skelton had honours of a sort, as laureate, from oxford, cambridge, and louvain. he translated parts of cicero and other classics, and, in 1500, was highly praised by the famous erasmus, who later brought the study of the new testament in greek to england, and was the wittiest of scholars in the revival of learning and of greek literature. skelton had latin enough, of greek not much, and about 1500 was tutor of the future henry viii. his profuse poetry is mainly in long but lively stretches of doggerel; very short rhyming verses, generally satirical, poured from him ceaselessly. he had a "flyting" or scolding match like that of dunbar and kennedy, with sir christopher garnesche; he lamented at terrible length the death of "philip sparrow," slain by "our cat gib"—nothing can be less like catullus's dirge for lesbia's sparrow, but some graceful compliments to young ladies are intermixed with the doggerel. he owed the rectory of diss, norfolk, probably to his patron, wolsey, but for some unknown reason he later pursued wolsey with libellous satires.
in "the bowge of court," when he relapses into stanzas and the outworn allegorical verbiage, he satirizes court life. in "colyn clout," his hero is a tramp, as vehement in attack on all sorts and conditions of men as piers plowman. wolsey was attacked as a despot in "colyn clout," and much more bitterly assailed in "why come ye not to court": after writing this piece skelton fled from his foes and creditors to sanctuary in westminster. he wrote a long "morality," "magnificence," with the usual personified vices and virtues. in very bad taste he hurled doggerel at "king jimmy," james iv, after his glorious death at flodden, and, more deservedly, attacked the scots who deserted the duke of albany and the french when the duke wished to lead them across the tweed.
[pg 152]
a brief sample of skelton when most skeltonical is his reply to the alleged boast of the scots that they won the battle of flodden.
that is as true
as black is blue
and green is grey
whatever they say
jemmy is dead
and closed in lead,
that was their own king:
fie on that winning!
even in his own country, as he admits, the execrable taste of skelton was reproved. he had a rude kind of vigour, but his verses make it manifest that a new strain of blood, as it were, was needed in english poetry: old forms, such as the allegorical form, were outworn quite, and verse resembling the poem of aramis, in lines of one syllable, could not endure, while skelton's "crown of laurel" mixes his own blusterous humour with the stale learning, and pompous allegory of the fifteenth century; and "the tunning of eleanor rummyng" (an ale-wife), in doggerel, is as offensive as the scottish song, "there was a haggis in dunbar," and extends to 620 lines. very truly quoth skelton:—
i have written too mytche
of this mad mummynge
of elynour rummynge.
barclay.
alexander barclay (died 1552) was probably not a scot, though his name is spelt in the scots not the english way (berkeley). his high praises of james iv of scotland, however, scarcely indicate an english author, and he was very early regarded as a scot. he was a priest, a monk of ely; he dwelt long at st. mary ottery in devon, and was a copious translator. his "ship of fools" (1508-1509) is from the german "narrenschiff" of sebastian brandt: his "castle of labour," from the french of gringore was an earlier work. his "eclogues," in part translated, are very unlike those of virgil, and their contents are growls in the style of "colyn clout".
barclay used french and latin versions of the "narrenschiff," as well as the original "dutch". he altered and added to his original as he pleased, and he prolongs the cry against abuses raised by piers plowman. a writer who takes all follies and vices for his theme, from the frauds of friars, the wickedness of heretics, the oppressions of knights, to the peevishness of the patient who kicks over the table on which the physic bottles stand, can never want matter, and barclay's matter is exceeding abundant.
but the clever contemporary woodcuts that illustrate his satire are better than his two thousand irregular stanzas in rhyme royal, and if barclay quarrelled with skelton the affair is like a feud between bavius and maevius. the two writers are characteristic of their rude and chaotic age, which, as regards all but popular poetry, was the dark hour before the dawn.
