With its haunting melody, and the romantic myth that it was written by #HenryVIII as a love song for #AnneBoleyn, Greensleeves has remained popular over the centuries and today, is probably the best known of all #Tudor#songs.
However there is no proven connection to Henry VIII, and the earliest mention of the broadside ballad called #Greensleeves was not until September 1580, (some 33 years after his death). It was an immediate hit, and a number of imitations and parodies were produced in the following months and years.
Our recording uses the text from 'A Handful of Pleasant Delights', 1584 - the earliest surviving source. There are many verses, some of which contain lovely descriptions of #Elizabethan clothing and other aspects of #MaterialCulture
#WeekendListening: Professor Lisa Marie Johnson and Dr. Anna K. Grau on their edited collection Female-Voice Song and Women’s Musical Agency in Medieval Europe!
Huge #DigitalHumanities, #EarlyMusic, #BookHistory and #CulturalHeritage news! “The Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission” project, led by Dr. Jennifer Bain, just received a $2.5-million Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant!
Huge #DigitalHumanities, #EarlyMusic, #BookHistory and #CulturalHeritage news! “The Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission” project, led by Dr. Jennifer Bain, just received a $2.5-million Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant!
I am so excited to be one of the Co-Investigators of this grant as Co-Lead of the Manuscripts and Aretefacts Research Axis! 🤩
Two anonymous 17th Century ballads describing the purported evil deeds of Richard III, the murder of the Princes in the Tower, and the Battle of Bosworth Field, which was fought #onthisday in 1485.
A good example of Tudor propaganda.
A song of the Life and Death of King Richard the Third (to the tune of Who list to lead a soldier's life)
and
The most cruel murther of Edward the fifth, and his brother Duke of York, in the Tower; by their Uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester (to the tune of Fortune my foe)
From Richard Johnson's ballad miscellany, The Golden Garland of Princely Delights, 1620
Yesterday was the birthday of Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, a surprisingly important figure in the history of #EarlyModern worship and #BookHistory. So I wrote a blogpost in his honour!