Add MS 82932

The Shirburn Ballads: collection of eighty English ballads and songs of the 16th and early 17th centuries; transcribed circa temp. James I [between 1603-1625]. The manuscript takes its name from its previous home at Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire, the family seat from 1716 of the Parkers, Earls of Macclesfield, and figured in Edward Edward's 1860 catalogue of the library there. In its present state it is imperfect owing to the loss of ninety-seven leaves at the beginning. The contents, which largely relate to political, religious and other topical events in the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, were copied directly from black-letter broadsides. Though most of these originals are traceable in the Stationers' Register from as early as 1557/1558, more than half are not represented by surviving broadsides. Sir Edward Dyer's 'My mind to me a kingdom is' (ff. 55v-56v), was set to music in William Byrd's Psalmes, Sonets and Songs, 1588, was not known to have been issued in this form. All were edited, with sequential numbering and facsimiles of the four musical settings (ff. 92-93v, 117v-118, 121v-122, 134v-135), by Andrew Clark as The Shirburn Ballads 1585-1616 (Oxford, 1907). Clark suggested that the present final section (ff. 89-end) of the manuscript, in which the latest datable pieces range from November 1600 to April 1603, was transcribed before the leaves now bound before it, where the latest ballads were composed between 1609 and October 1616. Hyder E. Rollins further pointed out that 'nearly all of them were re-entered at Stationers' Hall after 1616', with no fewer than twenty-one listed under 14 December 1624 ('Notes on the Shirburn Ballads', Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 30, no. 117 (July-Sept. 1917), pp.370-77). Purchased by private treaty from the Macclesfield Estate, 30 March 2007.

Paper; ff.iii+162. 160 x 98mm. Binding of half-calf with five raised bands, spine lettered 'ballads m.s.', fore-edges red and front cover gilt-stamped with the Macclesfield achievement by Hatton of Manchester, 1860 (label on f. i). Engraved armorial book-plate (f. ii), dated 1860, of the South Library at Shirburn, altered in manuscript to North Library and press-marked 119. D. 44, repeated in pencil on f. iii, above the deleted placing (?) S2. c. 112. Imperfect, with three leaves between ff. 26/7, 49/50 and 118/9 missing at the time of binding, and occasional mutilation. Text copied mostly in a single variable Secretary script, possibly that of the 'Edwarde Hull' whose name or signature stands at the foot of Clarke's ballad no. xxix (f.59). An amateurish second script, so variable as to be distinguished by Clark as two separate hands ('second' and 'third'), appears on pages formerly blank in part or whole and ruled for the purpose in pencil or brown crayon. This was responsible for inserting material at ff. 23-26v, 34-41v and 48, 48v, while at ff. 38, 38v the title and first stanza of Clark's ballad no. xviii are copied in the main script with the rest supplied in the other. Early ink foliation in two hands, one deployed for former folios 98 to 145 (ff. 1-49) and the other, possibly that of the main copyist, for folios 146 to 257 (ff. 50-162). In this '113' and '184' (now ff. 16, 17, 88 and 89) appear twice, later to be distinguished in pencil by 'a's and 'b's, while '214' (f. 119), though included in the reckoning, was left unnumbered. Marginal note on folio f. 108v states that 'Thomas Sturgies is the right Oner of this booke in t[he] name of the father and of the sone', with 'Thomas Sturgis' repeated on f. 140. Other mid-late 17th cent. jottings in a single hand include on f. 65 the names of Edward Sturgis (cf. ff. 25, 120v, 140), Thomas Manton (cf. f. 41), Richard Manton and Richard Halford. 'William Halford' appears on f. 64v.