brary of Trinity
College, Cambridge.

During the fifteenth century, the ballads, still purely narrative, were
cast abroad through the length and breadth of the land, undergoing
continual changes, modifications, enlargements, for better or for worse.
They told of romance and chivalry, of historical, quasi-historical, and
mythico-historical deeds, of the traditions of the Church and sacred
legend, and of the lore that gathers round the most popular of heroes,
Robin Hood. The earliest printed English ballad is the _Gest of Robyn
Hode_, which now remains in a fragment of about the end of the fifteenth
century.

The sixteenth century continued the process of the popularisation of
ballads. Minstrels, who, as a class, had been slowly perishing ever
since the invention of printing, were now vagrants, and the profession
was decadent. Towards the end of the century we hear of Richard Sheale,
whom we may describe as the first of the so-called 'Last of the
Minstrels.' He describes himself as a minstrel of Tamworth, his business
being to chant ballads and tell tales. We know that the ballad of _The
Hunting of the Cheviot_ was part of his repertory, for he wrote down his
version, which is still preserved in the Ashmolean MSS. At the end of
the sixteenth century the minstrels had fallen, in England at least,
into entire degradation. In 1597, Percy notes, a statute of Elizabeth
was passed including 'minstrels, wandering abroad,' amongst the other
'rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars'; and fifty years later Cromwell
made a very similar ordinance.[6]

[Footnote 6: But these were only re-enactments of existing laws. See
Chambers, _Mediaeval Stage,_ i. p. 54.]

In Elizabeth's reign we first meet with the ballad-mongers and
professional authors of ballads. Simultaneously, or nearly so, comes the
degradation of the word 'ballad,' until it signifies either the genuine
popular ballad, or a satirical song, or a broadside, or almost any ditty
of the day. Of the ballad-mongers, we have mentioned Elderton, Deloney,
and Johnson. We might add a hundred others, from Anthony Munday to
Martin Parker, and even Tom Durfey, each of whom contributed largely to
the vast mushroom-literature that sprang up and flourished vigorously
for the next century. Chappell mentions that seven hundred and
ninety-six ballads remained at the end of 1560 in the cupboards of the
council-chamber of the Stationers' Company for transference to the new
wardens of the