Few historical documents are more interesting or important than the contemporary songs in which the political partizan satirised his opponents and stirred up the courage of his friends, or in which the people exulted over victories gained abroad against their enemies or at home against their oppressors, or lamented over evil counsels and national calamities. Yet, though a few specimens have been published from time to time in collections of miscellaneous poetry, such as those of Percy and Ritson, and have never failed to attract attention, no book specially devoted to ancient Political Songs has yet appeared.

The quantity of such productions has generally varied with the character of the age. They were frequent from a very early period in other countries of Europe, as well as England. It would be easy to produce proofs that in our island they were very numerous in Saxon times,—a few specimens, indeed, have escaped that destruction which visits the monuments of popular and temporary feeling before all others; and for years after the Norman conquest the oppressed people continued to sing the songs of former days at their rustic festivals or amid their everyday labours. As the feelings which caused them to be remembered died away gradually before the weight of a new political system, a new class of songs also arose. From the Conquest to the end of the twelfth century, the political songs of the Anglo-Normans were in a great measure confined, as far as we can judge from the few specimens that are left, to laudatory poems in Latin, or to funereal elegies on princes and great people. Yet we can hardly doubt that, with the turbulent barons of these troublous times, the harp of the minstrel must have resounded frequently to subjects of greater present excitement.

With the beginning of the thirteenth century opened a new scene of political contention. It is amid the civil commotions of the reign of John, that our manuscripts first present traces of the songs in which popular opinion sought and found a vent, at the same time that the commons of England began to assume a more active part on the stage of history. The following reign was a period of constant excitement. The weak government of Henry the Third permitted every party to give free utterance to their opinions and intentions, and the songs of this period are remarkably bold and pointed. These effusions are interesting in other points of view besides their connexion with historical events; they illustrate in a remarkable manner the history of our language; they show us how Latin, Anglo-Norman, and English were successively the favourite instruments by which the thoughts of our ancestors were expressed; and collaterally they show us how the clerk (or scholar) with his Latin, the courtier with his Anglo-Norman, and the people with their good old English, came forward in turns upon the scene. In our Songs we see that, during the earlier part of the reign of the third Henry, the satirical pieces which inveighed against the corruptions of the state and demanded so loudly their amendment, are all in Latin, which is as much as to say that they came from the scholastic part of the people, or those who had been bred in the universities, then no small or unimportant part of the community. They seem to have led the way as bold reformers; and the refectory of the monastery not less than the baronial hall rang frequently with the outbursts of popular feeling. The remarkable and highly interesting declaration of the objects and sentiments of the Barons, which was published after the battle of Lewes, is written in Latin. Amid the Barons’ wars was composed the first political song in English that has yet been found. It is remarkable that all the songs of this period which we know, whether in Latin, Anglo-Norman, or English, are on the popular side of the dispute—all with one accord agree in their praise and support of the great Simon de Montfort.

The circumstance of our finding no songs in English of an earlier date does not, however, prove that they did not exist. On the contrary, it is probable that they were equally abundant with the others; but the Latin songs belonged to that particular party who were most in the habit of committing their productions to writing, and whose manuscripts also were longest preserved. It is probable that a very small portion of the earlier English popular poetry was ever entered in books—it was preserved in people’s memory until, gradually forgotten, it ceased entirely to exist except in a few instances, where, years after the period at which it was first composed, it was committed to writing by those who heard it recited. The English song on the battle of Lewes is found in a manuscript written in the reign of Edward II.; when, perhaps, the similar character of the time led people to give retrospective looks to the doings of Earl Simon and his confederate barons. They were sometimes written on small rolls of parchment, for the convenience of the minstrel, who thus carried them about with him from house to house, and chanted them at the will of his entertainers. From these rolls and loose scraps they were occasionally copied into books, long after they had ceased to possess any popular interest, by some “clerk” who loved to collect antiquities; for in those days, too, there were antiquaries. One of the Anglo-Norman songs printed in this collection is taken from the original roll; and the Latin songs on the death of Peter de Gaveston were found in a manuscript written in the fifteenth century.

The constant wars of the reign of Edward I.—the patriotic hatred of Frenchman and Scot, which then ran at the highest—furnished the groundwork of many a national song during the latter years of the thirteenth century and the first years of the fourteenth. The English song becomes at this period much more frequent, though many were still written in Latin. Popular discontent continued to be expressed equally in Latin, Anglo-Norman (a language the influence of which was now fast declining), and English. In the “Song against the King’s Taxes,” composed towards the end of the thirteenth century, we have the first specimen of that kind of song wherein each line began in one language and ended in another; and which, generally written in hexameters, seems to have been extremely popular during the two centuries following. One song, in the reign of Edward II. presents in alternate succession all the three languages which were then in use. The political songs during this last-mentioned reign are not very numerous, but they are by no means devoid of interest.

It was the Editor’s original intention to continue the series of songs in the present volume to the deposition of Richard II. But, having adopted the suggestion of giving a translation, with the hope of making them more popular, and finding that in consequence the volume was likely to extend to a much greater length than was at first calculated upon, it has been thought advisable to close the present collection with another convenient historical period, the deposition of his grandfather Edward II.; and it is his intention at some future period to form a second volume, which will be continued to the fall of the house of York in the person of the crook-backed Richard III.

The wars of Edward III. produced many songs, both in Latin and in English, as did also the troubles which disturbed the reign of his successor. With the end of the reign of Edward II. however, we begin to lose sight of the Anglo-Norman language, which we shall not again meet with in these popular effusions. During the fifteenth century political songs are less numerous and also less spirited. With it we are introduced to a dark period of literature and science. It was the interval between the breaking up of the old system, and the formation of the new one which was to be built upon its ruins. When we come to the wars of the Roses, so fatal to the English nobility and gentry, the page even of history becomes less interesting, because it is less intellectual:—the great mental workings which had influenced so much the political movements of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were replaced by the reckless and short-sighted bitterness of personal hatred, and the demoralizing agency of mere animal force. As it had required a long age of barbarism and ignorance to sweep away even the latest remnants of ancient pagan splendour, before the site was fit to build up the beautiful edifice of Christian civilization; so it seemed as though another, though a shorter and comparatively less profound, age of barbarism was required to turn men’s minds from the defective learning of the schools, and the imperfect literature to which they had been habituated, and to break down old prejudices and privileges, which were but impediments in the way of the new system that came in with the Reformation.

The nature of the following collection of Songs requires little explanation. They have been brought together from scattered sources. It was the Editor’s desire to make it as complete as possible; but further researches will probably bring to light other songs of no less interest, and these, if they become sufficiently numerous, he hopes will be collected together as a supplement to the present volume. He has also omitted a few Anglo-Irish songs, because he expects they will, ere long, receive more justice than he is capable of doing them, at the hands of Mr. Crofton Croker. It is hoped that the texts will be found as correct as the manuscripts would allow. The translation is offered with diffidence, and requires many excuses; the variety of languages and dialects in which they are written, their dissimilarity in style of composition, the cramped constructions which were rendered necessary in the Latin Songs to allow the multiplicity of rhymes, the allusions which cannot now be easily explained, and above all, the numerous corruptions which have been introduced by the scribes from whose hands the different manuscripts came (for the greater part of these songs have been printed from unique copies), are the cause of so many difficulties, that in some instances little more has been done than to guess at the writer’s meaning. The translation is in general as literal as possible—the Anglo-Norman, French, and English Songs are rendered line for line; but the Editor is almost inclined to regret that he did not give a freer version.

The Appendix consists of extracts from the inedited metrical chronicle of Peter Langtoft, which are here introduced, because they contain fragments in what was then termed “ryme cowÉe,” or tailed rhyme, which are apparently taken from songs of the time. The text is printed from a transcript made by the Editor several years ago; and it contains many lines of the English songs which are not found in the manuscripts preserved at the British Museum. The Editor introduces these extracts the more willingly, as it is not very probable that the Chronicle itself will be published at present. As a monument of the Anglo-Norman language, it is far inferior to many others that remain still inedited; and, as a historical document, it is already well known through the English version of Robert de Brunne, which was printed by Thomas Hearne. The collations have been made chiefly with a philological view; the comparison of the different manuscripts shows us how entirely the grammatical forms of the Anglo-Norman language were at this time neglected. To these extracts, the Editor has been enabled to add a very curious English poem from the Auchinleck MS. at Edinburgh, by the extreme kindness of David Laing, Esq., to whom the Camden Society owes the transcript and collation of the proofs of this poem.

It only remains for the Editor to fulfil the agreeable task of expressing his gratitude for the assistance which, in the course of the work, he has derived from the kindness of his friends: to Mons. d’Avezac, of Paris, so well known by his valuable contributions to geographical science, to whom he has had recourse in some of the greater difficulties in the French and Anglo-Norman songs, and who collated with the originals those which were taken from foreign manuscripts before they were sent to press; to Sir Frederick Madden, from whom he has derived much assistance in the English songs, and whose superior knowledge in everything connected with early literature and manuscripts has been of the greatest use to him; to James Orchard Halliwell, Esq., for many services, and for collating with the originals the songs taken from Cambridge Manuscripts; and to John Gough Nichols, Esq., for the great attention which he has paid to the proofs, and for various suggestions, which have freed this volume from very many errors that would otherwise have been overlooked.

Thomas Wright.