Jim,
Once again you are at best misquoting me and at worst putting words into my mouth. At no point have I said my research 'has proved' my hypothesis. What I have said is that after 40+ years of study of the ballads and songs in oral tradition and those earliest printed versions my own conclusion is that the vast majority of them originated in these printed forms in towns under commercial conditions. Now if anyone wants to include the hacks who wrote/rewrote them as part of the tradition I'm happy with that.

This has little to do with the separate FACT that some of them found their way into oral tradtion and then back onto broadsides. The above refers to ultimate origins.

In my own defence I will add that I have presented the results of my own researches in front of some of the most distinguished scholars of traditional music and none of them have taken me to task.