I was exploring what Child meant by "popular", if he did not mean "Produced by the common people".
"Popular" means of the people - or did did before the advent of 'the charts

Child was writing well after the inception of the "charts" (like, 200 years after - the idea of the hit song of the moment was commonplace in the late 17th century). His use of the word reflects the way Chappell used it a bit before Child in "Popular Music of the Olden Time".


Whatever society Child envisaged, the fact is that one of the main sources of the ballads were the Unlettered Travelling people and the rural working classes - the 'lower ends' of society

Is there even one ballad Child included from a Traveller source? They only got bigged up as a major cultural resource in the British Isles as a result of Hamish Henderson's work after WW2. Child had no reason to suppose they knew anything he needed to care about.