Terminus Ante Quem (The fixed point in time before which something must have happened)

Giving a Terminus Ante Quem (TAQ) date means that we are able to provide a latest date for something. These dates are usually based on external documentary evidence and are often "safe" in the sense that they can be demonstrated objectively. A good example is the dating provided by a broadside version of a song. Using the example of the Black Velvet Band, again, we find it published on a number of broadsides by different publishers. In the Bodleian collection, and elsewhere, we find it published by (the dates are when the respective publishers were operating)

Swindells (Manchester) between 1796 and 1853
Such, H. (London) between 1863 and 1885
Paul, J. and Co. (London) between 1838 and 1845
Ryle, A. and Co. (London) between 1845 and 1859

What this tells us is that the song must have been in print by 1845 as this is the latest date by which a copy can have been printed by James Paul. It is important to note that it doesn't give an earliest date of 1838, as it says nothing about whether earlier versions exist. Nor does it suggest in any way that it could be as early as 1796 because Swindells might not have started publishing it until much later.

Dates based on external evidence can sometimes suffer from the problem that it is unclear if the evidence actually relates to the song. It is, for example, generally thought that the song "Dives and Lazarus" is at least as old as 1558 since one of the first ballads to be registered by the Stationers' Company, in that year, is a ballad "of the ryche man and poore Lazarus". As it happens this is quite likely, though it cannot ever be considered completely certain that this is the same song. Stationers' Company entries can, in fact, be quite misleading in some cases because at least one folk song forger used them as a basis of providing a false date for their own songs.

The most prolific forger of old songs using this method is J. P. Collier, and the following is summarised from BruceO's posting to an earlier thread.

About 1625 an Englishman bought a blank book and started entering in it some things that pleased him. He started various subject divisions at different places, leaving blanks for future expansion of each section. He never filled it up. This commonplace book, as such are called, came into the possession of John Payne Collier who proceeded to interpose a number of "old" songs using titles gleaned from the records of "The Stationers Company.

Collier announced his discovery of many 'old' songs in his MS, of the time of James I, in the 1st volume of his 'Extracts of the Registers of the Company of Stationers', I, 1848, and in the Introduction to the second volume, 1849, gave a list of the 'old' songs he found there, and added the texts of a few more. He also later gave some texts to William Chappell.

Collier's MS is now Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.a. 339, and is known as the Joseph Hall Commonplace Book. Collier never mentioned any of the real early songs in the manuscript.

Collier's forgeries of old ballads have spread far and wide. One of Collier's forgeries is "Full Merily Sings the Cuckoo" as it is called in Robert Bell's 'Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs', 1857.