Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea

Subject: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes please!!
From: Csewy
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 07:16 PM

Hello all!!! I just completed my tour of sentence ... I mean service with the US Navy and am planning on returning to perform ing at Medieval Faires and Medievalist events. Unfortunately, the library of music has thinned out over the past 6 years of travel and I could definitely use help in getting these hungry hands on all sorts of lyrics and music. I've made a good collection with this sites help so far but need to find much more. Will you help me?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 07:47 PM

I don't know of any songs with tunes of that description prior to the 16th century. Songs earlier yes but not with their tunes (Robbins' 'Secular Lyrics of the 14th and 15th Century', Chambers and Sidgwick's 'Early Engish Lyrics', There's also a newer compilation I have but can't locat at the moment). For 16th century ones most that I've seen are on my website in Scarce Songs 1, with tunes as ABCs. You might try the SCA Minstrel website, too. The earliest that I can recall is the "Friar and the Nun" which might go back to about 1500. Then there's "Watkins Ale" and "Carman's Whistle", both apparently based on the lost "Maukin was a Country Maid", which survives in 17th and 18th century versions.
www.erols.com/olsonw

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 08:25 PM

I don't know of any ribald lyrics for which music survives from pre-1501, but if I encounter any I'll steer 'em your way.

You can, of course, take a tune and fit later ribald words to it, if the metrical structures agree.

Then there are songs which aren't bawdy, but are equally moving and effective, even if more serious. Here is a fragment of a translation of a reconstruction, by Pierre Aubry, of a 13th century French song:

Why does my husband beat me ?
Unhappy me!...

Now I know what to do and how to avenge myself:
I shall find consolation with my lover...

T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 08:46 PM

Here's a link that may lead to more info...or possibly write to Jack Lynch for info. He's evidently at Rutgers now...was at UPenn. I found his Grammar and Style Guide last summer and also hit one of his pages on The Beggars Opera.

Jack Lynch

Follow the links to Sex, Women, Medieval, etc. I think there are three songs, but he may know of more.

Mary

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: MMario
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 09:38 PM

I've visited mostly Ren-faires rather then medieval - but you might want to search the web for Cantoria, and also for the royal chessmen's site. Not authentic, but it's what's being sung. also could search for Minstrels of Mayhem, 3 hams on Rye, Bells and Motley, gypsy guerilla band, new World Renaissance band, Molly and the tinker, Pyrates royale, women of whimsey, tudor tarts, and check out alt.fairs.renaissance

if you have any memories of what you USED to sing, theres a thread out there re: mud-rennies - please feel free to post to it, I'm trying to gather repetoire myself.

MMario

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Dec 99 - 10:18 PM

At most of the Ren-fairs they sing songs from 'Pills to Purge Melancholy', none of the songs being as early as 1600, and for songs earlier than 1650 'Pills' often doesn't have the original tune. 'Beggars' Opera' is even later, 1728. [Tunes from John Gay's three ballad operas and all others that printed the music are indexed in the Ballad Opera Tunes file on my website, many of the tunes being given in the Broadside Ballads tune files.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: Philippa
Date: 17 Dec 99 - 06:37 PM

Do the songs have to be of medieval origin or can they be mock medieval?

Tony Barrand and John Roberts sung one about a 'he's taken the key to my chastity belt, with a hey-nonny-nonny chorus. It's in the Digital Tradition database

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 17 Dec 99 - 07:06 PM

As Bruce O. has pointed out, if you're willing to accept high-renaissance music, there's heaps of stuff from the early 17th century, for example this one from one of Ravenscroft's books. A midi file is here.

An index to other Ravenscroft works is here.

T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 17 Dec 99 - 07:10 PM

Sorry, Bruce O., I was putting words in your mouth. You didn't explicitly mention 17th century music at all. When you mentioned 16th-century music above, I sort of read between the lines that much more would be available from the 17th.

T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: Bruce O.
Date: 17 Dec 99 - 07:21 PM

Ravenscroft's books are early 17th century, but much of the material in them has been found in a 'Lant MS' of c 1580. Unfortunately I don't have a contents list of the MS, or even know where it is. I think Greg Lindahl that maintains and contributes most to the SCA Minstrel website has it, and mentions it somewhere, but he didn't point that stuff out in his index to Ravenscroft's books that he has on his website (T's last click above, which gives you the facsimile GIFS).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Funny and Ribald Medieval tunes plea
From: Bruce O.
Date: 18 Dec 99 - 04:54 PM

I didn't respond to T's comment on 17th century material. Lyrics for all English song books with music, 1596-1622, are given in Edward Doughtie's "Lyrics from English Airs'. Doughtie doesn't give the tunes but most can be found freprinted somewhere. This does not include Thomas Campions songs or madrigals.

There's practically nothing from then until 1651, and contents of all songbooks with music from that dat to 1702 are indexed in Day and Murrie's 'English Songbooks'. This also includes all in all editions of 'Pills to Purge Melancholy'. There are many other songs (lots of bawdy one) in the drolleries, which were printed without music. Those which cited tunes for singing usually called for tunes also cited for broadside ballads, and all of these that are known are given as ABCs on my website (from C. M. Simpson's 'The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music', 1966.)