Q

What you say is quite true. I was not claiming the definition was or should be universal. I took the original GUEST's query to be about how the term broadside ballad is typically used, and this is certainly typical of how it used in both America and Britain.

As you say, in every European country plus all over America and parts of asia, broadside songs were produced (they were often called "flying leaves" in the various European languages.)

I don't know if a universal or non-provincial definition would be useful. English-language scholars typically use style as one of the ways in which they assign songs to the broadside category. Style does not translate well across languages, so there would be no way of stylistically saying "this French song and this English song are the same type of song."

So we could simply define as a broadside ballad: any narrative song in any language that was first published on a broadside. The problem then is the songs that are obviously the same style of song but of which no broadside survives. I just don't see that definition as being useful.

Then, too, defintions of folksong types have always been provincial, as the songs themselves so often were. The French "Complainte" is not the same as the English "Ballad," let alone "Child Ballad," which is not only provincial but downright idiosyncratic. The Spanish "Romance" overlaps these but is different, as is the Breton "Gwerz."

In Australia, they speak of "Bush Ballads," which are very similar to what we call native American Ballads here in the US; Mexican Corridos share themes with these and a similar relationship to their Spanish predecessors, but are distinctive. All of these have sometimes been printed on broadsides, but they are distinct classes of song.