I didn't post anything because I couldn't find an earlier version of La perdriole than the one Q posted, i.e. not earlier than late 19th C. There's a very interesting chapter about that in Lina Eckenstein's Comparative Studies of Nursery Rhymes. Btw, she quotes this "papingo-aye" verse from "Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland, 1870". She also says in the next chapter that she thinks that those songs all derived from The Song of the Creed (next chapter to the one I linked to). There's a version from Western France (1866) which is a sort of spoof version of the Song of the Creed. In "Mémoire de la chanson, 1200 chansons du Moyen-Âge à 1919" Martin Pénet, Omnibus, 2001, La Perdriole is listed on the 17th C. but no source is mentioned. There are two tunes to La perdriole, one that you can listen to on the midi link at the bottom of the page and another one if you go to "La perdriole" page on the link just below that. The tunes sound older than 19th C. to me. On The lied, Art Song and Choral Text site they mention it as "18th century, collected in the village of Arnay-Le-Duc by Charles Bigame (1825-1911)". The Occitan version mentioned by Lina Eckenstein can theorically seen there # 2923, it's said to have been collected before 1880 but from what I've found in a "Revue des langues romanes" it seems that the Oc version derives from the French.