"originated in a Broadsheet. "
Is there any evidence that the broadside hack didn't get the song from the oral tradition?

"the modern academic approach to historical study"
I'm afraid that very phrase has set my hackles rising
This seems to be exactly what Mike and I experienced - "I am an expert and my methods are unassailable because my methods are......."
As we are dealing with something centuries old, that requires taking into account all past research, not screwing it up and throwing it in the waste-paper basket, as seems to have happened far too much here
Until somebody provides firm evidence that these songs either didn't or couldn't have originated from the people whose experiences are described in the song. this remains an unproven theory - nobody ever has
No more convinced than I was at the beginning
Some people have always wanted to believe that the folk were incapable of making the ballads - that has now been extended to the songs

I've just returned from a head-spinning workshop on Irish language singing and song-making
Even apart from the few Child ballads that have passed into Irish tradition, the parallels of uneducated peasant poets making some of the most complex and beautiful songs, and the transmission of those songs if staggering.
One graat morning - another four to go
Jim