Singing the News of Death

Abstract

Abstract From the dawn of printing until the late nineteenth century, all over Europe the news of criminals and their brutal public executions was routinely put into song form and sold in the streets. But why would someone want to sing about such a macabre subject? Singing the News of Death explores the hugely popular phenomenon of execution ballads in Europe from the early modern period onwards, revealing how song was employed for centuries as a common means of informing society about the news of public executions. It examines how these ballads, usually cheaply printed and sold by itinerant peddlers, framed the news of crime and punishment, and how the unique features of song—rhythm, rhyme, and melody—presented information about criminals in a way that prose accounts could not. Based on a study of over a thousand ballads in English, French, German, Dutch, and Italian, from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries, Singing the News of Death reveals extraordinary continuities across time and space. While attention is paid to regional variations, the book demonstrates how popular and enduring the tradition of singing (often graphically violent) ballads about criminals was for centuries across Europe.