I'm a huge fan of traditional music from the British Isles, especially broadside ballads. I'm also doing my undergrad in History and am passionate about the subject. I get to do a small research project later this semester on a topic of my choosing, and I think it would be fun to tie in one of my interests with the project.
While I'm thinking about this I am having doubts as to how useful they actually can be for historians. Not all ballads are about the same topics, as they can range from goofy fun songs to cautionary tales and protest songs. Can broadside ballads be useful tools for telling us things about life or culture in the time periods in which they were circulated? What sort of things could those songs tell us, and are they "useful" primary sources, or are they just remnants of an old musical tradition?
Also, I know nothing about the historiography about English ballads other than that Child compiled a large amount of them. Are there any notable works that I might find useful for further reading?
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In short: Yes, a whole load! The study of folk ballads and songs is squarely in the wheelhouse of social history, and tells a lot about the kinds of people who more 'traditional' sources might not deal with. Broadside ballads themselves are a particularly fun source, since they were sold en masse. With the caveat that it's necessary to look at contemporary printings rather than modern interpretations, folk ballads can be and are used as a source for all sorts of history: social, gender, religious, etc. I'm not hugely familiar with the historiography around the topic, but your professors should be able to point you in the right direction. If you have access to Early English Books Online through your institution, you can probably find a range of original printings on there.
Oh my god they’re so useful. Broadside Ballads help musicologists trace the original names of melodies which can offer insight into the development of popular tunes and roughly how long they survive from their creation, this is because Ballads often repurposed old melodies with new words. Over time melodies associated with one ballad would become associated with another for example the melody of “O Fortune my Foe“ eventually became the “Faustus” melody after the Ballad “Dr. Faustus” became more popular than the Ballad “O Fortune My Foe.” Small and Popular Music” by Tessa Watt is a good introductory piece about the importance of Broadside Ballads.
The tunes themselves or bits of the lyrics were used in Shakespeare’s plays to evoke certain emotions and imagery for his audience. The best example of this is Ophelia’s psychotic ramblings in “Hamlet.” Her lines are disjointed ballads that had very specific meanings during the play’s premier. Leslie Dunn’s “Ophelia’s Songs in Hamlet: music, madness, and the feminine” has a thorough dissection of Ophelia’s ballad lyrics.
Sometimes the tunes used in these Ballads were repurposed as melodic material for virginal music, the Fitzwilliams Virginal book is a great example of this.
Ballads give a glimpse into a changing England. Historically only reasonably wealthy or musically gifted boys could learn to read. This is because literacy revolve around Latin until about the Renaissance which meant learning to read involved learning a new language. I recommend looking into the work of Nicholas Orme if you’re interested in this aspect of English history, his “Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England” is a great source about this shift from Latin to English vernacular as well as the class and talent structure in older English school.
Sorry this is all fairly brief, my focus in musicology is gender of the late Renaissance and Early Baroque, not popular music. Hopefully these sources are helpful though!