I've been putting together a list of "pirate songs" or songs that were actually contemporary popular songs during the traditional Golden Age of Piracy from about 1660-1730. A lot of well-known sea shanties and folk songs are from the 19th century way after that period or completely made-up like Fifteen Men on a Dead Man's Chest from Treasure Island.

I've learned it's often very difficult to date folk songs because many doubtless existed long before they were written down and published, but I've tried my best to compile a short list of the most interesting ones here that are roughly contemporary with the heyday of piracy.

Pirate and criminal ballads:

A Copy of Verses. A very interesting contemporary ballad published in 1696, supposedly written by Henry Avery but was almost certainly written by someone else to capitalize on his fame.

The Ballad of Captain Kidd. English/Anglo-American. Written in 1701. Published and became popular after William Kidd’s notorious public trial and hanging for piracy in 1701, recounts some of the crimes of which he was convicted.

The George Aloe and the Sweepstake. English. Mid-16th century. About revenge against pirates.

Jack Hall/Sam Hall. English. Probably written in 1707 and definitely existed before 1719. Rcounts some of the crimes of the unrepentant chimneysweep turned thief Jack Hall who was hanged in 1707. There are a number of versions of this floating around and I’m not sure which one is the oldest. The one linked seems to perhaps partially be an amalgamation of the Jack Hall ballad and some other hanging ballads composed for the notorious London thieves Jack Shepphard and Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, both hanged in 1724. Those can be found here.

Sovay/The Female Robber. English. Possibly written circa 1735. About a woman who disguises herself as a man to rob her fiancé in order to see if he'll give up his engagement ring. Possibly based on a female highway robber described in a Gentlemen's Magazine for December, 1735:

On Monday last, 24 November, a wholesale butcher was robbed in a very gallant manner near Rumford, in Essex. He was attacked by a woman on horseback, who presented a pistol, and demanded his money. He was amazed at such behavior in one of her sex, and told her he did not understand what she meant. By this time a gentleman of her acquaintance came up, and told him he was a brute to make any hesitation in granting what a lady requested of him; and damned his blood if he did not immediately gratify her desire he would shoot him through the head. At the sight of the gentleman's pistol, the butcher thought proper to grant the lady six guineas, some silver, and his watch, which done, they parted in the most complaisant manner imaginable.

Political satire and protest:

Lillibullero. English. Written in 1688 by Thomas, Lord Wharton as a satire against Irish Catholic Jacobites during the Williamite War in Ireland. It is set to an old tune dating from before 1661.

Cam Ye O'er Frae France. Scottish. Written in about 1715. A bawdy Jacobite satire against the Hanoverian King George I.

When the King Enjoys His Own Again. English. Written in 1643 as a Royalist song during the English Civil War, it gained huge popularity again as a Jacobite song in 1690s to 1720s.

Arthur McBride. Irish/Scottish. Possibly 18th century. Anti-war song about two young men who beat up a group of recruiting officers who proposition them to join the army.

The Vicar of Bray. English. Written before 1734. A hilarious satire about an English vicar who repeatedly and glibly changes his beliefs to suit whatever the reigning political party happens to be with his only consistent value being to remain the Vicar of Bray. An alleged inspiration for the song was described in 1661 (however, the song describes political events of the late 17th and early 18th century as opposed to the 16th century):

The vivacious vicar of Bray living under King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. He had seen some martyrs burnt (two miles off) at Windsor and found this fire too hot for his tender temper.

This vicar, being taxed by one for being a turncoat and an inconstant changeling, said, "Not so, for I always kept my principle, which is this – to live and die the Vicar of Bray."

Military and navy:

Baloo My Boy. English. Written before 1558 and reprinted in 1711 and 1725 showing it was popular around this time. About a wife worrying that her husband has been killed in war.

British Grenadiers. English. Probably written in the late 17th century. Celebrates the bravery of the British grenadier units formed in 1678.

Over the Hills and Far Away. English. Written before 1698 and seems to have been popular during the Spanish War of Succession (1702-1714) and after.

Admiral Benbow. English. Written before 1714. Based on the exploits of English admiral John Benbow who lost his leg fighting the French and was killed in 1702.

Ye Madcaps of England. English. Written before 1719. A cynical take on a soldier's career in which he goes through hardships and dies after achieving nothing.

Bawdy and drinking:

Watkin's Ale. English. Written before 1590. About a maid who meets a man who gives her lots of "Watkins ale" until he "runs dry" and then after a few months she becomes sick and pregnant. I'll leave it to the listener to figure out what "Watkins ale" is a euphemism for.

The Parting Glass. Scottish/Irish. Written before 1605.

Matty Groves. English. Written before early 17th century. About a husband who finds his wife sleeping with another man and kills them both.

Raggle Taggle Gypsy/The Gypsy Loddie. Scottish. Probably earliest versions from before the 17th century, and definitely before 1720. About a married woman who runs away with "Gypsies" which is a euphemism for Scottish outlaws.

Spanish Lady. Irish. From the 17th century. About a sailor who sees a Spanish lady bathing through a window.

Royal Forester. English. Probably from 17th century. From a genre of songs about men deflowering young virgins and running away, but in this one the woman catches him.

For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow. English. At least early 18th century.

How Stands the Glass Around?. English. Written before 1729.

Romantic and sad:

Greensleeves. English. Written before 1580. About unrequited love.

Give Me Your Hand. Irish. Written circa 1603. About friendship and reconciliation.

Scarborough Fair. English. Earliest versions mid-17th century. Man instructs his former love to do impossible tasks such as making a shirt without a seam and washing it in a dry well before he'll take her back.

The Weaver and the Factory Maid. English. Earliest versions 17th century. Romance between a weaver and factory maid.

Other:

John Barleycorn Must Die. English. Written before 1568 and frequently reprinted throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. About three men who set out to hunt down and kill John Barleycorn but he rises from the grave and ends up outlasting all of them instead. John Barleycorn is a metaphor for the barley cereal crop.

Three Ravens/The Twa Corbies. English/Scottish. Written before 1611. In the English version, a knight is killed and his pregnant mistress goes out to bury him before the ravens get him and then she dies herself. The Scottish version is darker -- instead, his mistress immediately takes a new lover and the ravens peck out the knight's eyes and his bones are forgotten.

The Cruel Sister/The Twa Sisters. English. Written before 1656. About a girl who drowns her sister out of sexual jealousy.

Tom-a-Bedlam. English. Written before 1659. About maniacs of the bedlam asylums in London.

Christmas:

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. English. Probably dates from at least the 16th century.

Joy to the World. English. Written by Isaac Watts in 1719.

It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had commanded their sons to keep festival once every century, that the memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten. Mine were an old people, and were old even when this land was settled three hundred years before. And they were strange, because they had come as dark furtive folk from opiate southern gardens of orchids, and spoken another tongue before they learnt the tongue of the blue-eyed fishers. And now they were scattered, and shared only the rituals of mysteries that none living could understand. I was the only one who came back that night to the old fishing town as legend bade, for only the poor and the lonely remember.

• H. P. Lovecraft, "The Festival"

This is an interesting story on a lot of levels, but most folks don't read very deeply into it. What Lovecraft is referring to here is in fact part of a pet theory that he had developed on reading Arthur Machen's "Little People" stories, especially "The Novel of the Black Seal," "The Shining Pyramid," and "The Red Hand" and Margaret Murray's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. Machen's stories spoke of the survival of an aboriginal prehuman or near-human race in Europe, which formed the archetype or inspiration for the "Little People" of the British Isles, which still survived into the present day; Murray's books spoke of the survival of a pagan religion, which she identified with witchcraft. Lovecraft incorporated both ideas and combined them with the scientific racialism of the day:

Now the heliolithic culture, which extends all the way from Ireland across Europe and North-Africa to Arabia, India, South China, Melanesia, Polynesia, and even Mexico and Peru, is pretty definitely associated with the small, dark Mediterranean race, and is known to have had nothing whatever to do with any branch of Nordics. It probably arose in the Mediterranean region and spread in all available directions—in many cases overriding previous primitive cultures and influencing other races. But where its artifacts are the earliest, as in the British Isles, we may reasonably conclude that it was the first culture of any permanence on the given site, and that its users were of the Mediterranean race that evolved it. I believe, therefore, that it will be difficult to prove that the British Isles (possibly a part of the continent at the time of first settlement) had any civilised, half-civilised, or even advancedly savage inhabitants prior to the coming of the dark neolithic Mediterraneans. The sub-human reliquiae represent stocks which could scarcely have survived the glacial periods, and it is my guess that the incoming Mediterraneans found the terrain fairly well devoid of bipedal fauna. There may have been some of the squat Mongoloids now represented by the Lapps, for it is known that they once reached down extensively into Western Europe; being probably the stock amongst whom the witch-cult (a fertility religion arising in a pastoral and pre-agricultural age) and rite of the witches' sabbath took their source. But evidence seems to have been against their having penetrated the British area to any extent. It is true that the Celts share most vigorously the myth-cycle of fairies, gnomes and little people, which anthropologists and all over western Europe (in a distinctive form marking it off from the general Aryan personification system which produced fauns, satyrs, dryads, etc.) and attribute to vague memories of contact with the Mongoloids which was wholly prior to their invasion of Britain. Since these fair Nordic Celts found a smaller, darker race in Britain and Ireland, there is a tendency on the part of some to be misled, and to assume that the "little people" legends allude to contact with those dark aborigines. This, however, can clearly be disproved by analysis of the myths; for such myths invariably share with the parallel Continent myths the specific features (or traces of these features) of having the "little people" essentially repulsive & monstrous, subterraneous in their habits of dwelling, and given to a queer kind of hissing discourse. Now this kind of thing does not apply to Mediterraneans—who are not abnormal or repulsive from the Nordic standpoint, (being very similar in features) who did not live underground, and whose language (possibly of a lost branch, but conceivably proto-Hamitic, Hamitic, or even Semitic) could scarcely have suggested hissing. The inevitable probability is that all the Nordics met with this old Mongoloid stock at a very early date, when it shared the continent with the northward-spreading Mediterraneans and with the remnants of other paleolithic and neolithic races now lost to history; and that after the ensuing conquest the defeated Mongoloids took to deep woods and caves, and survived for a long time as malignantly vindictive foes of their huge blond conquerors—carrying on a guerrilla harassing and sinking so low in the anthropological scale that they became bywords of dread and repulsion. The memory of these beings could not but be very strong among the Nordics, (as well as among such mediterraneans and Alpines as may have encountered them) so that a fixed body of legend was produced—to be carried wherever Celtic or Teutonic tribes might wander. But this is rather a digression...

• H. P. Lovecraft to Robert E. Howard, 20-Jul-1930, A Means to Freedom 26-27

The seed of an idea found certain roots in pulp fiction, especially among Lovecraft's correspondents; Robert E. Howard wrote "Little People" stories inspired by Machen (especially "The People of the Dark," "Children of the Night," and "Worms of the Earth"), and may have been inspired by Lovecraft's idea to transpose them to an ancient American setting in some of his unpublished tales.

"The Festival" also gained currency from the contemporary anthropological focus on Christmas traditions as a survival of pagan traditions, such as Sir George Frazer's work on Yule logs in The Golden Bough. Of course, Lovecraft added a very different twist with the flame-rites in "The Festival"...

Othismos appears to be a word that generates a lot of debate as to interpretation and meaning in the study of Classical Greek warfare.

Are there any other words or short phrases where the translation and meaning is a cause of controversy for historians?

Week 9

The following will be long – and probably in need of major editing. I can't really pull apart certain threads without tearing apart the entire ugly sweater.

Still, it has a five acts structure; but I wouldn't call it a tragedy: it works more as an absurdist drama, and it would be fair to question its purpose entirely. Therefore I'll preface it with an explanation of the dramatic action.

The scene is the Italian Chamber.

The time is the week before Christmas 1917.

The Characters are:

V.E. Orlando, the Prime Minister – formally supported by everyone except the socialists.

Giovanni Giolitti – in the background, the Queen Mother of Italian politics stands still for the most part, but casts a shadow of uncertainty on the Ministry.

The Fascio Parlamentare - self appointed guardians of the Executive; they are on the look for defeatism, treason and conspiracies.

The socialists – against the war in a country fighting a war of survival; they take blame for everything.

Luigi Cadorna – only the ghost of the Generalissimo can be found in the Chamber.

The Catholics – they need to guard themselves, since the Pope has spoken for peace.

Ettore Ciccotti – a man who has resolved to give his contribution to the Country.

The old liberals – they are divided between their three leaders: Orlando, Giolitti and Salandra

The action: the Chamber had agreed to confine discussion of certain topics to secret session. Those had begun earlier this month. But on the last week of December before suspensions, plenty of work was to be done in public session and the question was: how much of the secret talks and conflicts would spill from the back onto the stage?

The Italian Chamber had been caught in a student's nightmare: only one week left and everything still to be done. So, it was going to be a busy week – and that's without accounting for the secret sessions.

The session of Tuesday 18^th opened on a high note: War Ministry Vittorio Alfieri saluting the Army that was in the final stages of the victorious Piave Battle – eventually to stop the Austro-German offensive. There the Motherland was, with the pure blood of her soldiers, writing […] the most glorious page in the history of the new Italy, one of the most glorious in the history of the World.

The Chamber situation though was far less glorious. Liberal Giuseppe Sanarelli provided a long and detailed explanation^1 of his order of business concerning the issue of the institution of Parliament Committees and their right of oversight over the Government acts.

It was a fact, Sanarelli stated, that “the interest of the Nation […] and the very needs of the Government” were imposing “factual limitations” to the Chamber's “right of speech and oversight”. But the necessity of Parliament oversight was in fact stronger during war time, as the severity of the possible consequences of any Government act required a final sanctioning through the principle of “national representation, which is to say the highest expression of the people's will”.

The Parliament regulations “were outdated already before of the war” as they contained no preventive measure “against the undeniable, progressive disrepute of the parliamentary institutions”. “The Country had often bemoaned [the Parliament's] waste of time and the poor performance of the parliamentary engine” whereas, “even the most valuable and esteemed” of its members have been accused of “limiting their action to purely verbal manifestations”. It was therefore necessary to devise a way to “translate into practice and effective value the good will and special abilities of the Parliament members”.

It would have been erroneous “to postpone any reform program of the public administration” until after the war. As these committees would not “diminish power or responsibilities of the Government” but would serve as “organisms of assistance, that would re-establish the value of the Parliament, allowing it to work as it is its right and duty”. Furthermore the institution would “restrain, correct and channel the impetuous stream of bureaucratic imperialism”; as the Parliament had been reduced to nothing more than “the highest advisory committee for the bureaucracy” which instead had by then collected “almost all the powers of government and legislation”. To the point where the Ministries themselves had became “delegates of the majority to the Administration”.

“The Parliament still loved the Idea […] of personal and individual freedom of the government” but in fact “lack of decision power as well as excess of decision power” were not “acts of individual freedom” but “chronic ailments […] of every democratic system”.

And this situation “was responding to neither the letter nor the spirit of the constitutional chart, which established […] the existence of a legislative power, not just distinct, but superior to the executive one”. On practical ground though, the situation was much different as the Parliament was “content with academical dissertations over the balance, without ever promoting modifications or revisions”^2 or “abstract discussions over law projects devised by the bureaucracy and promoted by the ministries”.

Such a situation had been made more apparent during the war by “the relations between the organisms of military power, those of political power and those of parliamentary power”. Quoting a piece from hon. Giuseppe Bevione; “as far as military action was concerned, the Supreme Command had enacted an undeniable dictatorship, updating the Government only summarily” and de facto “establishing a State within the State, a Government above the Government”. At the same time “relations between the Government and the Chamber had been just as week and sporadic”; “the work of the Chamber was reduced to either confirm or deny confidence to the Ministry”.

It was therefore necessary to “put the representatives in the condition to exert an effective control on the Government's actions” especially those “concerning the finances” and even more “those [potentially] damaging the war effort”.

But a more general need was behind the proposal as “the state of relations between the nation's representatives and the Government had reached in Italy such a level of uneasiness and unproductiveness, to cast doubt over whether the parliamentary system […] was actually a moment of progress [of the State institutions]”. And still it was them, “the representatives, that were eventually going to be held accountable; to them would the people ask reason of their actions, and what they did with the noble and fragile mandate entrusted to them.”

It was not the time, argued Giovanni Celesia di Vegliasco – member of the Fascio Parlamentare, that had called upon themselves to act as guardians of the Government – as “the committees would have been in absolute contrast with the purpose […] of a more energetic and swift Government action”. On the contrary, “the interest of the Country was for the Government to be empowered”.

More pressing was the issue of “espionage and surveillance of foreigners living in Italy”; given the circumstances it was “an absolute necessity not to overlook anything to secure [...] the safety of the Country”, even stepping over “certain international attentions”.

Celesia's speech finished on a low note, an argument with the socialist Vincenzo Bovetti, over an issue of hydro-electric exploitation of waters – the first of many circumstances in which representatives would lose their temper during the following days.

I asked this in a stand-alone post, but must of run afoul of the guidelines. Anyway, I would still like to hear what people have to say (if anything)!

I had a class with this guy, Robert Drews, in college many years ago and thought he was awesome.

I recently read his book, The Coming of the Greeks, and really enjoyed it, but given the amount of time between reading this and that on (i) Proto-Indo-Europeans, (ii) Indo-Europeans, and (iii) the people who may have been responsible for the 1200BC collapse in the Near East, I don't think I fully grasp his overall theory on this long sequences of events.

I would love to discuss this or read anyone's thoughts regarding a synthesis of these events.

Here's what my take-away is (FWIW, which is close to nothing):

The PIEs originated out around the Black Sea and had something of a horse-centric culture.

At some point (1800-1600 BC), these people came into contact with Anatolian cultures that had the expertise and resources to create light and effective horse-drawn chariots.

The PIEs were able to harness this technology to develop a new form of warfare (chariots) where a bowman and a driver had a decisive advantage.

This allowed these people to essentially conquer much of the Near East, including Greece and Anatolia.

From 1600 - 1200BC, these people essentially ruled over many "native" populations.

Around 1200 BC, groups from somewhere (e.g., the Sea Peoples) developed a form of warfare that "hard countered" chariot warfare. In particular, they grouped as infantry with throwing spears that could take down the horses and chariots. Thus, they ravaged much of the ancient world around 1200 BC.

Anyway, I am certain the above has major misunderstandings and even then there are alternative theories. I just love the whole mysterious aspect of the era and would really like to hear anyone's thoughts.

Can I ask a meta question here which probably doesn't deserve its own thread? What's the status of the fund raising activities?

In one of the older questions I answered here someone had actually answered before me, but when I got back their answer (and replies to that answer) had been removed by the mods. It was not too surprising as that previous poster had some..controversial ideas that didnt seem to fit most source material.

But I still wonder: is it perhaps a better option to leave up some bad answers so that a critique of these answers can be formulated and juxtaposed, to better inform readers?

Well I have some questions... but feel free to answer only ONE of them:

How tall were the Homeric heroes? Note, I say HOMERIC, I don't want sources of the 2nd century AD unless it can be proven to mention sources that directly link with them.

Did Homeric Achaean women wear their hair short like the Spartan women did?

What were the personalities of the different writers of history in Antiquity? All had to be aristocratic men, I know, but surely were there differences? Whereas Thucydides did not seem to make much of the plunder (like glossing over a matter he clearly does not relish, though I might be wrong), Xenophon wrote it like it was glorious all the mass death, rape and enslavement he and the men provoked o their wake. I also include Polybios in this category since he was of Antiquity, and I cannot sort out his personality besides, well, his elite side being better than the Roman since he did not want Roma being their overlord, or I could have get that wrong as well.

How was an Ancient Greek house of a poor family? Did the poor families also do some kind of party with those neighbors they liked since they could not afford to be generous?

Are there any accounts of a siege before that of Athens during the Peloponnesian War? I only remember the one at Plataia, and I would like to know how hard was it to sustain morale with all the hunger (and possible thirst) that had to be suffered.

Also what hints are given by the Homeric tradition that are not explicitly said there that later traditions do explicitly spell out? I am thinking, for example, on Aethra, who is said to be an slave from an expedition of the Dioskouroi, but it is not said why and later we have that she's indeed the mother of Theseos, but since it is not said in the Homeric tradition as far as I know, maybe I am not reading it right?

Also, if debt-bondage slaves had any security at all? I seem to have read forced servitude only as domestic labor in Ancient Mesopotamia, so I don't know if that was an usual thing or not.

Also if there is any reference to a naked man in the Iliad. Or the Odyssey.

There is a growing issue as to the fate of the Phillips Library in Salem, MA.

Since the joining of the Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Essex Institute in the early 90's, the museum administration has steadily worked towards presenting itself as a world class art museum. In turn, the museum has continually neglected any presentation of local history outside of its art holdings. This includes limiting access to the museums historic buildings, and perhaps most importantly restricting access to their archival collections.

This is a massive problem.

The Phillips Llibrary Collection is the single largest repository of Salem history in the country. Among that collection are the Hawthorne family papers, shipping and business records from the China and West Indies trades, documents relating to the slave trade and local enslaved and free black communities (which is where my work has focused), the papers of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 which they hold in trust for the state, and an untold number of documents from the 17th century to the present day. The importance of their collection for colonial and early Americanists is comparable to that of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA.

That being said, access has been severely restricted over the last few years. The collection was closed for a number of months, and finally moved to temporary storage with a reading room, while the library building was renovated. Then, with only a weeks notice, the collection was again closed - where we learned the entire collection was to be moved to Rowley, MA and a new building - with the historic library and reading room being converted to administrative offices.

Of course, storage is a necessity and everyone can understand this. Yet, among the issues of access which have upset many a researcher and genealogist, this shuffling of the collection has drawn attention to the larger problem. The mismanagement of funding for the collection.

As it stands there are millions of dollars which were earmarked for conservation and digitization, both of which the museum's administration has presented as a defense to their actions regarding the collection. The reality is that very little of the collection has been digitized - and much of that has been is behind paywalls. The only thing digitized and readily accessible is the catalog - which simply isn't enough for the amount of money they're claiming to have spent.

All of this is significant for Salem because we never established a Historical Society (before the last few years when all of this began) as the Essex Institute's charter gave them that task - and stipulated that the collection must remain in Salem.

As it stands, the whole ordeal has been devastating for local research. Multiple grad students have had theses interrupted by only a one week notice of the collections closing until May. Multiple local and maritime historians have been negatively impacted by the closing as it has upset publication schedules.

In short, the issue has gone from one of preservation to one of access. It is simply unacceptable. You can read some more in-depth information on the blog of SSU's history department chair here.

Can someone please recommend the best book out there on Alexander the Great? I'd love to read something authoritative about his life and times.