- Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
The "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" (sometimes known as Reliques of Ancient Poetry or simply Percy's Reliques) is a collection of
ballad s and popular songs collected byThomas Percy and published in 1765.ources
The basis of the work was the
manuscript which became known as thePercy Folio . Percy found the folio in the house of his friend Humphrey Pitt. It was on the floor and Pitt's maid had been using the leaves to light fires. Once rescued, Percy would use forty-five of the ballads in the folio for his book despite claiming the bulk of it came from this folio. Other sources were thePepys Library ofbroadside ballad s collected bySamuel Pepys and "Collection of Old Ballads " published in 1723, possibly byAmbrose Philips . Bishop Percy was encouraged to publish the work by his friendsSamuel Johnson andWilliam Shenstone who also found and contributed ballads.Percy did not treat the folio nor the work in them with scrupulous care. He wrote his own notes on the folio pages, emended the rhymes and even pulled pages out of the document. He was criticised for these actions even at the time, most notably by
Joseph Ritson a fellowantiquary . His editing of the text, although now frowned upon, made it more approachable for non-academics to read and contributed to its popularity. The folio he worked from seems to have been written by a single copyist and errors such as "pan and wale" for "wan and pale" needed correcting.Content
The "Reliques" contained one hundred and eighty ballads in three volumes with three sections in each. It contains such important ballads as "
The Ballad of Chevy Chase ", "The Battle of Otterburn ", "Lillibullero ", "The Dragon of Wantley ", "The Not-Browne Mayd " and "Sir Patrick Spens " along with ballads mentioned by or possibly inspiringShakespeare and several ballads aboutRobin Hood . The claim that the book contained samples of ancient poetry was only partially correct. The last part of each volume was given over to more contemporary works—often less than a hundred years old—included to stress the continuing tradition of the balladeer. The majority of the collection draws on the Folio and on other manuscript and printed sources, but in at least three cases anonymous informants, "ladies" in each case, contributed oral poetry known to them.The work was dedicated to Elizabeth Seymour Duchess of Northumberland who was married to
Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland . Elizabeth was part of thePercy family and a descendant ofHenry Percy , whom some of the early ballads are about. Bishop Thomas Percy also claimed to be connected to the family and although this may have been fanciful on his part, it did seem to help him secure his bishop's job.The dedication to Elizabeth meant that Thomas Percy arranged the work to give prominence to the
border ballad s which were composed in and about the Scottish and English borders specificallyNorthumberland . Percy also omitted some of the racier ballads from the Folio for fear of offending his noble patron. These were first published byF. J. Furnivall in 1868.Reception
Ballad collections had appeared before but "Percy's Reliques" seemed to capture the public imagination like no other. Not only would it inspire poets such as
Samuel Taylor Coleridge andWilliam Wordsworth to compose their own ballads in imitation, it also made the collecting and study of ballads a popular pastime. SirWalter Scott was another writer inspired by reading the "Reliques" in his youth, and he published some of the ballads he collected in "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ". The more rigorous scholarship of folklorists would eventually supersede Percy's work, most notablyFrancis James Child 'sChild Ballads , but Percy gave impetus to the whole subject.The book is also credited, in part, with changing the prevailing art movement of the 18th century,
Neo-Classicism , intoRomanticism . The neo-classicists based their art on the perceived purity ofclassical antiquity and took as their models the art ofancient Rome and Greece. The "Reliques" highlighted the traditions andfolklore of England seen as simpler and less artificial. It would inspire folklore collections and movements in other parts ofEurope and beyond, such as theBrothers Grimm , and such movements would act as the foundation ofromantic nationalism . ThePercy Society was founded in 1840 to continue the work of publishing rare ballads, poems and early texts.Bibliography
*"Bishop Percy's folio manuscript: loose and humorous songs" ed. Frederick J. Furnivall. London, 1868.
External links
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