The Sound of Imminent Death: Execution Ballads in Early Modern and Nineteenth-Century Europe

Since the dawn of the printing press, songs about especially newsworthy events were published. Ballads about criminals and their executions were one of the most popular subgenres. Their oral dissemination also made them an extraordinarily successful means of receiving news. Regardless of cultural level, social status, gender, or age, everyone could listen to and understand the content of a ballad about the executed. This study aims to explain not only the characteristic features of ballads about the executed but also a central aspect that may be difficult to grasp for most modern observers. This aspect is the fact that it was a common practice, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, for people to sing and listen to news of crimes and their often brutally violent punishments. This article examines ballads about the executed in English, French, German, Dutch, and Italian. It covers the period from the 16th to the 19th century, revealing the extraordinary uniformity of the genre in all languages and in all periods.