Singing together is a tried and true method of establishing and maintaining a group’s identity. Identity, Intertextuality, and Performance in Early Modern Song Culture for the first time explores comparatively the dynamic process of group formation through the production and appropriation of songs in various European countries and regions. Drawing on oral, handwritten and printed sources, with examples ranging from 1450 to 1850, the authors investigate intertextual patterns, borrowing of melodies, and performance practices as these manifested themselves in a broad spectrum of genres including ballads, popular songs, hymns and political songs. The volume intends to be a point of departure for further comparative studies in European song culture. Contributors are: Ingrid Åkesson, Mary-Ann Constantine, Patricia Fumerton, Louis Peter Grijp, Éva Guillorel, Franz-Josef Holznagel, Tine de Koninck, Christopher Marsh, Hubert Meeus, Nelleke Moser, Dieuwke van der Poel, Sophie Reinders, David Robb, Clara Strijbosch, and Anne Marieke van der Wal.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Notes on the Editors Notes on the Contributors List of Illustrations 1 Introduction Louis Peter Grijp and Dieuwke van der Poel 2 Local and Religious Identity in Swedish Popular Hymn Singing during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries Ingrid Åkesson 3 Performing Pietism in the Peatlands: Songs in the Manuscript Miscellany of a Village Schoolmaster in the Dutch Republic between 1750 and 1800 Nelleke Moser 4 Guilielmus Bolognino’s Den Gheestelijcken Leeuwercker: The Collected Songs of a Counter-Reformation Champion Hubert Meeus and Tine de Koninck 5 Songs and Identities: Handwritten Secular Songbooks in German-Speaking Areas of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries Franz-Josef Holznagel 6 ‘Social Networking is in our DNA’: Women’s Alba Amicorum as Places to Build and Affirm Group Identities Sophie Reinders 7 The Many Shades of Love: Possessors and Inscribers of Sixteenth-Century Women’s Alba Clara Strijbosch 8 Exploring Love’s Options: Song and Youth Culture in the Sixteenth Century Netherlands Dieuwke van der Poel 9 Oppositional Political Identity in the Song Culture of the Vormärz and the 1848 Revolution in Germany David Robb 10 The Perils of Performance: From Political Songs to National Airs in Romantic-Era Wales (1790–1820) Mary-Ann Constantine 11 Folksongs, Conflicts and Social Protest in Early Modern France Éva Guillorel 12 “Fortune My Foe”: The Circulation of an English Super-Tune Christopher Marsh 13 Samuel Pepys and the Making of Ballad Publics Patricia Fumerton 14 Slave Orchestras and Rainbow Balls: Colonial Culture and Creolisation at the Cape of Good Hope, 1750–1838 Anne Marieke van der Wal Index Nominum