ABSTRACT
The approach adopted in this chapter will be morphological. Its purpose is to describe the principal varieties of artifact and performance in European popular culture, and the formal conventions of each. It is concerned with the code rather than the messages (a cultural code which has to be mastered before the meaning of individual messages can be deciphered). It attempts to provide a brief inventory of the stock or repertoire of the forms and conventions of popular culture, but not a history of them before 1500, although many of these forms and conventions go back a long way.
