ABSTRACT
There are, no doubt, many reasons why the study of the traditional ballad should have fallen out of favour among present-day scholars of medieval literature, but one important factor has certainly been success of David C. Fowler's Literary History of the Popular Ballad, which presents a powerful case for regarding the eighteenth century, rather than the Middle Ages, as the major creative period in the history of English and Scottish balladry. Whilst the authors must always be alert to the possibility of contamination and sophistication in the received version of any ballad, this should not blind us to the remarkable conservatism of oral transmission in general nor to its ability to preserve certain aspects of traditional culture rather more effectively than the manuscript rooms of our major libraries. At least one popular ballad, however, is recorded in the late Middle Ages and has been preserved by oral tradition in most of its essential details right down to the present day.
