Quodlibets and fricassées

Street cries were a common feature of the urban soundscape in early modern cities such as London and Paris, Rome and Naples. ¹ The food, clothing, housewares and services being hawked by itinerant merchants played an important role in the evolving economic structures of these growing cities. In London, they also served as the inspiration for polyphonic musical settings by several composers otherwise associated with composition and performance for ecclesiastical and court patrons. Hawkers were also the subject of prints such as an English engraving from the seventeenth century which depicts male and female vendors, identified by their cries and the objects they are selling, a watchman and his dog at the centre (Figure 2.1). ² Ballads incorporating street cries were published in broadsides, and also echo in works for the stage, performed by actors playing street vendors, common characters in English plays of the seventeenth century. ³