BARRICADES PROJECT

On 16 August 1819, during the summer wakes holiday season, around 60,000 men, women, and children gathered together at St Peter’s Field in central Manchester. They marched from many outlying districts of Manchester, wearing their best clothes, carrying banners, and singing songs, including such patriotic staples as 'Rule Britannia' and 'God Save the King'. They came from Oldham and Bury, Stockport and Rochdale to hear the famous Henry 'Orator' Hunt speak on the need for electoral reform: universal male suffrage, annual elections, and a secret ballot. It was to become one of the most significant events in modern British history. Hunt took to the hustings at 2.00pm; twenty minutes later, eighteen were dead, including four women and a two-year-old child, and more than six hundred had been injured by the sabres and horses’ hooves of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry (MYC) and the Fifteenth Hussars. The Manchester Magistrates, fearful of unrest, had read the Riot Act out of an open window at the edge of the square and had subsequently given the order for the troops to arrest Hunt and the other organisers of the legal meeting. Hemmed in by buildings on all sides, there had been nowhere for the crowd to escape to and they became easy targets for a drunken yeomanry whose newly-sharpened sabres are a clear indication that they had been spoiling for a fight. As the historian E.P. Thompson so aptly notes, 'This was class war'. News of what was depicted as a massacre spread quickly throughout the country, due in part to the publication of a lengthy article in The Times on 19 August by John Tyas, the only journalist employed by a national paper present at St Peter’s Field and who was arrested alongside Hunt. In the article, he stressed the peaceful nature of the crowd, even when the MYC rode into their midst: 'Not a brick-bat was thrown at them — not a pistol was fired at them during this period — all was quiet and orderly'. Once arrests had been made, the MYC began to attack the banners and liberty caps carried by the marchers, 'cutting most indiscriminately to the right and the left in order to get at them'. Then the crowd began to fight back: 'From that moment the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry lost all command of temper'. In an ironic 'nod' to the Battle of Waterloo, fought four years earlier in 1815, the journalist, James Wroe, named the event ‘Peter Loo’ on 21 August in the Manchester Observer. Despite government and royal support for the actions of the Manchester Magistrates, the reaction to the massacre was largely condemnatory and took the form not only of newspaper articles and letters, but also of cartoons, poetry and even ceramics, many of which appeared within days of the massacre. Established radical journals, such as Leigh Hunt’s Examiner and Thomas Wooler’s Black Dwarf, voiced their outrage in the pages of their journals and were briefly joined by new publications, including The White Hat and The Briton, all of which sprang out of the wave of protest surrounding Peterloo and which fell victim to repressive legislation at the end of the year. ‘The Peterloo Man’ As with many of the songs written about Peterloo, the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry Cavalry, who inflicted most of the deaths and injuries on an unarmed people, are depicted as cowardly, primarily due to their violence towards women and children whom they deliberately targeted. Published in the radical journal, Black Dwarf, on 6 October 1819, the tone of this poem is vitriolic and the comparison with the battle-field of Waterloo only serves to highlight the cowardly nature of the yeomen at Peterloo. The Meeting at Peterloo The Bodleian Library’s Broadside Ballads Collection contains two copies of this broadside ballad, neither of which states the printer. The use of colloquial language in the song lends authenticity to what seems to be an eye-witness account of events on the day and it begins by gathering an audience to listen to the song in a centuries-old ballad tradition. The fact that the chorus is not printed suggests the audience would have been familiar with it and it may have been a version of 'With Henry Hunt We’ll Go'. There were more than seventy poems and songs published in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. Almost half of these were published in radical journals with the rest comprising broadside ballads with a few from chapbooks. Despite many of them having 'song' in their title, only nineteen state a specific tune.

Isidaore Pils's later depiction of the impact of Rouget de Lisle's singing of the Marseillaise, for all its fictive quality, captures an important truth about song in our period: it is a major medium by which to engage and move men and women. And for many people, the popular song remained a source of news, a detached representation of events of the day, a source of reflection on the vagaries of history, and a medium for questioning and testing the resilience of the status quo. In Britain, popular songs could be high or low and could move across performance spaces and between very different audiences. They could become firmly positioned with radical implications - such as the Irish Erin-go-bragh; or emerge, ephemerally rise and then sink with little trace. Tunes might similarly be firmly linked to particular songs, but could also be used (as with Derry Down) across the political spectrum, and be found endless parodied or become vehicles for new inspiration. The Vicar of Bray, about a vacillating and opportunistic clergyman in the early 1700s, can be found parodied in relation to socialist ideas late in the 19th century. What we have less sense of is the extent to which national traditions of singing, playing and circulating songs were essentially similar or different. It seems likely that predominantly rural communities would function differently from the major urban areas. But the scurrilous and bawdy song culture that eluded the police in Paris in the reign of Louis XVI does not seem exactly mirrored in Britain. And the political resonances and impact of high culture in Europe varied greatly, as we can see from the way that the Belgian Revolution of 1830 was sparked by a stirring song about liberty in an operatic performance in Brussels, and from the invocation of opera as a medium for communicating the nationalist ambitions of the Italian Risorgimento. This collection cannot do justice to the sheer variety of material available, but it does something to indicate the importance of song both to mark, to commemorate, and inspire forms of protest.

Au citoyen Guizot Sur l’air de : Les anguilles et les jeunes filles Les affaires sont terminées, Je crois que tu ne pensais pas Que l’on pouvait, en trois journées, Te faire ainsi sauter le pas. La France, jadis monarchique, Menant les choses au galop, Est maintenant en République. Qu’en dis-tu, citoyen Guizot ? Ton cher ami, ton vieux compère, Pressé, s’est montré négligent. Je crois sa douleur bien amère, Car il a laissé de l’argent ; Cet argent qu’il a dû nous prendre Sur la denrée et sur l’impôt. On parle qu’on va nous le rendre, Qu’en dis-tu, citoyen Guizot ? Pour la garde nationale, Tu sais qu’elle a tourné le dos, Seule on vit la municipale, Vouloir soutenir tes drapeaux. Jusqu’au fantassin malhonnête Qui, connaissant ton vil tripot, Tourna vers toi sa baïonnette. Qu’en dis-tu, citoyen Guizot ? Le beau château des Tuileries, Que tu visitais si souvent, N’a plus ses belles galeries, Ses dorures sont en plein vent ; La chambre à coucher de Philippe Possède au mur plus d’un accroc, Tous les salons sentent la pipe, Qu’en dis-tu citoyen Guizot ? Enfin, au pied de la Colonne, Après tous s’en être affublés, Ils ont osé porter le trône, Et là, joyeux, ils l’ont brûlé. Puis autour se pâmant d’aise, Car ça brûlait comme un fagot, Ils ont chanté la Marseillaise, Qu’en dis-tu, citoyen Guizot ? Si jamais tu revois ton maître, Dis-lui qu’on a goûté son vin, Qu’un gaillard qui doit s’y connaître M’a dit l’avoir trouvé divin. Bien qu’encore au sein de ces caves On dût l’oublier aussitôt, Car on trinquait toujours aux braves, Qu’en dis-tu, citoyen Guizot ? Dans ton hôtel du ministère, Sabre en main, chacun te cherchait, Tous les yeux brillaient de colère, Penses-tu ce qu’on te voulait ! Mais déjà du beau sol de France Tu fuyais sans doute au grand trot, Ton hôtel nous sert d’ambulance, Qu’en dis-tu, citoyen Guizot ? Eugène Baillet, Au citoyen Guizot, [Toute fin février ou tout début mars 1848] Lendemains immédiats de révolution : dans l’élan des trois journées victorieuses de février 1848 le jeune chansonnier parisien Eugène Baillet fait entendre sa voix en produisant un texte à lire mais aussi – et surtout – à chanter. Né le 20 octobre 1829 dans le monde de l’artisanat, Baillet quitte l’école à dix ans et il fait deux ans plus tard son apprentissage chez un bijoutier. Il devient ouvrier bijoutier. Très tôt il fréquente les goguettes, notamment les Enfants du temple où il se lie avec les principaux chansonniers de la monarchie de Juillet – notamment Charles Gille, son aîné, un chef de file de la goguette militante d’opposition, et qui connaît déjà le succès. La première chanson de Baillet a pour titre Les Héros de la Bastille et selon toutes les apparences elle est diffusée en 1847 sous forme de feuille volante. Âgé de dix-huit ans en février 1848, Baillet prend fait et cause pour la révolution et pour la république. Au citoyen Guizot et d’autres créations signées de lui (Le Cri des Français et Ventôse), en témoignent. Sur un ton à la fois moqueur et vindicatif, Au citoyen Guizot évoque les causes et les caractéristiques de la chute brutale de la monarchie de Juillet. Le président du Conseil Guizot, sur la route de l’exil, est la cible principale de Baillet. Dans la deuxième strophe le texte vise aussi le « vieux compère » de Guizot, Pierre-Sylvain Dumon, ministre des Finances entre mai 1847 et le 23 février 1848, exécuteur de la politique du président du Conseil sur diverses questions sensibles (tarifs postaux, impôt sur le sel, rentes). Bien entendu Au citoyen Guizot éreinte aussi le roi déchu Louis-Philippe 1er, contraint à fuir les Tuileries. Chacune de ces trois figures de la monarchie est tournée en dérision par un peuple goguenard dans un processus de retournement carnavalesque des rôles politiques : déchéance du roi et de son entourage, souveraineté et légitimité du peuple. Ce peuple, c’est celui de Février et aussi celui de Juillet 1830 : le trône est brûlé au pied de la « Colonne » commémorant les Trois Glorieuses. Baillet, sur le ton familier de la poésie populaire (« On parle qu’on va nous le rendre »), tutoie Guizot et rebaptise le roi « Philippe ». Pour dénoncer Guizot et les siens Baillet évoque dès le premier vers la question des « affaires » qui dans les domaines politique, économique et moral empoisonnent les dernières années de la monarchie de Juillet ; il met à jour la confusion entre affaires publiques et affaires privées : le peuple qui entre aux Tuileries dévoile la luxueuse intimité de la chambre, des salons et des caves du roi. Par la révolution, la France – terme employé à la fois dans la première et dans la dernière des strophes – a repris ses droits. Au Citoyen Guizot, qui laisse résonner La Marseillaise dans sa cinquième strophe, est fait pour être chanté. Dans la tradition du vaudeville Eugène Baillet fait usage de la pratique du timbre (« réutiliser des airs anciens pour y adapter des paroles nouvelles » selon les mots de Romain Benini). Chanté sur un air connu et bien rythmé, son texte n’en circule que mieux. Mais les paroles correspondant à l’air d’origine ont également ici toute leur place. L’air « Les anguilles et les jeunes filles » renvoie à une œuvre de la fin de la Restauration (1827) intitulée Masaniello ou le Pêcheur napolitain. Le pêcheur Matteo y chante : « Les pêcheurs de toutes nos rades / Devant moi baissent pavillon. / De mon talent, chers camarades, / Vous voyez un échantillon : / Saumons, turbot, fines anguilles, / Tour à tour tombent dans mes rêts ; / Et même jusqu’aux jeunes filles… / Moi je prends tout dans mes filets. » Matteo est le frère de Masaniello (Tommaso Anielo), un pêcheur néopolitain qui a accédé au pouvoir en 1647 grâce à un soulevement populaire, mais qui était alors considéré comme poursuivant son propre avantage et a été renversé par le peuple Si l’on s’appuie sur la riche analyse de Romain Benini, on peut considérer que le comportement de Guizot fait écho à celui de Matteo : l’ex-président du Conseil est « un beau parleur et un voleur » ; dans cette perspective, « chaque couplet nargue l’allocutaire à propos d’un élément du faste monarchique qui lui est retiré. D’ailleurs, la représentation commune et stéréotypée de Guizot au lendemain de Février est bien entre autres celle d’un voleur ou d’un complice des vols de Louis-Philippe. » Romain Benini conclut que, de la sorte, Baillet accentue « la signification subversive et narquoise de sa chanson ». Références : Masaniello ou Le Pêcheur napolitain, drame historique en 4 actes de Mrs Moreau et Lafortelle, représenté pour la première fois sur le théâtre royal de l'Opéra-Comique le jeudi 27 X.bre 1827, par Michele Carafa (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k91166750/f64.item). Romain Benini, Filles du peuple ? - Pour une stylistique de la chanson au XIXe siècle, Lyon, ENS éditions, 2021. Philippe Darriulat, "Baillet Eugène", dans Le aitron (https://maitron.fr/spip.php?article25589)

In the spring of 1848, as revolution spread from Palermo and Paris across large swathes of the continent, one country remained conspicuously quiet: Belgium. The reasons for this are not immediately clear. Belgium had come into being through revolution only a few years before in 1830: the country clearly possessed a revolutionary history and tradition. It was close to the epicentre of events in France, and Belgian exiles in Paris were busy organizing propaganda and recruiting among the large number of Belgian migrant workers in France to form a Belgian Legion which could carry armed revolution back over the border. The economic conditions in Belgium were, if anything, even worse than in France, and so ostensibly more propitious for civil conflict. This was especially true in the provinces of East and West Flanders. British competition had effectively wiped out the most important in the region, the linen industry, during the 1840s. The potato blight had ruined three harvests in a row, undermining the peasant farmers’ and smallholders’ ability to feed themselves. Even before 1848 local and national government recognized that the labouring populations of Flanders were suffering a crisis of hunger, poverty and unemployment. One of the authorities’ answers to this crisis was to invest in lace schools which proliferated across the two Flanders. However, the revolution of February 1848 in Paris would deal a blow to this industry too. Flemish lace was made for export, mostly to France. Luxury trades were always the first to suffer during political turmoil. The French fashion houses weren’t buying, which meant the Belgian merchants were left with stock on their hands, which meant that they stopped putting out work to their domestic female workforce. (1) This crisis affected not both rural areas and important towns like Courtrai, Bruges and Ypres where lace remained the most important employer of female labour. The local authorities were particularly worried because, as much male employment was seasonal, over winter whole families depended on the wages that lacemakers brought in. On 13 March, little more than a fortnight since news of the revolution arrived in the city, the lace merchants of Ypres got together to lobby the government in Brussels on behalf of their industry.(2) They sent a deputation to the Minister of the Interior, telling him that in the borough of Ypres alone there were more than 20,000 lacemakers, that lace was the sole industry of any importance to survive the crisis years of the 1840s, but that now this population too was threatened with misery. They warned of ‘grave disorders’ if something was not done.(3)And something was done, as the Government provided 60,000 francs of credit to the lace merchants, so that they could keep putting out orders to their workers. Or at least that was the idea, there is some dispute about what actually happened to the money.(4)‘Lacemakers don’t protest’ wrote one of their foremost Belgian chroniclers, explaining their invisibility in history.(5) And so it proved in 1848, despite the fears of the authorities in Ypres and elsewhere. West Flanders in general remained remarkably calm, despite occasional incursions by radicals and armed groups from France. The border, only fourteen kilometres away from Ypres, was reinforced, adding an extra layer of difficulty for lace exporters (and smugglers). However, there were some attempts to provoke lacemakers to action. Thursday 26 June 1848 was ‘Kleinsacramentsdag’, the Thursday following Corpus Christi. This was the holy day of Ypres lacemakers, and the Wednesday preceding was ‘Mooimakersdag’, the lacemakers’ holiday was usually celebrated in style. The lace schools were festooned with garlands of flowers, while troops of lacemakers in fancy dress, and led by their ‘queen’, were carried off on waggons to picnics in the surrounding countryside. In preparation for this holiday, printers would produce new songbooks which were sold in the market-squares and other public places by street-singers.(6) On 25 June 1848 one such broadside song drew the attention of the authorities, and it is reproduced below. Stemme van den Boterpot no 1 of den Brabanson A la vrienden wilt hier aenhooren, En blyft een weinig staen, Ik zalt u in korte gaen verklaeren, Hoe het in dese stad zal vergaen, Kantwerkster, gy mag het wel weten, t' Is van onze kante marchands, Zy hebben lang genoeg ons herte uitgefreten, Bis Deeze verkens moeten nu van kant. Bis, Bis. De kleermaekers zynder espres gekomen, Uyt de groote stad Parys, Zy hebben het nieuws nu al vernomen, Zy kreygen daer van den eersten prys, Al voor de kazakken te keeren, Van plaidons en kanten marchands, Zy zullen haest de fransch tael gaen leeren, Bis. Dees verraeders moeten uyt ons land. Bis, Bis. Dat zullen deze capoenen gaen vaeren, De plaidons zyn nu afgeschaft, Want wy beginnen daer op te dinken, Dees verraeders hebben te veel gemaekt, Zy maeken met ons geld veele plaisieren, Om te marcheren met trommels en muzik, Wy zullen klouk op hun kazakke vieren, Bis. Tot een exempel voor ons Belzyk. Bis, Bis. Wy zullen onze mode doen floreeren, Door het maeken van een nieuw kazak, En wy ambagsheden zonder mankeren, Hebben ook deeze mode aengevat, Wy zullen drinken en glaezen doen klinken, Tot floreeren voor weird en weirdin, En de marchands van kanten te doen springen, Bis Dat hebben wy al lang in onzen zin. Bis, Bis. Spellewerkster laet het u niet verdrieten, Om tegen dees barbaeren op te staen, Zy zullen ons bloed niet meer doen vergieten, Wy zullen stryden voor ons vaen, Al voor het geld dat zy ons hebben genomen, Van onze kanten en gaeren-bak, Die schoone francs moeten weder keeren, Bis. Dat zy van ons hebben afgepakt. Bis, Bis. Kantwerkster al voor het letste, En laet deeze zaeke niet meer staen, Want ik raent u voor het alderbeste, Eer dat zy bancroute zouden slaen, En laet ons nu defenderen, t'Is voor ons eygen vleesch en bloed, Dan zullen wy ons plaisieren doen ernemen. Bis. Al met het geld van onze kanten zoet. Bis, Bis. Eynde. To the tune of ‘The Butterpot’ no 1 of The Brabançonne To friends who want to listen And stay a while here, I shall explain to you directly How things fare in this city. Lacemaker, you know it already, It’s about our lace merchants They have been feasting on our hearts long enough, These pigs need to get out the way.The tailors [buyers] have come on purpose From the great city of Paris They have heard the news, They expect to get the best price, Ready to turn the coats Of prud’hommes and lace merchants They’ll quickly learn French, These traitors must be expelled. To send these capons packing The prud’hommes are now abolished, Because we’re beginning to think That these traitors have made too much, They have had too much fun with our money, Marching around with drums and music, We should boldly celebrate on their jackets As an example for our Belgium [?] We should make our fashion flourish, By making a new jacket, And then we’ll celebrate without stint, If we get a hold on this fashion, We should drink and clink glasses And so let innkeeper and his wife flourish, And the lace merchants can go take a leap We’ve wanted that for a long time. Lacemaker, don’t let it grieve you To face up to these barbarians, We won’t let them shed our blood anymore, We will fight for our standard, And for the money that they took from us, For our lace and thread casket, The beautiful coins must return, That they snatched from us. Lacemakers, finally, Don’t let this situation continue, Because I urge you for your own good, Before you go bankrupt, And let us defend ourselves, It’s for our own flesh and blood, Then we can enjoy ourselves, With the money from our sweet lace. We admit that some elements of this song, which was discovered by the archivist Joseph De Smet, remain opaque to us.(7) We don’t really understand the author’s interest in ‘kazakken’ or jackets (perhaps it had some dialect meaning). We don’t know the tune ‘The Butterpot’, though La Brabançonne refers to the revolutionary anthem of 1830 which is now the Belgian national anthem. However, we can explain who were the ‘plaidons’ or ‘prud’hommes’ mentioned in the text. The conseil des prud’hommes was an early form of industrial tribunal whose members were elected from both the employers and, in theory, workers. The Ypres tribunal, set up in 1842, consisted of seven members, of which at least two had to be lace-merchants and one a male foreman or senior employee in the industry. However, in practice, almost all the members represented the employers; no employee representatives could be found for the simple reason that there were no male employees or tax-paying artisans of the kind designated by the legislation in the lace industry. No female lace merchant (of which there were several) nor any female lacemaker (of which there were thousands) could participate either as electors or as members of the tribunal. Yet almost the entire business of the tribunal was taken up by the lace industry: in 1846, of the sixty-two cases it judged, sixty-one involved lacemakers; in 1847 out of forty-three cases, forty-one involved lacemakers.(8)And the lacemakers of Ypres were not happy with its rulings. As the local papers observed, whatever the merits of such a system in an industrial town with a clearly defined employing class and a strong, organized and, by the requirements of the legislation, male workforce, it was ‘clearly not fit for the lace industry’ which was diffuse and dominated by a female workforce.(9) If merchants cut lacemakers’ remuneration, claiming the work was shoddy or dirty, the lacemakers could only complain to the conseil des prud’hommes where they found exactly the same merchants sitting in judgement.(10) In particular, lacemakers complained that lace merchants were attempting to force on them the dreaded ‘livret’, or workbook which would effectively end their limited ability to negotiate wages by tying them to a single employer. (11) In June 1847 the agitation had grown so great that the Mayor of Ypres placed public notices in the newspapers (unusually in Flemish) stating that he had written to parliament and to the ministry of Justice to make them aware of the lacemakers’ concerns. In October 1847 a tailor, Pierre Maerten, organized a petition on behalf of the lacemakers against the prud’hommes.(12) Neither action seems to have brought a positive result: of the seven members of the tribunal elected in January 1848, five were lace merchants.(13) This is why the song links lace merchants and prud’hommes together as enemies of lacemakers. The authorities soon got wind of this would-be rebel anthem. The state prosecutor sent a copy to the Governor of West-Flanders on 1 July. The author was identified and arrested: his name was Auguste Plancque, a former NCO in the Belgian army, but then a day-labourer. We do not know what punishment Plancque suffered but it was probably not too serious because when he died, in 1885, he was described as a retired postman, the kind of job that was often thought suitable for military veterans.(14) The Ypres register of births, deaths and marriages also provides an explanation for Planque’s particular interest in the lace industry: in February 1843 he had married Marie de Graeve, a lacemaker.(15)

In the Vormärz period leading up to the revolution of March 1848 in Germany, a whole host of political themes emerge in songs in which a new oppositional political consciousness is reflected. One of the most well-known is ‘Das Blutgericht’ (The Blood Court), an anonymous protest song, expressing the misery of the Silesian weavers immediately before their uprising in Peterswaldau and Langenbielau from 3-6 June 1844. It is a personal attack on the local factory owners who due to international competition kept reducing the weavers’ wages to the point where they could no longer feed themselves. The factory owners, ‘die Zwanziger’ are cursed as hangmen and thugs. The writer hopes that they will be called to account in the next life, though adding bitterly that such cynical people have neither religion nor beliefs. The poem shows the recognition that profit is gained at the cost of the workers. Several police reports reveal how the song was sung by the weavers during the riots of June 1844 in which, after the intervention of the Prussian military, 11 were killed, 26 injured and 112 arrested. Much of the police investigation centred round the unsuccessful attempt to establish the identity of the author. ‘Das Blutgericht’ was sung to the well-known tune of the seventeenth century ballad ‘Das Schloß in Östterreich’ (The Castle in Austria). It was a widespread practice to use such well known melodies as a vehicle for transporting political messages. The music becomes an intertextual devise whereby its thematic associations in relation to its original text can have either an affirmative or a satirical function. Significantly ‘Das Schloß in Österreich’ is about the unjust imprisonment of a young lad in a castle dungeon at the hands of despotic nobles who account to nobody for their actions. Another famous song of the 1848/49 Revolution is the ‘Das Badische Wiegenlied’ (Baden Lullaby) written by Ludwig Pfau (1821–1894) and first published in his own magazine Eulenspiegel in December 1849. In the form of a nursery rhyme, the text takes a critical stance towards the Prussian troops who had suppressed the Baden revolution in July 1849 after a three-week-long siege of the Rastatt fortress. The effect of Pfau’s text is basically achieved by the sharp contrast between the innocent style of the lullaby and the bitter political content. At the beginning and end of each verse, the mother beseeches her child to sleep quietly and justifies this with reference to the Prussian troops outside, who are taking reprisals against revolutionaries. In the last verse, however, there is a twist whereby the mother changes her appeal: when the day of freedom comes, the child should no longer sleep, but rather scream out that revenge has been taken against the Prussians: ‘Schrei mein Kindlein, schrei’s: / Dort draussen liegt der Preuss’ (Scream out my child, scream out: / The Prussian is lying out there). Even before his poem was issued in Stuttgart, Pfau had to flee to Switzerland because of his participation in the Baden uprising. A little later, his text was set to music by an unknown composer and published as a song with piano accompaniment which circulated among the German refugees in Strasbourg. For "Das Blutgericht", sung by Juergen Wolff, playing with the Leipziger Folksession Band (CD: Loewenzahn, 1998), see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRBs9m9rVnA For "Badisches Wiegenlied". in a recording from 1983 by Wacholder, a GDR folk group, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asgg6G6e8to

The Maria da Fonte was a women-led rural tax-riot in Portugal that sparked a provincial revolt (in Minho) and a civil war in the north of the country between the then-ruling conservative liberals (Cartistas) and an ad-hoc coalition of progressives and absolutists (Patuleias). A marching tune was composed by Angelo Frondoni (an Italian musician who made career in Portugal), and it became a popular progressive anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE4UmdEeL2w Viva a Maria da Fonte Com as pistolas na mão Para matar os cabrais Que são falsos à nação É avante Portugueses É avante sem temer Pela santa Liberdade Triunfar ou perecer Viva a Maria da Fonte A cavalo e sem cair Com as pistolas à cinta A tocar a reunir Lá raiou a liberdade Que a nação há-de aditar Glória ao Minho que primeiro O seu grito fez soar Or, in English: Long live Maria da Fonte With pistols in her hand To kill the government’s forces (PM was Costa Cabral) Who are traitors Forward Portuguese Forward fearlessly For holy liberty To triumph or perish Long live Maria da Fonte With her strong horse With pistols in her belt Sounding the call to arms There shone the rays of liberty That the nation will follow Glory to the Minho which was the first To make its voice heard

The Brabançonne is the national anthem of Belgium. The text was written shortly after the outbreak of the Belgian Revolution, which started with riots in Brussels after the performance of the opera La Muette di Portici on 25 August 1830. It was published on 7 September 1830 in the newspaper Courrier des Pays-Bas, which was notorious for its criticism of the government of King William I. This is reflected in the text of the Brabançonne, in which the King is asked to respect the rights of the people of the southern Netherlands: ‘Nassau, consacre enfin nos droits’. The author, Alexandre-Hippolyte Dechet, better known by his pseudonym Jenneval, was a young French actor working in Brussels. After its publication, the text was set to music by the violin player and singer François van Campenhout. From then on, the song's popularity rose quickly, and it was used as a means to express Belgian patriotism. The text was adjusted several times during the Belgian Revolution to reinforce its anti-Dutch and patriotic message. In 1860, the text was rendered more neutral, as the critical references to the former Dutch king William I were left out. Image: Lithography after painting by Antoine Van Hammée (1836-1903): Van Campenhout sings the Brabançonne (source: Wikipedia, Public Domain: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braban%C3%A7onne_(volkslied)#/media/File:Campenhout_chantant.png)

There were more than seventy poems and songs published in the immediate aftermath of the massacre. Almost half of these were published in radical journals, with the rest comprising broadside ballads and a few from chapbooks. Despite many of them having 'song' in their title, only nineteen state a specific tune. Turning to poetry and song as a vehicle for political protest was nothing new in 1819; already in the 1790s the marriage of song and political expression was used by radicals as a crucial form of expression. Poems and songs have a longstanding tradition within English folk culture as a swiftly produced and widely disseminated method of information, commemoration, and protest. The broadside ballad with its diversity of subject-matter and accessibility of style was the cornerstone of folk culture from Tudor times until the mid-Victorian era, when the increase in newspapers led to its decline. The radical press in 1819 sought to replicate the immediacy and accessibility of the broadside as part of a wider cultural response to the events in Manchester as well as contributing in innovative ways to the English tradition of protest poetry. What is of note regarding the ballads and songs of Peterloo is the speed with which they were written and published as well as the variety of genres used by the largely unknown balladeers to convey the grief, rage, and horror felt by the majority of the English people for the murder and maiming of their compatriots. ‘Manchester Yeomanry Valour’ This song was published in two radical newspapers: the Manchester Observer on 18 September 1819 and Medusa on 30 October 1819, aimed at both a London and Manchester readership. To mark the 150th anniversary of Peterloo, the song appeared in the Stockport Advertiser on 14 August 1969. The unnamed poet begins by directly appealing to St Peter before turning his anger on the cowardly MYC who injured and killed the defenceless. No tune was given for the original version, although the strong rhythm and rhyme suggest it would have been sung. 'The Manchester Massacre, or Adieu to Slavery' The tune for this song is ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled’, a popular tune for radical songs, including three in the Peterloo collection. In 1793, Robert Burns wrote his famous lyrics in which Robert the Bruce addresses his troops on the eve of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 to a traditional Scottish tune, 'Hey Tuttie Tatie’'. 'The Manchester Massacre' was published around 1820 in The Radical Reformers’ New Song Book, Being a Collection of Patriotic Songs, a chapbook published by John Marshall, a Newcastle radical and printer. 'It is Lovely to Die for Our Country' This poignant elegy equates the deaths of those at St Peter’s Field with soldiers on the battlefield and Christ on the cross. The title reminds the reader of Wilfred Owen’s 'Dulce et Decorum Est', written a century later amidst the horror of the First World War, with both poems evoking a bitterness at the waste of life. This elegy mourns the lack of honour and ceremony accorded to the victims but is confident that, spread by a 'holy flame', this death will inspire many. It was published in the White Hat in 1819, one of the most ephemeral of the radical journals which emerged in the aftermath of Peterloo.

El Trágala was a Spanish revolutionary song composed soon after the triumph of the 1820 revolution. Radical liberals sang it at public gatherings, often as part of street protest events and patriotic festivals. It was used to single out and shame those suspected of compromising, or of sympathising with absolutism. On 3 September 1820, the singing of El Trágala during a theatre performance in Madrid at which Lieutenant Colonel Riego was the guest of honour – there are contradictory reports on whether he actually joined the chorus – sparked the first of many crises pitting the radicals against the moderates. The music and the lyrics drew on popular tradition. The performance, following the script of charivari songs, featured a lead singer, who often adapted the words to local circumstances, followed by the crowd singing the chorus: 'swallow it [the constitution], dog, swallow it, swallow it'. Some contemporaries called it the Ça Ira of the Spanish Revolution and, for the non-radicals, it represented the intransigence and violent disposition of the liberal mob. The riotous singing caused such a prominent debate that one version from 1821 was self-referential: ‘They say that El Trágala is insulting but only the ruffians feel the injury. Swallow it and die, you slave because in Spain, bedbugs die’. During the civil (Carlist) war of the 1830s, pro-Isabella militiamen often played the tune on the church organ during mass as part of the ritual of liberating a town or village from absolutist hands.

Modern acapella rendition by Chumbawamba of an original by Ben Boucher dating from the 1840s.