The Nut-Brown Maid

rdf:langString The Nut-Brown Maid

rdf:langString "The Nut-Brown Maid" is a ballad that made its first printed appearance in The Customs of London, also known as Arnold's Chronicle, published in 1502 by the chronicler Richard Arnold. The editor of the 1811 edition of the chronicle suggested it might be based on a German ballad.An alternative explanation is that the poem may be based on the exploits of Henry Clifford (1454-1523), the tenth Baron Clifford, and his wife Anne St John. Like the knight in the ballad, Clifford was said to have spent part of his early life as an outlaw. The literary scholar, Walter Skeat suggested the ballad was "almost certainly written by a woman" based on internal references and the poem's vigorous defence of the constancy of women.John Milton Berdan, described the ballad as the 'epitome of Medieval Latin influence'. The poem must have been popular in the early sixteenth century, since there are references to it being sold separately by 1520 for one penny. In 1537 John Scott published a religious song called 'The New Nut Brown Maid' which employed the same phraseology and the same stanza form of the original, in which the dialogue is now between the Virgin and Christ. This presumably represented an attempt to utilise a popular piece for pious purposes. The Nut-Brown Maid was apparently still popular enough in 1575 to have been performed for Queen Elizabeth at Kenilworth Castle in a show put on by the Queen's favourite, Robert Dudley. After falling into obscurity during the , 'The Nut-Brown Maid' became better known again in the eighteenth century and was reprinted many times. The earliest version was that published in the 'Muse's Mercury' for June 1707.Later versions included one by Thomas Percy in his popular and influential Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). Another widely-published version was that by the renowned nineteenth-century literary scholar William Hazlitt. Later versions of the text employ more modern spelling and orthography.