Anonymous secular songs of the Renaissance

Although we know quite a lot of sacred and instrumental early music, the number of surviving secular Renaissance songs in Polish language is pathetically small. Forget about madrigals (if there are any, they're reconstructed from incomplete tablatures). Most of the known pieces are occasional songs, for funeral, wedding, politic or satiric use, written in simple nota contra notam technique. Perhaps not all of them are to be called "masterpieces", but it's all we have.

(English titles quoted after Włodzimierz Sołtysik)

• Lament Jeronima Szafrańca, Starosty Chęcińskiego (ca.1558) Lament Of Hieronymus Szafraniec Castellan of Chęciny On the Death of His Son
• O królach polskich (post 1458) An 'educational' song of sorts, About The Polish Kings
• Pienie o elekcji Krala polskiego Sigmunta wtórego Augusta pirwego (ca.1530) Song for the Election of the Polish King Sigismund II Augustus I.
• Pieśń o posiędzeniu i o zniewoleniu żałosnym Ziemie Węgierskiej (ca.1550) Song of the Conquest And the Sad Enslavement of the Lands of Hungary And of the Lord's Stern Warning To Evil Christians Revealed By God's Sight
• Pieśń na śmierć Hieronima Łaskiego (post 1542) Song On the Death of Hieronymus Łaski
• Pieśń o Śmierci Króla jego miłości starego Sigmunda pierwszego (1548) Song On the Death of the King His Royal Highness Sigismund I the Old
• Napis nad grobem zacnej królowej Barbary Radziwiłłówny Epitaph on the Grave of the Gentle Queen Barbara Radziwiłłówna, One Time Queen of Poland (ca. 1551)
• Pieśń nowo uczyniona na wesela Wielmożnego Pana a pana Jana Kostki A Song Newly Made For the Wedding Of His Lordship Yan Kostka of Stymbark (1555)
• Pieśń o łotrowskiem stanie obłudnych mnichów i mniszek (1560) Song On the Vile State of the Devious Monks and Nuns
• Przestrach na złe sprawy ludzkiego żywota (ca 1550) Fear of the Evils of Human Life
• Pieśń z winszowaniem Królowi nowemu Polskiemu, Henrykowi (1574) Song of Congratulations To the New Polish King Henry
• Pieśń nowa, o szczęśliwej potrzebie pod Byczyną (1558) A New Song of the Happy Need At Byczyna with Archduke Maximilian

• Duma (1589) A four instruments piece, with lyrics probably added later. I don't know much about that one.

If you think that the titles are longer than the songs themselves, then remember that each of them consisted of many verses, 8 at least. Some have 40 verses or more, and the song O królach polskich (About the Polish Kings) breaks an absolute record. It has 47 parts, one for each king, real or mystical, and each part is built up from 3 verses, which makes 141 verses in total. What a way to spend an evening singing & learning history...

• Pieśń rokoszan Zebrzydowskiego (post 1606) Song of the Rebels of Zebrzydowski This song is set apart from the others. Some musicologists say that this is the only complete Polish Renaissance song that deserves to be called a madrigal, although the lyrics are way more militant than amorous. But then, not all of the madrigals of other nations are love songs either!

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