A broadside ballad by the name "A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves" was registered by Richard Jones at the London Stationers' Company in September 1580,[1][2] and the tune is found in several late 16th-century and early 17th-century sources, such as Ballet's MS Lute Book and Het Luitboek van Thysius, as well as various manuscripts preserved in the Seeley Historical Library in the University of Cambridge.

A broadside ballad by this name was registered at the London Stationer's Company in September 1580,[1] by Richard Jones, as "A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves".

[8] In Nevill Coghill's translation of The Canterbury Tales,[9] he explains that "green [for Chaucer's age] was the colour of lightness in love.

[11] In Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor (written c. 1597; first published in 1602), the character Mistress Ford refers twice to "the tune of 'Greensleeves'", and Falstaff later exclaims: Let the sky rain potatoes!

The romanesca originated in Spain[12] and is composed of a sequence of four chords with a simple, repeating bass, which provide the groundwork for variations and improvisation.