Introduction:
The printing press, first developed in Germany in the mid-fifteenth century, “was the great innovation in early modern information technology” (Dittmar). With literacy increasing across Europe, the creation of a more efficient, improved printing press offered significant economical incentives for adoption (Moran). As it diffused across Europe, it would play a crucial role in cities’ social development. However, not all cities adopted this new technology: because of a variety of factors, including proximity to the press’s origination in Mainz, some cities were more likely to experience the impacts of the movable printing press. In these cities, the printing press began to control how knowledge proliferated. The printing press had a significant impact on the religious and scientific bodies of work at the time (Woodward). Moreover, the printing trade expanded to include news pamphlets in an increasingly independent industry from traditional publishing (Moran). For the first time, genuine industries were developing in the world of written information.
The ability to print and distribute media “played a key role in the development of numeracy, the emergence of business education, and the adoption of innovations in bookkeeping and accounting” (Dittmar). Similarly, the influx of literateness and printed literature allowed religious and scientific ideas to reach much larger populations and travel much more effectively. Particularly with regard to new scientific ideas, this allowed for more effective verification and subsequently higher validity of these concepts (Woodward). By impacting social, scientific, and religious aspects of early modern life, the printing press quickly became instrumental fifteenth-, sixteenth-, and seventeenth-century Europe. Cities that adopted the press benefited from population growth, faster technological development, and a higher returns on labor, which in turn created richer city cultures and drew more migrants (Dittmar). The mere existence of printing presses also facilitated increased literacy rates, contributing to the cultural boom in these cities (Eisenstein). London, a kingpin in Europe for the following centuries, was one of such city. It underwent a genuine transformation as a result of the printing press towards greater literacy, increased science and economics, and more generally accessible information across the city.
Printing Shops:
Concurrent with the growing prevalence of the printing press was the power of the printing shops in which they were housed. As printing shops sprinkled throughout London, they became centralized locations for economic dealings, news sources, and providers of religious text. With the growing literacy rates, print shops made intellectual activity accessible to the common man – print shops “served as a kind of institute for advanced learning … which rivaled the older university, court, and academy” (Eisenstein). As such, these shops exploded in popularity. With the establishment of the Copyright Act of 1709, writing and printing became legitimate and influential professions protected by law (Steinberg). This law caused authors’ work to be recognized as a genuine product, with protected legal value, that they could market and sell however they wanted to maximize profitability (Steinberg). With this security in the eyes of the law, the buyers and sellers were protected as well. The publishers were actually the driving force behind the Copyright Act of 1709; copyrighting published works combatted privacy such that publishers no longer had to compete with illegal undercutting (Steinberg). Instead, the publishers could “fix the price of his wares at a level at which… ensured him a reasonable profit and permitted him to let his author share in it” (Steinberg). Writing became viable as an economically sound career, as long as authors catered to an alive and interested audience (Steinberg).
Printing Ecosystem:
A new ecosystem in the world of publishing developed, comprised of a printer, publisher, bookseller, and author (Steinberg). These terms, however, do not match directly to their modern interpretation. The printer was perhaps an owner of a shop, but more importantly, he was the person physically creating the book or pamphlet. The publisher, on the other hand, is more similar to the modern term ‘literary agent’ – he would connect authors and printers to facilitate the production of a written work. As the industry developed, the “growing importance of the publisher over the printer” became clear through the omission of the printer’s name in many published works (Steinberg). Conversely, the name of the publisher was almost always included, rarely supplanted by that of the printer or bookseller (Steinberg). This came as a result of a more established and organized retail trade, giving the publisher agency to more between different printers and still garner success (Steinberg). Though it was not without bumps, this interconnected industry allowed for all the different roles to thrive.
Stationers’ Company:
The influence of the printing shops was inevitably checked by the royal and institutional powers in England. The Stationers’ Company, founded in 1404, came into existence as a society of bookbinders and writers. The profession of so-called ‘stationers’ developed with the rise of the printing press “as the persons who bought from the printers the books which they bound and sold” before selling to the general public (Holdsworth). This organization operated somewhat insularly to regulate prices of, and censor information within, the books being published at the time (Holdsworth). On one hand, the royal ordinances limiting publishing were beneficial to the London producers of literature – there was a ban on book publishing (with the exception of one press at Oxford and Cambridge, respectively) outside of London from 1586 until 1695 via the Licensing Act (Steinberg). This allowed London literary figures to monopolize the industry. On the other hand, royal interference was extremely limiting. For example, at one point only two men were given the right to print all liturgical books within the country’s borders (Steinberg).
Perhaps the most palpable effect of the royal meddling was the Stationers’ Company receiving a royal charter to find and prosecute those who played a role in creating or distributing “heretical or seditious writings” in 1557 (Steinberg). In exchange, the Company possessed the authority to “make orders, to charge fees, to settle industrial disputes, to supervise the education of the apprentices, to search for and destroy books printed in contravention of any statue, act, or proclamation” (Holdsworth). However, the tangible result of this charter was an omnipotent organization that monopolized and restricted the growth of the publishing industry, instead acting as a mere branch of England’s executive powers for many years (Steinberg).
Later in the 17th century, this chokehold began to ease; the Stationers’ Company trended more towards an independent body as time went on. Although they continued to battle royal censorship and control, the government and stationers were able to reach slightly more equitable deals as public interest in literary materials grew and censorship efforts were circumvented (Boys). Thus the Company was able to prosper from more internal guidance instead of governmental control. In fact, the Stationer’s Company is still alive and well today, though it has morphed a great deal since its beginnings.
Royal Censorship:
The royal movement against seditious writings was reaffirmed in 1624 when James I required any book or pamphlet that touched on religion or government to be approved prior to printing – similarly, no books could be imported without explicit permission (Boys). However, after the strict control by the Stationer’s Company in the sixteenth century, James I gave more leeway overall to the printing industry. Of course, direct critiques of the monarchy, like John Reynolds’ attack on James I “for failure to protect his daughter and son-in-law”, still received punishment: Reynolds was imprisoned as a result (Boys). However, less grievance offenses that would have still warranted backlash in the previous century went unchecked under James I. For example, a play by Thomas Middleton offended a Spanish ambassador because of its implications about Spain. Although there was a request for investigation, “Middleton was not severely punished and no follow-up action seems to have been taken against the printers who were making copies without license or entry”, showing that “this play is evidence of a new leniency” (Boys).
Within the constraints of the Stationers’ Company, the book-trade in England became immensely political and inter-connected. The publishers themselves, notably those in the Stationers’ Company, became equally as influential as the authors. Just as an author’s body of work is viewed as contiguous and evaluated as a whole, so too ought to a publisher’s collection. This was the level of political influence that publishers commanded; any work related to their name generally followed one particular set of themes or ideas (McMullan). As time progressed, publishers continued to grow in power and prestige as the kingpins of the literary market.
News Overview:
The Thirty Years’ War set the stage for a blossoming news industry to thrive in England as anxious citizens sought information about the Protestant cause across Europe (Boys). This interest in written foreign policy represented an untapped market that printers were quick to fill. Prior to the proliferation of the printing press, the way in which the common population received such news was limited to primarily word-of-mouth. In fact, these publishers are credited with the very invention of the word ‘publish’ (Boys). Yet it was uncharted grounds – the Stationers’ Company, as it navigated these unfamiliar waters, tiptoed between economic success and offending the government (Boys). They were juggling everything from networking to subscriptions to censorship (Boys). The result was a collaboration between five publishers to release periodical news pamphlets under a royally ordained license in 1622. As this syndicate evolved, it went on to include the likes of Nathaniel Butter, who was also a prominent publisher in the book/play realm (Boys). Over the next twenty years, other publications also exploded in popularity as they reported upon tense foreign affairs (Boys).
Corantos:
Corantos were news pamphlets that originated in Amsterdam but quickly spread into London, bringing news of foreign affairs and international wars from the Continent. In 1620, the first Coranto reached London with the information that the King of Bohemia had been overthrown (Boys). Though this original Coranto was published by a prominent Dutchmen – who, importantly, had connections within the English stationers – his name was quickly omitted in its circulation as the target audience migrated to London instead of the Netherlands (Boys). Given the great interest that the Corantos garnered, continued publications were planned for the next year. However, in December of 1620, James I forbade any publishing about international affairs in an attempt to quell tensions and avoid war. This extended to any form of public discourse or international imports that mentioned international affairs (Boys). He even reached out directly to the Dutch government and forbade them for exporting such documents to England (Boys). Because James I had political aspirations that were reliant on Catholic Spain, his public demonstration of support for the Protestant cause was insufficient (Boys). His solution to public dissatisfaction was simply censorship (Boys). Yet the country’s anxiety was too high for James I to merely dismiss it; instead, he was forced to call upon Parliamentary support to handle news reporting on foreign affairs (Boys).
Of course, the publishers immediately found ways to circumvent the mandates. By arranging deals with the Dutch news sources, they shifted publication to be London-based and underground (Boys). Still, the first attempts at this illicit publication ring were unsuccessful: Thomas Archer, one of the first publishers to attempt circumventing the royal mandates, was caught, fined, and imprisoned in 1621 (Boys). Edward Allde, another prominent publisher, was similarly questioned and fined for his publication of illicit materials (Boys). In the summer of 1621, James I reissued his proclamation against discussion or publication on foreign affairs (Boys). Nathaniel Butter and Thomas Archer were ultimately arrested in the fall of 1621 (Boys).
Nevertheless, interest in the Corantos did not wane, and their publication continued through various unregulated routes until the end of 1621. Ultimately, it was direct action by the Stationers’ Company that initiated the shutdown instead of interference by the Crown (Boys). Publication of the Corantos continued outside of London, but for period of time only the English elites could access them. Eventually, a solution evolved in which full newsbooks could be printed (rather than the Corantos, which were only one page) under a royal license (Boys). Still, unlicensed works existed and proliferated through the population. It was only in 1622, when many of the key players stifled by the Crown returned to prominence (like Archer and Butter), that a successful and reasonable deal was reached between the Crown, the Stationers’ Company, and the wider publishing community (Boys).
Ordinances, partnerships, and accountability continued to fluctuate in the years to come. Though the publication of foreign affairs was inconsistent and sometimes unreliable, the parallels of the news industry undeniably affected the London literary network because of their extensive overlap. With many of the same publishers and printers involved in both, their actions and activities are inextricably linked. Thus it is important to remember the context of news publications when considering the greater London publishing industry in the Early Modern period.
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