Privileges, Scoundrels and Gentlemen. New Structures of the Dutch Press

chapter 3 Privileges, Scoundrels and Gentlemen. New Structures of the Dutch Press On 24 April 1666 the printer-publisher Joannes Naeranus Rotterdam had become a prominent centre in the Euro- (c. 1609–1670) submitted a petition to the town council pean postal network. In 1661 a direct courier service was of Rotterdam: he requested permission to publish a bi- established between England and the Dutch Republic.4 weekly newspaper.1 Such newspapers, Naeranus noted, The postal vessel departed from Harwich and arrived at were already printed in Haarlem and Amsterdam, to the Hellevoetsluis, 20 miles south-west from Rotterdam. The great advantage of their citizens and those of many other city was also in a position to profit from the intense com- cities. Naeranus argued that most of the news in the Haar- petition between Brussels and Antwerp as postal centres lem and Amsterdam newspapers travelled through Rotter- in the Habsburg Netherlands. The Imperial postmaster dam; he claimed (optimistically) that the reports printed in Brussels increasingly preferred Rotterdam as the next in Haarlem and Amsterdam on Tuesdays could be pub- news hub, bypassing Antwerp altogether.5 lished four days earlier in Rotterdam. A local newspaper, The emergence of a newspaper in Rotterdam was a he suggested, would much improve the commerce of the symptom of wider developments in the European postal city and its neighbouring areas. Naeranus added that he network.6The diversity and frequency of postal routes had had already found reliable correspondents in Italy, France, increased throughout Europe; in the Dutch Republic regu- England and other regions of Europe. Faced with a reason- lar courier services were established with London, Danzig able request, the magistrates of Rotterdam consented to and Paris. As theThirtyYears’War came to an end, conflicts Naeranus’ petition.2 in the Baltic, France and Britain shifted the focus of the The first issue of the Oprechte Rotterdamse Zee- en Post- newspapers. Cities such as Edinburgh, Plymouth, Copen- tijdingen was published on 22 May. Naeranus had chosen hagen, Helsingør, Danzig, Warsaw and Hamburg became an opportune moment: by May 1666 the Second Anglo- new staples of the weekly papers. Meanwhile the devel- Dutch War (1665–1667) was in full swing. After a disap- oping metropolitan centres of Europe became ever more pointing first year of the war, the Dutch public longed important news hubs: newspaper issues would increas- for a decisive victory. Throughout the summer of 1666, ingly feature three or four different reports from Paris, two extensive naval engagements were fought against the London or Vienna rather than one. Reports from distant English: both were subject to extraordinary news cover- locations like Madrid, Naples, Lisbon and Constantinople age.3 In Rotterdam Naeranus was uniquely well-placed to became more common whereas the traditional news cen- take advantage of the news craze surrounding the war. tres of the German heartland, such as Prague, Regensburg, The city was, after Amsterdam, the most important naval Augsburg, Breslau, Basel and Strasbourg faded from the centre of the country, and it harboured one of the Admi- newspapers. ralty chambers of the Republic. The citizens of Rotterdam The increasing sophistication of the postal network and would often be the first to know of the latest naval engage- the maturity of the periodical press had significant effects ments, as ships came up the river Meuse to deliver the on the structure and size of Dutch newspapers. While the momentous news. Naeranus would fill his newspaper with first newspapers featured on average nine or ten reports many reports gathered “from the sea” or “from the Dutch per issue, most issues published in the second half of fleet”. It was no coincidence that he called his newspaper the seventeenth century contained twice as many. Print- the “Sea and post-tidings”. Prior to the establishment of ers experimented with smaller typefaces and reorganised the Oprechte Rotterdamse Zee- en Post-tijdingen the city of 4 Peter Fraser, The Intelligence of the Secretaries of State and their 1 See for the text of this petition Sautijn Kluit, ‘De Rotterdamsche monopoly of Licensed News, 1660–1688 (Cambridge, Cambridge Uni- Courant’, pp. 5–6. On Naeranus and his newspaper see chapter 40 in versity Press, 1956), p. 23. See also De Vries, Barges and Capitalism, part two, and see Helmers, RoyalistRepublic, pp. 93–94, and P.C.Mol- p. 61. huysen and P.J. Blok (eds.), ‘Naeranus’, in their Nieuw Nederland- 5 Arblaster, From Ghent to Aix, pp. 243–247. sch Biografisch Woordenboek, Tweede Deel (Leiden, A.W. Sijthoff’s 6 Paul Arblaster, ‘Posts, Newsletters, Newspapers: England in a Euro- Uitgevers-Maatschappij, 1912), pp. 972–977. pean system of communications’, in Joad Raymond (ed.), News Net- 2 Sautijn Kluit, ‘De Rotterdamsche Courant’, pp. 6–7. works in Seventeenth-Century Britain and Europe (Abingdon, Rout- 3 These were the Four Days’ Battle (11–14 June) and the St James’ Day ledge, 2006), p. 26. See also Raymond and Moxham (eds.), News Net- Battle (4 August). works in Early Modern Europe. 34 chapter 3 the presentation of news reports. Bi-weekly and tri-weekly sans to engage in overlapping activities: history writing, schedules of publication became the norm. The decline of news distribution and espionage. Between 1646 and 1649, the Amsterdam newspapers in the 1650s gave rise to new Van Aitzema spent over 556 gulden on books, pamphlets titles in The Hague, Haarlem, Weesp, Utrecht, Rotterdam and newspapers in The Hague in his capacity as agent and Leiden. Yet it was a Haarlem paper, the Oprechte Haer- for the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg.8 Hundreds of lemse Courant, published from 1656 by Abraham Caste- seventeenth-century Dutch newspapers can still be found leyn, which emerged to fill the gap left by the decline of the today in the Herzog August library in Wolfenbüttel, for Amsterdam papers: in the second half of the seventeenth the most part emanating from the formidable collection century it would become one of Europe’s most acclaimed assembled by Duke August the Younger (1579–1666). papers, before the appearance of the famous Gazette de Local authorities provided even better business. Al- Leyde. As newspapers came to play a more prominent ready from 1604 onwards several booksellers in The Hague role in the political culture of the Dutch Republic, Dutch supplied printed and manuscript news to the Court of Hol- authorities began to take a greater interest in the regula- land.9 The delivery of books, stationery, pamphlets and tion of the newspaper trade while publishers adapted to periodicals would make Aert Meuris and the Van Wouws their changing role within the local municipality. These some of the richest individuals in The Hague.10 A variety developments were to define the structures of the Dutch of administrative and political departments provided the press for the remainder of the seventeenth century, and bulk of the business for specialist suppliers such as Isaac well into the eighteenth. Burchoorn and Jan Vely: between 1637 and 1650 Vely was paid more than 1,800 gulden by the Treasury for the supply of newspapers and other printed matter, and another 1,150 News at the Heart of the State gulden by the High Court.11 The news trade in The Hague was dependent on the institutions of state for its commer- In his petition of 1666 Joannes Naeranus had highlighted cial success.12 Most booksellers practiced their trade at the Haarlem and Amsterdam as the two chief centres of news- heart of the state, selling their wares from a stall in the paper publication. He had, however, missed one vibrant Great Hall of the Binnenhof (see ill. 3.1). news hub: The Hague. A decade before Naeranus’ request, For much of the early seventeenth century the book- multiple short-lived newspapers had emerged in The sellers of The Hague were content to furnish newspapers Hague. By 1666 only one bi-weekly newspaper remained, from Amsterdam for their customers. It was no great dis- but the previous decade had witnessed an expansion of tance from Amsterdam to The Hague: what was published the news market evocative of the rapid changes taking in Amsterdam in the morning could find its way to The place in Amsterdam in the 1640s. The Hague was a melting Hague by the afternoon. After the expansion of the Ams- pot of international trends and traditions in the presen- terdam news market in the later 1630s the newspaper read- tation of news; it would have a profound impact on the ers of The Hague were spoilt for choice. But with the newspaper trade. decline of the Amsterdam newspaper trade a decade later, The Hague was the political capital of the Dutch Repub- several entrepreneurs in The Hague took the chance to lic. A small city without walls, it supported the leading provide news serials printed locally, with a style remark- political institutions of the state, which were clustered ably different from the standards set in Amsterdam. in and around a central complex, the Binnenhof. Foreign The establishment of the first news series in The Hague agents and ambassadors, as well as dignitaries from Dutch was stimulated by the final stages of the English Civil War. towns and provincial assemblies contributed to a con- During the later 1640s The Hague became the home of stant hubbub of gossip, news and intelligence. The con- centration of political information attracted ambitious businessmen. The Hague was the home of leading writers and artists of the Republic. Authors found a ready mar- 8 Ibid., p. 339. Some of Van Aitzema’s political journals survive in ket for their texts: in 1600 there were only seven book- the National Archives in the Hague, into which he folded printed sellers, printers and engravers active in The Hague, but by news pamphlets and newspapers.

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