11 Extraordinarisse Post-tijdinghe Antwerp, 1635–1690

Antwerp was one of the great news centres of early mod- While Hieronymus (II) would follow in his father’s foot- ern Europe: it served as a vital hub in the European postal steps, concentrating on religious, literary and classical gen- network, and was one of the first cities in Europe to sup- res in the book industry, Willem took a different path. port a local newspaper. During the seventeenth century Sometime in late 1634 Willem petitioned the Council of Antwerp would decline somewhat in its importance to Brabant for a licence to publish a newspaper. The origi- the postal system, certainly in comparison to Brussels, nal application has not survived, but a note regarding the Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Nevertheless, it continued to petition states that Willem was encouraged to apply by play a significant role in the expansion of the European members of the merchant community, who had asked him news industry. It is no surprise, then, that the decline and to print and circulate regular news tidings.8 It was no coin- disappearance of Antwerp’s first courantier—Abraham cidence that Verdussen applied for a licence around this Verhoeven—in the mid-1630s did not leave the city with- time—nor is it likely that he needed much encourage- out a periodical press.1While Abraham’s son and daughter- ment from potential customers to start a newspaper. Abra- in-law would try to maintain the Verhoeven legacy, two hamVerhoeven had effectively left the news trade when he new newspapermen entered the local business in 1635, sold the rights to his newspaper to his son Isaac in Septem- turning Antwerp into one of the few European cities with ber 1634, and the future of that newspaper was uncertain. a competitive local press.2 Verdussen identified a viable gap in the market: by 1634 the The first of this new generation of courantiers was citizens of Antwerp had become used to a regular newspa- Willem Verdussen (1592–1667).3 Willem was born into one per. of the most prominent Southern Netherlandish printing Willem Verdussen received a licence from the Coun- families.4 Willem’s father was Hieronymus (I) Verdussen cil of Brabant valid for a period of ten years, and started (1533–1635), an important figure in the devotional and his newspaper, the Extraordinarisse Post-tijdinghe, around Spanish-language book trade in the Southern Netherlands, March or April 1635. This was an auspicious year for the and printer of the King’s ordinances of the mint. Willem Habsburg cause in the Low Countries. In the spring of 1635 entered the Antwerp book trade in 1613, joining the guild a Franco-Dutch coalition invaded the Habsburg Nether- of St Luke.5 He took over his father’s shop “De X Gebo- lands, joining forces to take the town of Thienen and lay den” (The Ten Commandments), located centrally on the siege to Louvain.Within two weeks, however, the siege was Cathedral churchyard when his father and older brother broken by the Habsburg General Ottavio , and Hieronymus (II) (1583–1653) moved to larger premises in the French and Dutch armies melted away. Verdussen was “De Rode Leeuw” (The Red Lion).6 For the next twenty able to launch his paper with tidings of the complete rout years Willem published a few devotional and medicinal of a superior enemy force, a fortuitous piece of timing that tracts, but his output was not substantial. Willem worked undoubtedly provided some positive publicity for his new closely with his older brother, but also took on a distin- venture. guished position as one of the bell-ringers of the Antwerp The Extraordinarisse Post-tijdinghe appeared in the cathedral.7 same style as most Dutch newspapers of the first half of the seventeenth century: an unfolded folio leaf, with two 1 See chapters 7 and 9. columns of reports on each side. Verdussen emphasised in 2 In 1635 the only other European cities with competing newspapers his petition to the Council of Brabant that this style was a were Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Hamburg. “new invention”,and much to be preferred to the pamphlet 3 On Willem Verdussen see Van Laerhoven, De Drukkersfamilie Ver- format in vogue in Germany, and England—and dussen and Van Laerhoven, ‘De “Extraordinarisse Post-tijdinghen”’. previously in Antwerp.9 The Dutch format was in all like- See also Arblaster, From Ghent to Aix, pp. 184–187. lihood also preferred by Verdussen because it was more 4 On the Verdussen family see Van Rossem, Het gevecht met de boeken. 5 Van Laerhoven, De Drukkersfamilie Verdussen, pp. 8–9. 8 Laerhoven, De Drukkersfamilie Verdussen, pp. 8–9; Arblaster, From 6 Van Rossem, Het gevecht met de boeken, pp. 27–28. Ghent to Aix, p. 187. 7 Ibid. 9 Van Laerhoven, De Drukkersfamilie Verdussen, p. 39. 450 11. extraordinarisse post-tijdinghe economical in its use of paper than the folded pamphlet— series from 1 to 100; and so forth. However, Verdussen did the price of paper in the Habsburg Netherlands (most of not use this system meticulously: several series did finish which was imported from France) having soared after the at the end of the year, without reaching the hundredth French declaration of war at the start of 1635.10 issue. Willem Verdussen’s Extraordinarisse Post-tijdinghe was Verdussen’s news network was more promising than his sustained over a long period: from 1635 until 1690. For this inventive numbering. The Extraordinarisse Post-tijdinghe information we have to rely largely on archival records, contained regular despatches from Rome, Venice, Vienna, since issues of the paper have suffered a rate of attrition Leipzig and Hamburg, but also frequent reports from severe even by the standards of the seventeenth-century , Dunkirk, Lyon and Prague.13 From the few surviving newspaper world. Of the probable 4,000 issues published issues it seems thatVerdussen offered a more diverse range throughout these fifty-six years, only 104 can be found of reports than his competitor Binnart, although both men today. Most surviving issues date from the 1630s, 1640s and focused firmly on events in the : the 1660s. For the last seventeen years of publication (1674– bulk of news in both newspapers emanated from Saxony, 1690), not a single issue has survived. and the Rhineland. The high attrition rate of the Extraordinarisse Post- From 1635 onwards Verdussen appears to have tailored tijdinghe has also obstructed a complete reconstruction of his business to the news industry exclusively. All his extant the newspaper’s erratic publication schedule. Verdussen publications from the mid-1630s onwards are short news clearly intended to publish the newspaper as a bi-weekly, pamphlets, never longer than three sheets in quarto, or but for most of the 1630s he was unable to do so regularly. twenty-four pages. It also seems that Verdussen started a On average he published three issues every two weeks; and French news serial, like his rival Binnart. In 1648Verdussen the paper moved around the week with issues appearing published the bi-weekly Gazette Ordinaire, next year reti- on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Satur- tled as Nouvelles Ordinaires. Only a single issue from each days. By the 1640s Verdussen was effectively publishing year has survived.14 Verdussen could clearly support him- a bi-weekly, producing around one hundred issues each self and his family without diversifying his corpus, but Van year, but the dates of publication continued to alternate. Laerhoven does note that Verdussen paid the rent on his Most issues appeared on Tuesdays and Fridays, but sub- shop much more irregularly from 1645 to 1667 than he did scribers could also still expect some to be published on in the 1630s.15 Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. It is noteworthy The Habsburg authorities in Brabant were evidently that this erratic start was mirrored by Verdussen’s local pleased with Verdussen’s Extraordinarisse Post-tijdinghe. rival, Martin Binnart (c. 1590–1652/53), who started his Den In 1654 Willem Verdussen’s licence was renewed by the Ordinarissen Postilioen around November 1635.11 Binnart Council of Brabant without limitation.16 While the news- similarly intended his newspaper as a bi-weekly to appear paper did not feature any advertisements for books or on Tuesdays and Fridays, but also struggled to maintain commercial goods and services, public announcements a regular schedule. Both men probably found the disrup- were placed by the authorities on several occasions— tions of the Franco-SpanishWar (1635–1659) to their paper regarding thefts, the sale of maritime prizes and the supply and postal routes too taxing for strict periodicity. announcement of a new ordinance.17 Verdussen adopted a unique, but confusing number- By the Willem Verdussen was ageing, and he was ing system for the Extraordinarisse Post-tijdinghe. Most undoubtedly assisted in the publication of the Extraordi- seventeenth-century newspapers had serial numbering, narisse Post-tijdinghe by a number of his twelve children.18 with each year starting a new sequence.12 Verdussen also In 1661, when Willem was sixty-eight or sixty-nine years numbered his newspaper, but instead of finishing each old, the courantier passed the rights of the newspaper to sequence at the end of the year, he began a new sequence his son Peter (1620–1677); the licence was renewed under once he had published one hundred issues. When he reached his first hundred numbered issues, sometime in the late summer or early autumn of 1636, he began a new 13 Arblaster, From Ghent to Aix, p. 185. 14 See Rétat, Répertoire, p. 45, and Simeček, ‘The First Brussels, Antwerp and Amsterdam Newspapers’, p. 1112. 10 Arblaster, From Ghent to Aix, p. 184. 15 Van Laerhoven, De Drukkersfamilie Verdussen, p. 5. 11 See chapter 12. 16 Ibid., p. 12. 12 English newspapers proved an exception: from the second half 17 See the issues of the Extraordinarisse Post-tijdinghe published on of the seventeenth century they were often numbered continu- 05.08.1639, 04.10.1639, 16.12.1639 and 03.01.1673. ously without the sequence ending at the end of the year. 18 Van Laerhoven, De Drukkersfamilie Verdussen, p. xxi.