From Ghent to Aix <UN> Library of the Written Word volume 36 The Handpress World volume 27 Editor-in-Chief Andrew Pettegree University of St Andrews Editorial Board Ann Blair (Harvard University) Falk Eisermann (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preuβischer Kulturbesitz) Ian Maclean (All Souls College, Oxford) Angela Nuovo (University of Udine) Mark Towsey (University of Liverpool) Malcolm Walsby (University of Rennes II) The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/lww <UN> From Ghent to Aix How They Brought the News in the Habsburg Netherlands, 1550–1700 By Paul Arblaster LEIDEN | BOSTON <UN> Cover illustration: An image of a failed surprise attack on Antwerp, 1624. Oprechte afbeeldinge vanden gefaelgeerden Aenslach (Antwerp, Abraham Verhoeven, 1624). Copyright Leuven University Library. Reproduced by permission. This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1874-4834 isbn 978-90 04-27647-5 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-27684-0 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. <UN> Dedicated to Joël Schuyer, in friendship ∵ <UN> Van de Vriendtschap ghevoelen alle menschen eenderley, te weten, die in’t aensien der Overheydt en regieringe ghestelt zijn, en die hare lust soecken in kennisse ende wetenschap van vele dinghen, als oock die, die in stilligheydt haer eygen saecken beschicken, ende eyndtlijck die oock, die haer t’eenemael tot de wellusten hebben overgegeven, meenen al te samen dat sonder vriendtschap ’t leven niets te beduyden heeft, wanneerse maer eenighsins heerlijck leven willen. Cicero, Laelius, translated by Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert ∵ Contents Acknowledgements IX List of Maps, Figures and Tables xi List of Abbreviations xii Addenda xiv Introduction 1 1 Political, Legal and Urban Contexts 11 Confessionalisation and Reputation 11 The Regulation of the Book Trade 20 Brussels and Antwerp 28 2 Newsletters and Printed News, 1585–1620 35 Posts and Newsletters 35 Pamphlets and Prints to 1605 52 Almanacs 69 3 Abraham Verhoeven and His Tijdinghen, 1620–1632 74 Reputation in a Time of Crisis 74 Abraham Verhoeven 79 The Legacy of Lipsius 85 Verhoeven’s Local Sources 89 Reading the Nieuwe Tijdinghen 97 Frequency of Publication 105 Editorial Policy 108 The End of Verhoeven’s Career 114 4 Verhoeven and the News of Europe 122 International News in the Nieuwe Tijdinghen 122 Verhoeven’s Colleagues and Rivals 131 Types of News in 1623 145 Politics, Law and Government 146 Military News 153 Shipping and Finance 157 News Stories of 1623 160 5 The Explosion of News Publishing, 1632–1648 172 <UN> viii contents The Habsburg Netherlands, 1632–1648 173 Newspapers in the Habsburg Netherlands 183 The Year 1644 197 6 Managing Reputation and Controlling the Press, 1649–1700 220 Opposing Renaudot 220 The Relations véritables and Princely Reputation 233 The Relations véritables and the News of Europe, 1649–1659 239 The Litany of Antwerp 243 A Desultory Struggle for Control of the Press, 1660–1700 247 Conclusion 256 Bibliography 269 Index 353 <UN> Acknowledgements In the course of preparing this work I have accumulated many debts of grati- tude. Among institutions my thanks must go in the first instance to the British Academy, for funding the research, and to St Peter’s College, Oxford, and the Katholieke Universiteit Brussel, for supporting its pursuit. Among the many individuals who have given support and advice, first mention must go to John Elliott. Margit Thøfner, Luc Duerloo, Cordula Van Wyhe, Nina Lamal and Andrew Pettegree read and commented on various parts of this work at vari- ous stages, and I am well aware of how much better the work would have been had I had the energy or humility to implement all the changes they suggested. The research could not have been carried out without the patient help of the staff of the libraries and archives listed on page xii, among whom Eddy Put of the Belgian State Archives, Bart Op de Beeck of the Royal Library of Belgium, William Hodges of the Bodleian, Guido Cloet and Joost Depuydt of Leuven University Library and Martine De Reu of Ghent University Library showed particular consideration. Henry Ettinghausen and Paul Ries very kindly sent me offprints of their relevant articles. At the very beginning of the research, fruitful lines of enquiry or methodology were suggested by Henry Mayr- Harting, Marc Jacobs, Anna Simoni, Kristin Van Damme, David Parrott, Leo van Buyten and Hugo Soly. Many friends and acquaintances at one time or another provided information or encouragement which, however little they may have known it, was of incalculable benefit. The research on which this book is based was completed some years since, and the most important academic results have been published piecemeal in articles and essays as occasion arose. Thanks are due to the publishers for per- mission to reproduce material from the following publications: ‘Policy and Publishing in the Habsburg Netherlands, 1585–1690’, in The Politics of Information in Early Modern Europe, edited by Brendan Dooley and Sabrina Baron (Routledge Studies in Cultural History 1; London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 179–198. Copyright © 2001 ‘Dat de boecken vrij sullen wesen: Private profit, public utility and secrets of state in the seventeenth-century Habsburg Netherlands’, in News and Politics in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800, edited by Joop W. Koopmans (Groningen Studies in Cultural Change 13; Leuven, Peeters, 2005), pp. 79–95. Copyright © 2005 <UN> x Acknowledgements ‘Posts, Newsletters, Newspapers: England in a European System of Com- munications’, News Networks in Seventeenth Century Britain and Europe, edited by Joad Raymond (2006), pp. 19–34. Copyright © 2006 ‘Antwerp and Brussels as inter-European spaces in news exchange’, in The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe edited by Brendan Dooley (Farnham, Ashgate, 2010), pp. 193–205. Copyright © 2010 It is at the urging of Noel Malcolm, Andrew Pettegree, and above all Joël Schuyer that I offer to public view a fuller treatment in more comprehensive form. Even such urging might not have overcome my diffidence had it not been for the experience, in 2011–2013, of participation in an international scholarly network funded by the Leverhulme Trust which opened my eyes to just how useful this book might be to scholars and researchers across Europe and in parts of the New World. In this regard I owe particular thanks to Joad Raymond, Noah Moxham, Lizzy Williamson, Andre Belo, Carmen Espejo and by no means least Mario Infelise. <UN> List of Maps, Figures and Tables Maps 1 The main international postal routes around 1600 38 2 Major sources used by Abraham Verhoeven, 1620–1629 124 3 European coverage of some of Verhoeven’s main sources in 1623 130 4 Regular sources for Saturday Relations véritables (1652–1653) 224 5 Regular sources for Wednesday Relations véritables (1652–1653) 225 Figures 1 The new ‘safeguard’ route from Milan to Antwerp, surveyed in 1620 88 2 Front page of an issue of the Nieuwe Tijdinghen, 1622. Nieuwe Tijdinghe 1622 no. 101 (Antwerp, Abraham Verhoeven, 1622) 98 Tables 1 Frequency of reports from the 21 most commonly used foreign sources in Abraham Verhoeven’s Nieuwe Tijdinghen (1620–1629) and Wekelijcke Tijdinghen (1629–1631) 127 2 Abraham Verhoeven’s main correspondents and the sources of their news (1623) 129 3 Newspapers compared for the sample year 1623 136 4 Selective printing of the same report (Rome, 7 January 1623) 163 5 Newspapers compared for the sample year 1644 208 <UN> Abbreviations Libraries, Archives, Collections aam Aartsbisschoppelijk Archief, Mechelen arb Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussels grsp Geheime Raad, Spaanse Periode ofrb Officie Fiscal van de Raad van Brabant rs Raad van State sso Secretaris van Staat en Oorlog aska Academie van Schone Kunsten, Antwerp asr Atlas van Stolk, Rotterdam bll British Library, London bmb Bibliothèque Municipale, Besançon bmp Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris Bod Bodleian Library, Oxford bnp Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris bsm Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich kbb Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Brussels kbh Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague kbs Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm mpm Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp pro Public Record Office, London rbv Reichsbibliothek, Vienna saa Stadsarchief, Antwerp ga Gilden & Ambachten Pk Privilegiekamer sba Stadsbibliotheek (Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience), Antwerp sbb Stadsbibliotheek, Bruges shd Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Dresden ubg Universiteitsbibliotheek, Ghent zbm Zeeuwse Bibliotheek, Middelburg zbz Zentralbibliothek, Zürich Journals, Newspapers and Series aab Avisen auß Berlin <UN> Abbreviations xiii bmgn Bijdragen