Brief Notes on the Long War in the Early Modern News Cycle

I t is difficult for the historian to imagine how the scraps of paper encountered in the archive, filled with printed words and images, served as the first newspapers that were created, distributed, and read throughout early modern Europe. Taking an empathetic approach to history, the process could look something like this: In a village outside of Augsburg in late spring of 1595, a small crowd gathers around a well-worn tavern table, staring intently at a sheet of paper. Some focus their eyes on the brightly colored image filling the top half of the page: a bird's-eye view of a citadel in a heavily fortified countryside with throngs of armored figures mercilessly slaying their turbaned enemies. Others let their eyes wander through the two columns of text below, perhaps quietly sounding out the letters they recognize as they search for familiar words and phrases. One man, possibly the local notary, darts his eyes more rapidly across the lines, reading portions out loud to those still waiting to digest the contents of the sheet of paper. Everyone present knows the key points from the headline running along the top, having heard it called out by the street vendor who sold it in the square, a raspy voice crying: “The City and Fortress of Simbalt in Moldavia on the Danube, and other locations”; “2000 Turks slain with poleaxes”; “The army spared no one, men or women, young or old”; and “Lots of booty.” The peddler, who carried the sheet along with a variety of small wares as he moved around the countryside, had picked it up earlier that week from the courtyard establishment of Leonard Schweiger, in the Augsburg suburb of St. James. That morning, it had arrived in a stack of 100 to 500 identical sheets in the hands of the entrepreneuring publisher and Briefmaler , Georg Kress. Earlier, Kress had hurriedly added the finishing touches of paint to the image, the last of the white pigment still drying as he ran his latest batch of newssheets over to the shop. Time was of the essence. Kress needed to get his print out before his rival, Bartholomäus Käppler, overheard his source boasting about the events and created his own newssheet. This fresh news, of Christian forces defeating the Muslim Turks, sold quickly. Kress was ready to provide it, just in time for our hawker to pick up a stack of copies, one of which would eventually make its way into the hands of the villagers sitting around the tavern table.