Religion and the seventeenth-century press

Ward Clavier, Sarah; McKeogh, Katie

Abstract

Religion was as ubiquitous in the early modern press as it was in early modern consciousness. Perhaps because of this, religion is rarely the headline in studies of the press. There has been minimal exploration of religion for its own sake in studies of printed or scribal news publications. Building on the work of Sara Barker on the French Wars of Religion, and Joad Raymond and Andrew Pettegree on many aspects of print in the Long Reformation period, all of which have identified religion as an important theme in the news, this chapter will foreground religion, examining the ways in which it featured, the uses to which it was put, and the ways in which readers and producers treated and received it.

Religion is pervasive in early modern printed texts, and features in news artefacts from subscription newsletters to periodicals, from tracts to libels. It could be used as a mark of political allegiance or to call for unity against external and internal enemies. Readers of the news discussed the latest events on the Continent, and constructed personal and national identities in conversation with press depictions of various confessional identities. Whether in the Spanish Netherlands, France, or the Habsburg Empire, religious news was imbibed and circulated eagerly in Britain and Ireland.

News, ballads, and correspondence demonstrate the ubiquity of religion in news discussions amongst rich and poor and in town or country. Translation into English and Welsh, from (for example) Latin, French, or Spanish, was always interpretive. When the texts were of a politico-religious nature, translation could be a political act, and such texts could be used in domestic arguments about a whole host of religious issues, from toleration to the Real Presence.

This chapter will outline the variety of ways in which religion featured in the press, from news items subsumed within newsletters to standalone tracts or periodicals. It will go on to examine patterns within these texts, including the changing representation of radical Protestantism, Anglicanism, and Catholicism, and the construction of national religious identities, and how these ideas interacted. Two short case-studies will offer in-depth analysis of the operation of some of these phenomena, and will highlight important considerations such as the material aspects of print media, and the frequently hybrid nature of the texts in circulation, acknowledging the interrelationship between manuscript and different types of print.

• Online Publication Date: Feb 1, 2023
• Publication Date: Feb 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Apr 26, 2022
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Book Title: The Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press, Vol. 1, 1640-1800
• Chapter Number: 24
• Keywords: News; early modern history; religion; press
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9093120
• Publisher URL: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-edinburgh-history-of-the-british-and-irish-press-volume-1.html
• Contract Date: Feb 14, 2022