28 | Mass Media and Historical Change
particularly little monitoring of leaflets (Harline 1987: 227). The fact that
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the culture of pamphlets spread
in England and the Netherlands, in particular, is evidence that this medium
was not merely an expression of crises, but rather signified the formation of a
public space. In doing so, this media innovation constituted a stabilisation of
the principle of competing interests (Mörke 2005: 18, 31).
In the context of the religious conflicts in France in the 1560s, chapbooks
also gained significance (Latimer 1976). In particular the campaign against
minister Concini (1614–1618) is considered as the high point of this medium
(Sawyer 1990). Besides criticising the crown, they were also utilised by Riche-
lieu for the systematic defence of Louis XIV (Klaits 1976: 7). Although, from
1550, pamphlets were also used during religious conflict in England, these
print-works bore no significant meaning for political life (Raymond 2003:
15). Indeed, dissemination increased from 1580 onwards, but it would take
until sometime in the seventeenth century before this medium would be of
central importance, which was particularly the case in relation to the 1640s
Civil War. Pamphlets established critical, public debates on political issues and
thus became a model for public speeches (Raymond 2003: 26; Zaret 2000).
Two factors in particular speak in favour of their use in situations of conflict:
for one, it was safer to express one’s opinion in print than to state it in person;
and secondly, pamphlets put more pressure on the rulers, as they produced the
impression of addressing the common people, possibly offering an incentive
for rebellion. As shown by Craig E. Harline in the case of the Netherlands,
sovereigns were thereupon more inclined to respond with the public legitima-
tion of their actions (Harline 1987: 229). The claim that rulers now justified
their behaviour publicly with the aid of chapbooks can also be seen in the case
of the Duchy of Prussia. Duke Albert, for instance, defended his conversion to
Lutheranism in 1526 in a pamphlet; and similarly, in 1577, the city of Danzig
explained that it would not surrender to Poland (Körber 1998: 159). Rulers
thus left the realm of arcane politics, at least to some extent.
Simultaneously, the authorities also availed themselves of the new media.
According to Falk Eisermann, the first people to launch printing in the Reich
were in the medium to upper echelons of politics (legates, councilmen and
chancellery workers), and, from about 1480 onwards, the political leader
(Eisermann 2003: 307), as Emperor Maximilian I is seen as the first sovereign
to make systematic use of Gutenberg’s invention. He had print-work prepared
and distributed in order to influence people’s disposition on important events,
such as his election in 1486, his captivity in Flanders, and the Imperial Reform
(Reichsreform) of Worms in 1495 (Eisermann 2002). Additionally, he dis-
tributed printed Reichstag invitations containing war reports as well as calls
for war against the Turks. During conflicts in Venice, he even used leaflets
in Italian for propaganda purposes by dropping them behind the front line