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BELLINGRADT, Daniel "The Early Modern City as a Resonating Box: Media, Public Opinion, and the Urban Space of the Holy Roman Empire, Cologne, and Hamburg ca. 1700", Journal of Early Modern History, 16 (3), 2012, p. 201-240.
FOGEL Michèle, Les cérémonies de l'information dans la France du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Fayard, 1989.
OFFENSTADT Nicolas, En place publique. Jean de Gascogne, crieur au XVe siècle, Paris, Stock, 2013.
PETTEGREE Andrew (ed.), Broadsheets: Single-Sheet Publishing in the First Age of Print, Leiden, Brill, 2017.
WEIDENFELD Katia, "Nul n'est censé ignorer la loi" devant la justice royale XIV -XVee siècles", in BOUDREAU Claire et al (eds.), Information et société en Occident au Moyen Âge, Paris, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2004, p. 165-183.
Exercises
1. In Geneva, from the 14th century onwards, the information ceremony usually took place in 8 or 10 streets or public squares. Not everyone living in the city (20,000 inhabitants around 1700, for example) could hear the announcement. What are the traditional ways of spreading official information?
2. Publicising standards in the streets brings the authorities face to face with the public. What are the main differences between the auction ritual and posting?
3. What does the phrase "this ordinance shall be published, printed and posted" in the 1739 document mean?
4. In your opinion, is there a difference in cost between the auction ritual and posting standards on the street?
5. Until the eve of the Geneva Revolution (1792), the authorities preferred to use the town crier instead of systematically publishing laws in print: why?
Video gallery
Marco Cicchini: Le texte juridique comme outil de communication, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle [The Legal Text as a Communication Tool, 16th-18th Century]
