Posters, Pamphlets and Prints: The Ways and Means of Disseminating Dissident Opinions on the Eve of the Dutch Revolt

Abstract

A flood of posters, pamphlets and satirical prints accompanied the politico-religious disturbances of 1566. Largely as a result more titles came off the presses in the Low Countries then than at almost any time in the period 1541–1600. Whereas Protestant pamphlets and satirical prints had circulated in huge numbers in the German lands ever since the start of the Reformation, the Habsburg government in the Low Countries had been fairly successful in suppressing a dissident religious press. That began to change in the 1550's and in particular in the early 1560's. Hitherto historians of the book have been chiefly concerned with the production of substantial works; here the economics of printing pamphlets and prints, and the dissemination of such ephemera are the focus of attention.