‘Fama’ and her Sisters
Gossip and Rumour in Early Modern Europe
Edited by Claire Walker Edited by Heather Kerr
Hardback (Published)
(January 2015)
ISBN: 9782503541846
6.1 x 9.17 inches
Price: $113.00
In stock
The essays in this collection demonstrate how Fama and her sisters, gossip and rumour, were central in private and public discourses about state and society in early modern Europe. In an era when oral, scribal, visual, and print cultures competed to satisfy a growing public demand for ‘news’, gossip and rumour informed people about the actions and morals of their social and political elites, and they commonly enabled people who did not usually participate in politics to engage with the public discourses about religion, governance, and society which shaped their lives and the state. So while gossip and rumour might be scurrilous and entertaining, they nonetheless performed a vital political function, regulating communal and political behaviour in the upper social echelons, as well as in neighbourhoods lower down the social scale where they might constitute a form of popular justice. This timely interdisciplinary study explores how gossip and rumour functioned dualistically at all levels of the early modern state and society either to advance or to defame reputations, and thereby shape public opinion.
The essays in this collection demonstrate how Fama and her sisters, gossip and rumour, were central in private and public discourses about state and society in early modern Europe. In an era when oral, scribal, visual, and print cultures competed to satisfy a growing public demand for ‘news’, gossip and rumour informed people about the actions and morals of their social and political elites, and they commonly enabled people who did not usually participate in politics to engage with the public discourses about religion, governance, and society which shaped their lives and the state. So while gossip and rumour might be scurrilous and entertaining, they nonetheless performed a vital political function, regulating communal and political behaviour in the upper social echelons, as well as in neighbourhoods lower down the social scale where they might constitute a form of popular justice. This timely interdisciplinary study explores how gossip and rumour functioned dualistically at all levels of the early modern state and society either to advance or to defame reputations, and thereby shape public opinion.
- Edited by Claire Walker
- Edited by Heather Kerr
Other Titles in this Series
Communicating the Passion
The Socio-Religious Function of an Emotional Narrative (1250-1530)
Volume 21
Rhetoric, Persuasion, and Teaching the Emotions in the Early Modern English Sermon, 1600-1642
Volume 23
Inter-Ethnic Relations and the Functioning of Multi-Ethnic Societies
Cohesion in Multi-Ethnic Societies in Europe from c. 1000 to the Present, II
Volume 18
Republicanism, Sinophilia, and Historical Writing
Thomas Gordon (c.1691-1750) and his 'History of England'
Volume 4
Legal Norms and Political Action in Multi-Ethnic Societies
Cohesion in Multi-Ethnic Societies in Europe from c. 1000 to the Present, III
Volume 20
Memories in Multi-Ethnic Societies
Cohesion in Multi-Ethnic Societies in Europe from c. 1000 to the Present, I
Volume 15
Historiography and the Shaping of Regional Identity in Europe
Regions in Clio's Looking Glass
Volume 16
Sociability and its Discontents
Civil Society, Social Capital, and their Alternatives in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
Volume 1
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