What is it about?
The censorship apparatus broke down as civil war broke out in England in the early 1640s. Regular, weekly newspapers emerged for the first time with domestic news. Vitriolic accusations of false news flew between newspapers representing the rival political and religious sides in the civil war. This paper analyzes the approaches developed by the news editors to establish their own credibility and truthfulness, to energize their own supporters, and to mock the other side as purveyors of rumors, lies, and brain-sick fancies.
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Why is it important?
While vitriolic name-calling might seem commonplace in times of conflict, our study reveals that news editors in the 1640s demonstrated a complex framework for reporting the events of the early civil war, as they discussed the nature of Truth, rumors, errors, and lies in a time of lax censorship.
Perspectives
As part of an ongoing, long-term research project investigating the popular press in 17th-century Europe, I have had the opportunity to work with a number of undergraduate research fellows who have collaborated. My co-author's work on this phase of the project helped identify a number of patterns in the name-calling that enabled us to go beyond the simplistic amusement we often have in reading an out-of-context vitriolic quotation. It has been a helpful exercise to follow the news media's developments more systematically.
TIMOTHY FEHLER
Furman University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “Frothy Discourses” and “Brain-Sick Fancies”: Truth, Errors, and Lies in News Reporting during the English Civil War, March 2026, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004543003_005.
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