It should be obvious that the lines dividing one social or economic group from another in early modern London were porous. Londoners of all ranks frequently had encounters – in church or in the street, at the market or over the shop counter, standing nearby at an outdoor sermon, play, or a bear baiting – with people whose ambitions and sensibilities were quite different from their own. Such interaction, the mixing rather than disintegration of social groups, was a hallmark of metropolitan life in the early modern period. This chapter explores London's tendency to bring people of different backgrounds and ranks together in three contexts: the evolution of the news trade; the proliferation of venues for social interaction such as taverns, coffeehouses, and clubs; and popular cultural formations that often crossed class and gender lines.

News Before Print

The notion of a public press began in Europe in the fifteenth century, in printing centers like Amsterdam and London. For most of our period, however, this was not necessarily a free press in the modern sense; rather, a debate arose between two different kinds of press. Does a national press exist to inform the public of the establishment's “case,” the “official” version put out by the government or Church hierarchy; or should it broadcast the “truth” as its authors see it, independent of governmental or ecclesiastical authority? In early modern England, the power structure favored the former; but the latter erupted periodically and ultimately proved impossible to suppress. The result, aided and abetted by institutions of relatively free social interaction like the coffeehouse, was to create a public sphere of relatively free common discourse whose headquarters was London.