1/30/2024 0 Comments Journal mynotesRütiner was a convinced Protestant and a keen (though not particularly scholarly) reader, but there is no reason he should stand out from the countless other mid-ranking patriarchs who populated the cities and towns of early modern Europe. He rose to modest heights in St Gall’s government, amassed a reasonable fortune and formed cordial if rarely intimate relationships with the town’s intellectual elite. Born in the town, he had studied at the University of Basel before returning to marry, start a family and build a career in the linen trade. What makes St Gall remarkable is that someone was taking notes. In every town and city in 16th-century Europe, words could hurt. Without credit, and without cash, making your way in the world got harder fast. As Laura Gowing has shown in the case of London, if your neighbour called you a whore it wasn’t just upsetting: in a cash-poor society, it could affect your ability to get credit. Insults and rumours could have a material impact, and early modern people were no strangers to the use of physical force or the law in preserving their honour and reputation. It wasn’t just a matter of esteem: calculations about reputation shaped everyday transactions and influenced such important life decisions as the choice of a spouse. In a society obsessed by honour, the ability to maintain your standing was crucial. Talk determined your position in the community. The records of legal cases related to slander are particularly rich: they not only allow us to eavesdrop on the arguments of ordinary women and men, but disclose why early modern people cared so much about talk. Histories of oral culture enable us to listen in on the political debates carried on in Venetian barbers’ shops and pharmacies, to understand why blasphemy was so important in 17th-century Sweden and to trace how secret political information from the Ottoman court made its way to London. Other sources offer snatches of early modern voices: town criers’ records tell us how the urban authorities spoke to the people accounts of interrogations reproduce not just the words of the accused but their stammers or cries of pain and travellers’ diaries bring to life the shouts of hawkers in the streets of European cities. They’re texts that fed on, and into, ‘oral culture’ – the world of speech and song. Printed sermons and proclamations, catechisms and ballads all hint at the buzz of communication. Reading printed books in silent modern libraries can make it difficult to imagine noise and sociability – even if many of the products of the printing press were designed to be read out loud or to reproduce the spoken word on the page. In recent decades, historians have tried to listen in on the conversations that shaped early modern European culture. His final words were often repeated by St Gallers who feared troubles yet to come: ‘Someday, I will finish you.’ An even more cataclysmic shift came with the Reformation: the new religion was welcomed by many in the town, and in 1529 the reformed believers stormed the abbey cathedral and assumed control, with the abbot forced to flee. In 1491, the townspeople had revolted against their rulers – an attempted coup that saw protests in the streets and rebels on the gallows. The people of St Gall were no strangers to political and religious dispute. A smutty joke was as good a talking point as the latest political controversy. Stories of Italian wars and Ottoman intrigues were swapped in the street and in taverns and bathhouses, where the changing world was discussed alongside the arguments and foibles of the great religious reformers. But this relative isolation didn’t limit St Gallers’ hunger for news and rumour. It had no printing press, was some distance from major communication routes and about fifty miles from Zurich, the heart of the Swiss Reformation. St Gall (or St Gallen) was a town that ran on talk. Reputations were made and fortunes were destroyed by the spoken word news and rumour could travel much faster between mouths and ears than via print, and be understood by far more than the minority who could read. ‘Oh man, think long,’ the anonymous poet urges, ‘before talk escapes your mouth.’ If you want to be successful, you need to learn to ‘speak thoughtfully, without anger and hatred … Listening quickly and answering slowly.’ Know what to say and when to listen, or you risk ruin: ‘Through talk many have been overcome … There is no better protection from dishonour/than being the master of your tongue.’ In early modern Europe, talk mattered. I nside the manuscript that contains the 16th-century protocols of the council of St Gall, in Switzerland, is a poem that offers helpful advice.
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