Plain truth and misinformation in Early Modern news networks: the translation of the articles of capitulation of Breda (1625) in European journalism

Carmen Espejo-Cala; Paul Arblaster; Javier Díaz-Noci

doi:10.17979/janus.2024.13.10630

Autores/as

Carmen Espejo-Cala Universidad de Sevilla
Paul Arblaster Université Catholique de Louvain
Javier Díaz-Noci Universitat Pompeu Fabra

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17979/janus.2024.13.10630

Palabras clave:

periodismo, desinformación, traducción, Breda, Guerra de los Ochenta Años, Países Bajos, España, Alemania, Francia, Italia, Portugal

Resumen

La rendición de Breda en junio de 1625, tras un asedio de nueve meses por parte de las fuerzas de los Austria bajo el mando de Ambrosio Spinola, fue uno de los acontecimientos más celebrados de la Guerra de los Ochenta Años y tuvo un gran impacto mediático en un momento que coincidía con la invención del periodismo moderno. Los artículos de la capitulación circularon en una gran cantidad de publicaciones informativas en diferentes países europeos, y ambas partes en conflicto, que inicialmente se basaron en la misma fuente, los relataron e interpretaron de manera positiva. Un análisis de estas publicaciones muestra que dentro de varios tipos de narrativas hay hasta tres versiones diferentes de los términos de rendición: una copia completa basada directamente en los documentos originales y dos resúmenes parciales diferentes, uno que incorpora elementos de oídas y el otro basado en lo que parece haber sido la redacción preferida de la cancillería de campo de Spinola y/o de la corte de Bruselas. Esta última versión fue diseñada no para contrarrestar las narrativas enemigas, sino para no dar munición adicional a elementos dentro de la monarquía española hostiles a las concesiones de Spinola.

Citas

Contemporary references

Bacon, Francis, “Of Simulation and Dissimulation”, in The Essayes or Counsels, Civill and Morall, edited by Michael Kiernan. The Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 15, Oxford, Clarendon, 1625/2000.

Grand, Le grand et juste chastiment des Rebelles de Negrepelisse les 10 et 11 juin 1622, Paris, Pierre Rocolet, 1622.

Declaration du roy, par laquelle tous les habitans & autres personnes qui sont de present és villes de la Rochelle & sainct Jean d’Angely, & tous ceux qui les favoriseront, seront declarez Criminels de leze Majesté, Paris, F. Morel and P. Mettayer, 1621.

La Defaite totale du convoy du marquis de Spinola par le Prince d’Orange, estant devant Breda, Lyon, Claude Armand, 1625.

Hugo, Herman, The Siege of Breda, translated by Henry Gage, [Ghent], Judocus Dooms,1627.

Lettre, Lettre du gouverneur de Breda, au Comte Henry de Nassau, et à messieurs les estats de Hollande. Escrite du 26. may 1625. Touchant l’estat où sont maintenant les assiegez, Paris, Widow Carroy, 1625.

Oprecht lief-hebber [pseud.], Basuyne des oorloghs, ofte Waerschouwinghe, aen de Vereenichde Nederlanden, dat de selvige in den oorloge met den coningh van Spaengien moeten continueeren, [Amsterdam], Pieter Walschaert, 1625.

Sommation, La sommation faite par le Marquis de Spinola au Gouverneur de la ville de Breda. Avec la responce dudit Gouverneur à icelle summation, Lyon, Claude Armand, 1625.

Wassenaer, Nicolaes van, Historisch Verhael aller gedenckwaardighe geschiedenissen, Volume 9, Amsterdam, Jan Janssen, 1625.

Secondary literature

Arblaster, Paul, Antwerp & the World: Richard Verstegan and the International Culture of Catholic Reformation, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 2004.

Arblaster, Paul, “Abraham Verhoeven y la corte de Bruselas. El monopolio de noticias de Isabel Clara Eugenia”, in Isabel Clara Eugenia: soberanía femenina en las cortes de Madrid y Bruselas, coodinated by Cordula Van Wyhe, Madrid, Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, CEEH, 2011, pp. 280-311.

Arblaster, Paul, From Ghent to Aix: How They Brought the News in the Habsburg Netherlands, Boston/Leiden, Brill, 2014. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004276840

Bellany, Alastair, and Thomas Cogswell, The Murder of King James I, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12987/yale/9780300214963.001.0001

Bellingradt, Daniel, “The Dynamic of Communication and Media Recycling in Early Modern Europe: Popular Prints as Echoes and Feedback Loops”, in Crossing Borders, Crossing Cultures: Popular Print in Europe (1450-1900), edited by Massimo Rospocher, Jeroen Salman, and Hannu Salmi, Berlin/Boston, Walter de Gruyter, 2019, pp. 9-32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110643541-002

Bousard, Tiffany, “Dutch Brazil (1624) and English Jamaica (1655) in Newspapers from the Habsburg Netherlands”, Early Modern Low Countries 2, 2018, pp. 24-44. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18352/emlc.60

Brownlees, Nicholas, The Role of Context in the Production and Reception of Historical News Discourse, Bern, Peter Lang, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3726/b18560

Buono, Alessandro and Massimo Petta, “Il racconto della battaglia: La guerra e le notizie a stampa nella Milano degli Austrias (secoli XVI-XVII)”, in Battaglie: L’evento, l’individuo, la memoria, edited by A. Buono and G. Civale. Palermo: Associazione Mediterranea, 187-248. Especially section 7, ‘La resa di Breda (1625) nel sistema dell’informazione milanese’, 2014, pp. 212-216.

Casetti Brach, Carla, and Maria Carmela Di Cesare, “Grignani, Lodovico”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 59, Online, 2002.

Davies, Simon and Puck Fletcher, News in Early Modern Europe – Currents and connections, Boston/Leiden, Brill, 2014. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004276864

de Ridder, Alfred, “Routart, Michel”, in Biographie Nationale, Volume 20, Brussels, Émile Bruylant for the Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts, 1910.

De Vivo, Filippo, “Microhistories of long-distance information: space, movement and agency in the early modern news”, Past & Present 42 (14), 2019, pp. 179-214. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtz042

Díaz Noci, Javier, “Dissemination of News in the Spanish Baroque”, Media History 18 (3-4), 2012, pp. 409-421. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2012.721648

Dooley, Brendan, “Veritas Filia Temporis: Experience and Belief in Early Modern Culture”, Journal of the History of Ideas 60/3, 1999, pp. 487504. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3654015

Echevarría Bacigalupe, Miguel Ángel, La diplomacia secreta en Flandes, 15981643, Leioa, Servicio Editorial Universidad del País Vasco, 1984.

Echevarría Bacigalupe, Miguel Ángel, “El espionaje y las rebeliones de los siglos XVI y XVII en la monarquía hispánica”, in Rebelión y Resistencia en el Mundo Hispánico del siglo XVII, edited by Werner Thomas and Bart De Groof, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 1992, pp. 144-166.

Echevarría Bacigalupe, Miguel Ángel, “Diplomacia y relaciones comerciales en Flandes (1598-1633)”, in La proyección de la Monarquía Hispánica en Europa: política guerra y diplomacia entre los siglos XVI y XVIII, edited by Rosario Porres Marijuán and Iñaki Reguera, Bilbao, Universidad del País Vasco, 2009, pp. 63-86.

Eekhout, Marianne, “Celebrating a Trojan Horse. Memories of the Dutch Revolt in Breda, 1590–1650”, in Memory Before Modernity. Memory cultures in Early Modern Europe, edited by Erika Kuijpers, Judith Pollmann, Johannes Müller and Jasper van der Steen, Boston/Leiden, Brill, 2013, pp. 129-147. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004261259_009

Espejo-Cala, Carmen, “The Prince of Transylvania: Spanish News of the War against the Turks, 1595-1600”, in News Networks in Early Modern Europe, edited by Joad Raymond and Noah Moxham, Boston, Brill, 2016, pp. 512-541. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004277199_023

Espejo-Cala, Carmen, “Connected Empires, Connected News: A Comparison between Early Modern Spanish and Dutch news books on Brazil’s conquest”, Media History 27 (4), 2021, pp. 409-424. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13688804.2020.1843422

Espejo-Cala, Carmen, and Francisco Baena, “The Seville Printer Juan de Cabrera (1623-1631): The Production of Serial News Pamphlets in 17th-Century Spain”, Communication & Society 29/4, 2016, pp. 203-218. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15581/003.29.4.203-218

Ettinghausen, Henry, How the Press Began. The Pre-periodical Printed News in Early Modern Europe, La Coruña, Universidade da Coruña, SIELAE, 2015.

González Palencia, Angel, ed., Noticias de Madrid, 1621-1627, Madrid, Ayuntamiento de Madrid, Sección de Cultura e Información, 1942.

Haar, Alisa van de, The Golden Mean of Languages: Forging Dutch and French in the Early Modern Low Countries (1540–1620), Leiden, Brill, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004408593

Harline, Craig, Pamphlets, Printing, and Political Culture in the Early Dutch Republic, Dordrecht, Nijhoff, 1987. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3601-0

Hulsenboom, Paul, Heretical Heroes and Savage Saviours: The Dutch and Poles in each other's imaginations during the long seventeenth century, doctoral dissertation, Nijmegen, 2023, pp. 165-172.

Infelise, Mario, “Communication and Information in Early Modern Europe. From National Historiographies to a European Model”, Annali dell’Istituto Storico Italo-Germanico in Trento 45, 2019, pp. 41-61.

Lamal, Nina, “Communicating Conflict: Early Modern Soldiers as InformationGatherers”, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 50/1, 2020, pp. 13-31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/10829636-7986565

Lamal, Nina, Italian Communication on the Revolt in the Low Countries (15661648), Leiden, Brill, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004538078

Lamal, Nina, and Paul Arblaster, “Spinola’s Fame in the News Press”, in Ambrogio Spinola between Genoa, Flanders, and Spain, edited by Silvia Mostaccio, Bernardo J. García García, and Luca Lo Basso, Leuven, Leuven University Press, “Avisos de Flandes” 20, 2022, pp. 213-250. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2q4b001.12

Larroque, Philippe Tamizey de, Récit de l’assassinat du sieur de Boisse Pardaillan et de la prise de Monheurt. Plaquettes Gontaudaises 6, Paris, Champion; Bordeaux: Charles Lefebvre, 1880.

Ledeboer, A. M., Het geslacht Van Waesberghe: eene bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der boekdrukkunst en van den boekhandel in Nederland, Rotterdam, Wed. P. van Waesberge en Zoon, 1859.

Lonchay, Henri, Joseph Cuvelier and Joseph Lefèvre, eds., Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne sur les affaires des Pays-Bas au XVIIe siècle, Volume 2, Brussels, Kiessling, 1927.

McCusker, John J., “The Demise of Distance: The Business Press and the Origins of the Information Revolution in the Early Modern Atlantic World”, American Historical Review, 110/2, 2005, pp. 295-321. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/531316

Merique, Cyril, “L’exaltation d’une figure historique au théâtre: Le général Spinola dans la comedia El Sitio de Bredá de Calderón”, e-Storia: Les Cahiers de Framespa 19, 2015, https://doi.org/10.4000/framespa.3385 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/framespa.3385

Newman, Karen, and Jane Tylus, eds., Early Modern Cultures of Translation, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press and the Folger Shakespeare Library, 2015.

Parrott, David, “The Military Enterpriser in the Thirty Years’ War”, in War, Entrepreneurs, and the State in Europe and the Mediterranean, 13001800, edited by Jeff Fynn-Paul, Leiden, Brill, 2014, pp. 63-86. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004271302_005

Parrott, David, and Robert Oresko, “The House of Savoy and the Thirty Years War”, in 1648, War and Peace in Europe: Politics, Religion, Law and Society, edited by Heinz Schilling and Klaus Busmann. Münster: Veranstaltungsgesellschaft 350 Jahre Westfälischer Friede, volume 1, 1998, pp. 141-160.

Pettegree, Andrew, The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know About Itself, Boston, Yale University Press, 2014.

Raymond, Joad, “El rostro europeo del periodismo inglés”, in La aparición del periodismo en Europa: Comunicación y propaganda en el Barroco, edited by Roger Chartier and Carmen Espejo-Cala, Madrid, Marcial Pons, 2012, pp. 177-206.

Raymond, Joad and Noah Moxham, News Networks in Early Modern Europe, Boston/Leiden, Brill, 2016. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004277199

Sabbe, Maurits, “Brandschatting van Brabant door Frederik Hendrik in 1622”, in Brabant in’t verweer: Bijdrage tot de studie der ZuidNederlandsche strijdliteratuur in de eerste helft der 17e eeuw, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1933, pp. 119-132.

Slauter, Will, “Le paragraphe mobile. Circulation et transformation des informations dans le monde atlantique du XVIIIe siècle”, Annales HSS 2, 2012, pp. 363-389. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0395264900010143

Slauter, Will, Who Owns the News? A History of Copyright, Redwood City, Stanford University Press, 2019. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503607729

Snyder, Jon R., Dissimulation and the Culture of Secrecy in Early Modern Europe, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2009. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520228191.001.0001

Swart, Erik, “Defeat, Honour and the News: The Case of the Fall of Breda (1625) and the Dutch Republic”, European History Quarterly 46, 2016, pp. 6-26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691415620957

Troyano Chicharro, José Manuel, “Don Alonso de la Cueva-Benavides, tercer señor y marqués de la villa de Bedmar (1574-1655)”, Boletín del Instituto de Estudios Giennenses 168, 1998, pp. 123-159.

Valdeón, Roberto A., “From the Dutch Corantos to Convergence Journalism: The Role of Translation in News Production”, Meta: journal des traducteurs/Meta:Translators’ Journal 57 (4), 2012, pp. 850-865. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1021221ar

Vosters, Simon A., La rendición de Bredá en la literatura y el arte de España, London, Tamesis Book Limited, 1974.

Vosters, Simon A., Het Beleg van Breda in het Wereldnieuws, Delft, Eburon, 1987.

Vosters, Simon A., Het Beleg en de Overgave van Breda in Geschiedenis, Literatuur en Kunst. 3 vols., Breda, Gemeentelijke Archiefdienst, 1993.

Wagner-Pacifici, Robin. The Art of Surrender: Decomposing Sovereignty at Conflict’s End, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Weduwen, Arthur der, Dutch and Flemish Newspapers of the Seventeenth Century, Boston/Leiden, Brill, 2017.

Weststeijn, Arthur, “Empire in Fragments: Transatlantic News and Print Media in the Iberian World, ca. 1600–40”, Renaissance Quarterly 74, 2021, pp. 528-570. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/rqx.2021.5

Wyganowska, Dorota, “Reis in the Zuidelijke Nederlanden”, in De prinselijke pelgrimstocht: “Grand Tour” van prins Ladislas van Polen, 16241625, Exhibition catalogue, Ghent, Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, 1997, pp. 43-45.