''Corante: or, Newes from Italy, Germany, Hungarie, Spaine and France'' was the first
newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...
printed in
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. The earliest of the seven known surviving copies is dated 24 September 1621 (although
John Chamberlain is on record as having complained about them in August), and the latest is dated 4 November that year.
As with its predecessors, of which the earliest surviving copy is
Pieter van den Keere
Pieter van den Keere ( 1571 – c. 1646) was a Flemish engraver, publisher and globe maker who worked for the most part of his career in England and the Dutch Republic.
Life
He was born in Ghent, son of engraver Hendrik van den Keere, and around ...
's ''The new tydings out of Italie are not yet com'' from 2 December 1620, the ''Corante'' was translated from a
Dutch
Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
** Dutch people as an ethnic group ()
** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship ()
** Dutch language ()
* In specific terms, i ...
coranto
{{More footnotes needed, date=August 2023
Corantos were early informational broadsheets and precursors to newspapers. Beginning around the 14th century, a system developed where letters containing news and philosophical discussion were sent to ...
(hence the name) into
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Culture, language and peoples
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
* ''English'', an Amish ter ...
, and – as the result of a 1586 edict from the
Star Chamber
The court of Star Chamber () was an English court that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late to the mid-17th century (), and was composed of privy counsellors and common-law judges, to supplement the judicial activities of the ...
– carried no news about
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. Unlike those predecessors, however, the ''Corante'' was printed locally, instead of being a Dutch
import
An importer is the receiving country in an export from the sending country. Importation and exportation are the defining financial transactions of international trade. Import is part of the International Trade which involves buying and receivin ...
; in fact, the ''Corante''
's existence was the result of a request from
James I James I may refer to:
People
*James I of Aragon (1208–1276)
* James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327)
* James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu
* James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347)
*James I of Cyprus (1334†...
that Dutch authorities cease coranto exports.
Early issues of the ''Corante'' are thought to have appeared as early as the spring of 1621; in September that year, Thomas Archer, a
printer
Printer may refer to:
Technology
* Printer (publishing), a person
* Printer (computing), a hardware device
* Optical printer for motion picture films
People
* Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist
* James Printer (1640 ...
in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, was arrested for distributing corantos without a license, and his
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in whi ...
was shut down. Archer was released shortly thereafter, as "a license to print (corantos) and sell them, honestly translated out of the Dutch" had been purchased by an individual identified solely by the initials "N.B."; these initials, thought to belong to
book publisher
Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...
Nathaniel Butter
Nathaniel Butter (died 22 February 1664) was a London publisher of the early 17th century. As the publisher of the first edition of Shakespeare's ''King Lear'' in 1608, he has also been regarded as one of the first publishers of a newspaper in ...
, or to Butter's contemporary Nicholas Bourne,
History of Newspaper
by Mitchell Stephens Mitchell Stephens may refer to:
*Mitchell Stephens (academic)
Mitchell Stephens (born August 16, 1949) is an American professor of journalism and mass communications at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He is also a re ...
, originally published 1994 in Collier's Encyclopedia
''Collier's Encyclopedia'' is a discontinued general encyclopedia first published in 1949 by P. F. Collier and Son in the United States. With ''Encyclopedia Americana'' and ''Encyclopædia Britannica, Collier's Encyclopedia'' became one of the t ...
, archived at Stephens' official site at New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
; retrieved July 1, 2012 appear on all surviving copies.
See also
* History of British newspapers
The history of British newspapers begins in the 17th century with the emergence of regular publications covering news and gossip. The relaxation of government censorship in the late 17th century led to a rise in publications, which in turn l ...
References
{{reflist
The History of the Earliest English Newspapers, 1620 – 1642, by Edward Haig
''Studies in media and culture'' (2), 15-35, 2006-03 (requires Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Acrobat is a family of application software and web services developed by Adobe Inc. to view, create, manipulate, print and manage Portable Document Format (PDF) files.
The family comprises Acrobat Reader (formerly Reader), Acrobat (former ...
).
English-language newspapers
1621 works