The Talk of the Town - Information and Community in Sixteenth-Century Switzerland

The Talk of the Town explores everyday communication in a sixteenth-century small town and the role it played in the circulation of information across and within early modern communities. It does so through the lens of the St Gall linen trader Johannes Ruetiner (1501-1556/7) and his notebooks, the Commentationes; a little-known source which offers unusual insights into an oral world normally hidden from view. A close reading of Ruetiner's notes on hundreds of conversations reveals what the inhabitants of a sixteenth-century town talked about, through which channels such information reached them, and how it was then processed, shared, criticized, contradicted, and employed as a means to forge and strengthen social bonds. By bringing together the histories of sociability and information, reconstructing Ru?tiner's network of informants and probing a broad variety of exchanges-jokes, gossip, news, and tales of the past-Carla Roth rethinks both what constituted valuable information in the sixteenth century and who was able to provide it, and argues that the circulation of information remained inseparably linked to the social dynamics of face-to-face exchanges long into the age of print.

Product details

• Authors: Carla Roth, Carla (Lecturer Roth
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.12.2021
• EAN: 9780192846457
• ISBN: 978-0-19-284645-7
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 240 mm x 20 mm
• Series: The Past and Present Book Series
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Modern era up to 1918; Non-fiction book; Oral History, Switzerland, European History, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Modern / 17th Century, c 1500 onwards to present day, Social and cultural history, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, HISTORY / Europe / Renaissance