In the eleventh century two monasteries in rural Wales, one hundred miles apart across rugged terrain, would every third year exchange messengers who would live in the other house for a week, to share the news.

By employing a family of private contractors, Emperor Maximilian had passed the problem of making the system work to a group of specialists who were working for profit. The contract of 1505 specified a fixed yearly payment of 12,000 livres. In return the Tassis agreed guaranteed times of delivery between the major postal destinations.

Parchment (often known as vellum), made from scraped animal skins, had served the medieval world well. It was hardy, took ink smoothly and evenly, and was very durable, as witnessed by the quantities of parchment documents that survive today. Parchment was also, to an extent, reusable. But it was brittle, and could not easily be folded. It had to

We are unusually well informed about Bernard's news network, because over five hundred of his letters survive.1 But in some respects Bernard is utterly characteristic of the news world of the medieval period. At this time regular access to news was the prerogative of those in circles of power. Only they could afford it; only they had the means to

Since the Protestant Reformation these systems of pre-publication inspection of copy (more theoretical than practical) had been reinforced by brutal penalties for any who challenged the local orthodoxy. Printers knew they had to tread carefully. But it would be wrong to ascribe the overwhelmingly loyalist tone of the news pamphlets primarily to

With so much at stake there were inevitably those who would attempt to steal a march on their competitors. ‘If you engage in trade, and your letters arrive together with others,’ wrote Paolo da Certaldo in a merchants’ handbook of the mid-fourteenth century, always keep in mind to read yours first before passing on the others. And if your letters

They offer repeated testimonials to the quality of their sources, the social status or number of the witnesses, and whether the writers were personally present. Even the recording of distant events reflects a clear concern to report only what was credible. Thus the chronicler of St Paul's Cathedral in London recorded, of an exceptionally severe

The birth of the newspaper did not immediately transform the news market. Indeed, for at least a hundred years newspapers struggled to find a place in what remained a multi-media business. The dawn of print did not suppress earlier forms of news transmission. Most people continued to receive much of their news by word of mouth. The transmission of

For half a century or more thereafter printers would follow a very conservative strategy, concentrating on publishing editions of the books most familiar from the medieval manuscript tradition.1 But in the sixteenth century they would also begin to open up new markets – and one of these was a market for news. News fitted ideally into the expanding