Falk Eisermann, (Berlin State Library), ‘Medium of the Masses? Some Observations on Press Runs and Audiences of 15th Century Broadsides.’
About 2,500 broadside editions from the 15th century have survived. Bibliographically speaking, they make a rather uniform appearance. Nevertheless, they cover a wide range of subject matters and aim at various audiences. Yet, some scholars as well as the general public tend to assume that in Gutenberg’s time there was already such a thing as “the broadside”, a popular, ubiquitous, readily available type of written publication: a mass medium. Eisermann pointed out that this is a misconception. Fifteenth-century broadsides came in the form of indulgences, imperial (and other) decrees, and illustrated publications (e.g. devotional sheets, humanistic Flugblätter). When one wants to tackle basic questions such as ‘How many broadsides were printed?’ and ‘What were they used for?’, it is indispensable to take into account general issues of production, patronage, and historical contexts. Only the analysis of additional archival sources, combined with a thorough description of surviving copies, can provide reliable answers to these important questions.

Susanna Berger, (University of Cambridge), ‘Pedagogical Broadsides and the Study of Aristotelian Logic.’
In early-seventeenth-century France, it was common for professors of logic to undertake the education of their students with the aid of engraved broadsides known as thesis prints. Used in public oral examinations called ‘disputations’, these documents represented philosophical systems by incorporating texts and images, and were often designed by the professors or students. Berger examined the uses and dissemination of pedagogical broadsides that explicate Aristotelian philosophy. One such broadside, entitled Artificial Description of the Whole Logic, was designed in 1614 by the Franciscan friar Martin Meurisse for his students at the Grand Couvent des Cordeliers in Paris. The original version of this thesis print, which was widely copied and translated, includes excerpts of texts in Latin scattered across the image of a garden landscape that is adorned with architecture, human figures, animals, and objects. The broadside combines text and image in order to help scholars, students, and listeners at public defenses grasp an Aristotelian system of logic. This complex visualization of logic reveals the important role of broadsides in early-modern philosophy education.

Richard Sharpe (University of Oxford), ‘The Vending of Books: Sheldonian sales-catalogues 1694 to 1720.’
Oxford’s University Press printed near-annual broadside sales-catalogues under the leadership of Arthur Charlett between 1694 and 1720. Professor Sharpe offered the first attempt at a descriptive listing of surviving examples, supplemented with further information from contemporary correspondence and diaries. He paid particular attention to the question why the broadside was adopted from 1694 rather than continuing with the much greater space provided by the double-sided sheet such as that from 1686: the advantage lay in updating and working off copies as new titles came forward, sometimes several times within a year, even though the date printed at the top was often unchanged. Where his predecessors issued catalogues to sell books already printed, Charlett issued them in the hope of soliciting pre-publication orders, though apparently without requiring even the partial prepayment sought by authors' proposals.
Printing in Oxford in this period has been looked on as a success, judged by the quality of the books produced, but commercially it is apparent that the Press found it difficult to sell books throughout this period. Dr Charlett would say in 1718, ‘The vending of books we never could compass’. These catalogues bear witness to his efforts to sell books outside the London trade. Commercially, it is apparent that the Press found it difficult to sell books throughout this period. This helps to explain why, even before 1720, the Press had ceased to print learned works as a venture, with the result that for more than forty years down to 1758 hardly any works were published by the University.

Angela McShane (Victoria and Albert Museum/Royal College of Art), ‘Cultural Economics in the Broadside Trade: ‘Commissioned’ and ‘Retail’ Broadsides.’
An amazing variety of broadside products cluttered up the streets and infiltrated lives in early modern England. The physical nature of the broadside enabled it to function spatially, visually and aurally, reaching socially broad and numerous audiences. Yet the traditional cost of a broadside, a penny, did not change over three centuries of the early modern period. What was ‘popular’ and what was possibly an ‘instrument of social domination’, foisted on audiences by educational and social elites, in this context? In order to distinguish between those products that can be considered as representing aspects of popular taste and those that cannot, two approaches suggest themselves. First, a careful attention to differences in genre, content and style of cheap literary forms can serve to differentiate between those that were more or less accessible. Secondly, by considering the economic factors of production and sale it is possible to discern material differences between commissioned broadsides seeking to impose social, religious, political or cultural authority from above and retail broadsides that had to compete in the open market, engaging the tastes and interests of the broadest possible audience. The size and quality of paper, the quality of illustrations, and the layout all offer clues to how much of that penny would have been profit for the printer from the sales of different sheets.

Eric Nebeker, (University of California, Santa Barbara), ‘Musical Broadsides and Their Audiences in the Seventeenth Century.’
Because of their potential to spread ideas and gather in money, broadsides influenced the course of printed entertainment in England both by adapting popular material from other kinds of publications and by inspiring new directions in printing. They participated in an environment that mixed popular and learned forms for highly-educated as well as less-educated audiences. Nebeker focussed on the music printed on some broadsides, starting with a series of publications known as ‘Psalms of Thanksgiving’—multi-purposed broadsides that provide music and lyrics for an annual performance by the children of Christ’s Hospital, which also served as a report on the children under the hospital’s care. These music broadsides began in the sixteenth and were regularly printed throughout the seventeenth century. Later in the 17th century, broadside ballads were also printed with music. While backward-looking in some respects, these ballads are in many ways a response to the new and growing interest in music after the Restoration, though the often-meaningless musical notation suggests a musically illiterate audience. The presentation concluded with a performance of the music printed on one of these broadside ballads, as Nebeker demonstrated how an uncertain musician might take heart from the printed staves to make music at home.

Sara Mori, (Gabinetto Vieusseux, Florence) ‘Between censorship and permission: Tuscan broadsides at the beginning of 19th century.’
Tuscan pedlars and storytellers in the first part of 19th century were the retailers of broadsides. The government controlled this activity which was a form of licensed begging, permissions normally being granted only to the poor or unemployable. Whether or not these storytellers were literate themselves, or even if they were blind, they were required to sell flysheets with the text of poems or songs they were singing. This enabled firmer censorship of the contents. Broadsheets were considered potentially dangerous for their large diffusion among the lowest classes; for that reason they were controlled constantly by censorship, as we can see through analysis of the registers of the works presented at the censorship office of Florence. Broadsides sold by street singers might be seized by the police because they talked about politics, religion or immoral subjects. In fact, besides the traditional subjects of the ballads, a lot of poems and songs talked about Napoleon, the Pope and the Italian political situation. These were especially condemned by the censors.

E. Wyn James (Cardiff University) ‘Illustrating Welsh Broadsides.’
To quote the art historian Peter Lord, ‘Printed pictures are almost as old as the printed word.’ It is appropriate therefore that what is probably the earliest surviving Welsh-language broadside, printed in London in about 1618, contains illustrations. However, in general, illustrations are fairly few and far between in Welsh broadsides until one reaches the nineteenth century.
The prolific printer from the Conwy valley in north Wales, John Jones (1786–1865) was an important pioneer of illustrated broadside ballads. In addition to the smaller four-page ballad sheets, John Jones was noted for his larger format broadsides, where the pictorial element is especially prominent. John Jones was a member of the third of five generations of his family involved in printing and publishing, and was unusual as a Welsh printer in that he built his own printing press and cast his own type. Hugh Hughes and James Cope, the radically-minded illustrators used by Jones, were heavily influenced by English engravers such as Thomas Bewick and James Catnach and by the politics and religion of the period.

John Bidwell (Morgan Library and Museum) ‘Broadside Editions of the Declaration of Independence.’
The first broadside of the Declaration of Independence was printed in the shop of John Dunlap, perhaps in an edition of a hundred or two hundred copies, on July 4 1776, in order to be inserted into the Journal of Congress, as a record of an important government document, and to be taken and read in public throughout the colonies. As printed by Dunlap, this text began as a diplomatic instrument, which had to be published to achieve its purposes and which could be published speedily and efficiently in the broadside format. But later broadside editions took on an entirely different function as historical memorabilia — with paratextual additions that significantly influenced the way this document was read and revered.
Patriotic prints containing the text of the Declaration and facsimile signatures of the Founding Fathers first appeared in 1818. Although advertised as absolutely accurate reproductions, they did not replicate the text so much as celebrate its achievements as a vindication of human rights, a charter of freedom, and the birthright of a nation. Leading artists and engravers embellished them with ornamental lettering, portraits of presidents, and elaborate allegories of peace and prosperity. One of the more fanciful and partisan interpretations prompted the Department of State to commission the first real facsimile of the manuscript Declaration, which, ironically, may have played a role in damaging the original, now badly faded and barely legible.

Discussion
Giles Bergel opened the general discussion by asking how far the broadside could be conceived of as a single object, given its manifold uses? Was it entirely a public form, or were there interpersonal or private uses? Participants discussed the immediacy of the printed broadside, the feeling that some were printed as much for performance (someone receiving an indulgence) as for reading. Yet the examples cited provoked discussion about in what sense these prints were ‘ephemeral’. After all, indulgences were supposed to be active until the end of time. Broadsides have been preserved in different ways; collected in town archives, as official proclamations, or collected by enthusiasts, as in the case of ballads. In some cases the single examples we have are themselves the product of many re-printings

William Caxton, Advertisement for Sarum Pie ['Ordinale ad usum Sarum']. [Westminster: William Caxton, c.1476-7].
Arch. G e.37
(bequest of Francis Douce 1757-1834)
This poster, the first printed advertisement, announces Caxton's edition of the Sarum Ordinal or Pye, the priest's manual of variations in the Office during the ecclesiastical year. The ‘Red Pale’ in the Almonry, Westminster was Caxton’s shop. The request at the end (in Latin) not to remove the notice shows that it was meant to be attached to a wall or door: it is the earliest surviving printed advertisement in English publishing history.

Martin Parker (fl. 1624-1647)
Britaines honour. In the two valiant Welchmen, who fought against fifteene thousand Scots, at their now comming to England
London: Printed by E.G[riffin]. and are to be sold at the Horse-Shooe in Smith-field [1640]
Wood 401(131) The margins and reverse of this ballad written at the time of the Second Bishops' War between England and Scotland in 1640 were used by the young Anthony Wood (born in 1632) to practice penmanship. Later in life he had it bound with other ballads into this volume.

William Raven, Calendarium Londinense verum or Raven's almanack for ye year 1686.
London: Printed for ye Company of Stationers, [1686]
Alm. g.1686.1
A single-sheet engraved almanac folded into a small pocketbook, which also contains several blank pages of paper treated with a stiff sizing that could be written on with a silverpoint. The writing could be erased with a brush and water, and a new coating applied as needed.

Suum Cuique : Every man the full and unmolested enjoyment of his property
J. Young, Printer, Inverness, [1803]
Vet. A6 b.54(4) At a critical moment during Britain's wars against Napoleon, this notice patriotically reminding tenants of the property laws was printed for Archibald Campbell Fraser of Lovat (1736-1815). He was the chief of Clan Fraser, a merchant, diplomat, and MP for Inverness, raised a regiment to fight in the wars against Revolutionary France and to put down the Irish rebellion in 1798, and was an energetic promoter of agrarian improvements and rural industries. A pencil note calls for '29 [copies] of this,' to be posted.

Famous boxing match [between Griffiths and Bayliss]
Harding B 9(262)
The story of a boxing match which took place near Birmingham in 1816 is told here in poetry and song, and shown in an extraordinarily crude woodcut. A few years later the essayist William Hazlitt was one of ‘the Fancy’ coming from London to see a match. In ‘The Fight’, he celebrated the vigour and manly courage displayed in boxing, and the catharsis of violent combat, contrasted with the insipid pleasures of more genteel amusements.

Links:
Find online images of printed indulgences, in the Early Printing in Europe collection, from the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads
English Broadside Ballad Archive, University of California, Santa Barbara