On the so-called broadsheets in the Holy Roman Empire

Gutenberg's invention of printing produced not only printed books, but also other forms of print, such as the street literature. Particularly broadsheets, printed mainly in several free cities of Nurnberg, Augsburg, Strasbourg, Frankfurt and so on, reported various political, economic and social events. These sorts of print are named “Neue Zeitungen” (news reports/news). Some researchers consider them as one origin of the newspaper. Certainly the “Neue Zeitungen” possessed features such as actuality and continuity, but not periodicity. The 16th and the 17th Century witnessed the flowering of illustrated broadsheets in the Holy Roman Empire, later to be exported to England and France. Broadsheets acquired a wide range of social groups as their audience because of their low price, the engraving technology, and the phenomenon of traveling dealers. Anonymous production and sales networks permitted occasionally prohibited subject matter and made the broadsheets attractive as a print medium. This arrangement is reminiscent of that of the yellow journalism in contrast to so-called quality papers. Concision of text in the broadsheets and their quick production could also be compared to “twitter” in the internet era