A Brill Calendar: June 14

Few societies in Europe allowed publishers early in the 17th century as much freedom as the one of Holland, ‘primus inter pares’ of the Republic of Seven United Provinces.

Enjoying absence of central authority and conscious of the mercantile need to be aware of events in an international economy, typographical craftsmen in Dutch cities looking for viable applications of a technology already seen as a vital part of trade were hardly impeded in their business. In addition, printers were usually protected as members of their Guilds, true power-brokers in urban communities. What is more: printers were, perforce, literate men; neighbours and cousins of scholars, if not scholars themselves.

On June 14 1618 the oldest known copy of a printed Dutch newspaper, the ‘Courante uyt Italien, Duytslandt etc.’ appeared, published by Caspar van Hilten. The scoop would have remained unknown if a librarian of the Swedish Royal Library at Stockholm, Folke Dahl, wouldn’t have brought to light in 1938. Caspar died some four years after this edition (at Amsterdam), but his new-fangled activity was continued by his son, Jan van Hilten (Hamburg 1602 – Amsterdam, 1655), confirming the tradition that professional publishing tends to ‘run in the family’.

In this nascence of a new medium of disseminating information, it should be noted that Van Hilten Senior served as mercenary in the army of the Stadholder, Maurice of Orange, during the armistice in the war against Habsburg Spain - lasting from April 1609 until April 1621. It is seldom, that appreciation of the strategic value of up-to-date information is demonstrated so unequivocally; Prince Maurice refrained from warfare during these twelve years only grudgingly, while continuing to monitor news, any news, with fastidious circumspection.