03/03/2021 : Dr. Isabel Castro Rojas – Laws, orders and town criers in Madrid during the Early Modern Age

Webinar “Print & Power during the Early Modern Era”

Abstract

During the first centuries of the Early Modern Age, political communications and public exchanges were enhanced by the use of written, oral, and visual media. As numerous investigations have demonstrated, the strengthening of these political communications played an essential role on the circulation of a myriad of ephemeral texts and documents such as public warnings, wall posters, and libels. This presentation will state that the different communicative spheres were constituted by documents such as edits, public announcements, proclamations or legal regulations that have been hitherto neglected in the study of communicative spheres formation. These documents are mostly normative and legal in nature.

The villa of Madrid, which became the capital of the Hispanic monarchy in 1561, is the geographical scope within which this study examines. We will focus on the analysis of formal aspects, rhetoric strategies, and material characteristics of documents such as edicts and proclamations. In addition to studying the publishing procedures and delving deeper into the role of the figure of town crier. Finally, we will also reconstruct the rituals, ceremonies and the main public spaces, such as streets and squares, of all types of oral and written announcements.

Our speaker : Dr. Isabel Castro Rojas

Dr. Isabel Castro Rojas completed her PhD in Early Modern History at the University of Alcalà de Henares (2019). She is member of the Seminario interdisciplinar de estudios sobre Cultura escrita (SIELCE) & of the Grupo de investigación lectura, escritura y alfabetización (LEA). Her research focussed on the “cheap” written and/or printed official texts, such as ordinances & edicts, and their circulation in the public space at the Court of Madrid during Early Modern Age.

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