著者

友田 卓爾

出版者

広島大学総合科学部

雑誌

地域文化研究 (ISSN:03851451)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.31, pp.45-74, 2005

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In November 1640 the Long Parliament met, and soon a commercially produced weekly manuscript of parliamentary proceedings was available in London. Nehemiah Wallington (1598-1658), the puritan artisan (turner) who lived in Little Eastcheap, read the serious newsbooks of the early 1640s. He compiled materials into the journal "Historical Notoces of Events occurring chiefly in the reign of Charles 1". He stood at his shop-door to watch the passing by of some political procession, or to look out for his book with keen anxiety. The aim of this article is to prove that the parliamentary news between November 1640 and May 1641 described in "Historical Notices of Events" is extracted or cited from the following two volumes which preceded the newsbooks : "The Diurnall Occurrences, or Dayly Proceedings of Both Houses, in this Great and Happy Parliament, From the third of November 1640, to the third of November 1641. With A Continuation of all the Speeches, from June last, to the third of November, 1641." and "Speeches and Passages of This Great and Happy parliament: From the third of November, 1640 to this instant June, 1641. Collected into One Volume, and according to the most perfect Originalls, exactly published." Commercial production of printed news undermined old norms of secrecy that precluded popular discussion of political matters. Wallington cried "Oh the damage and misery that we were in by paying of ship-money; and the wrong and impoverishing of very many thousands in paying monies for the Corporations which was against all law and conscience!" News publications incorporated a greater number of people into the arena of political debate.