'Fama' and her Sisters: Gossip and Rumour in Early Modern Europe

The essays in this collection demonstrate how Fama and her sisters, gossip and rumour, were central in private and public discourses about state and society in early modern Europe. In an era when oral, scribal, visual, and print cultures competed to satisfy a growing public demand for 'news', gossip and rumour informed people about the actions and morals of their social and political elites, and they commonly enabled people who did not usually participate in politics to engage with the publ...