In the early sixteenth century, the free imperial city of Augsburg in southern Germany played a vital role in the development of music printing with movable type north of the Alps. These technical advances impacted on the distribution of musical repertoire and placed the city's printers on a more equal footing with their Italian competitors. Taking these innovations as its starting point, this thesis examines the development of music printing in Augsburg during the sixteenth century. In addition to considering the specialist formats of choir books and partbooks, it extends the boundaries traditionally applied to music print culture to include books about music and pamphlets and broadsheets. These complementary strands of the printing industry contributed to a diverse geography of performance, with Augsburg's musical activity taking place not only in churches, schools and the home, but also in inns and on the street. The market for music publications was similarly multifaceted, encompassing professional musicians, wealthy collectors, students, keen amateurs and humble street performers. Levels of production varied. Pamphlets and broadsheets enjoyed a diverse market profile and were produced in large numbers. Theoretical texts and partbooks were issued in small quantities. In addition to reflecting their more restricted audience, this meagre output was a consequence of the city's thriving book trade, which reduced the demand for local production. In the case of partbooks, it was also a result of deliberate product placing. Augsburg's astute printers carved out a niche in a crowded market by issuing small numbers of partbooks at the highest end of the quality spectrum. The inclusive approach to music printing adopted in this study ensures that the significance of its findings extends beyond a localised investigation of print culture. By tracking the ebb and flow of production across formats and over the sixteenth century as a whole, a complex relationship between music printing and the socio-economic, cultural, political and religious upheavals of the period becomes apparent. Music printing, often the preserve of musicologists and specialist bibliographers, emerges as a powerful tool with which to refine our understanding of the early modern book world.

This study examines German illustrated broadsheets that were manufactured and published in the Holy Roman Empire between 1630-1633. They were part of a pro-Swedish media campaign launched soon after the arrival of the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf and the Swedish army in the Holy Roman Empire in June 1630 with the intention to legitimate the Swedish king’s presence in the Holy Roman Empire.  Inspired by Jan Glete’s notion about the early fiscal-military states as protection-selling enterprises, this study uses pro-Swedish illustrated broadsheets as a source material in order to examine how they were used to encourage German Protestants to buy Swedish protection. By looking for protection-selling arguments, this study wants to find out how Swedish protection was portrayed in the illustrated broadsheets. This study also makes a distinction between confessional and non-confessional protection-selling arguments, making it possible to distinguish which aspects of the protection-selling arguments that had a more religious character and vice versa. After the analysis of the source material, the protection-selling arguments are organised into various categories of representation, which enables the study to establish how Sweden and Gustav II Adolf were portrayed, and what they were claimed to represent in terms of protection.  The study concludes that the illustrated broadsheets portrayed Sweden and Gustav II Adolf as competent seller of protection who had the ability to protect its allies and co-religionists against aggression, religious oppression, plundering, murdering, destruction, the Devil and his collaborators, and consequences of the Edict of Restitution. Gustav II Adolf represents the Swedish state, and the illustrated broadsheets highlight his courage, competence as a political and military leader, and his Protestant devotion.  Their enemies are portrayed as dissident aggressors who represented religious oppression, plundering, murdering, destruction, heresy, devil-worshiping, and witchcraft. They were said to possess the negative qualities of hypocrisy and mortal sin, as well as an incapable military leadership.

My dissertation examines radical Protestant propaganda of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). It investigates the radicals’ depiction of foreign allies of the German Protestants as well as the presentation of German Catholic leaders in pamphlets and broadsheets of the war. Through analysis of representative sources portraying Prince Bethlen Gabor of Transylvania and King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, it examines the arguments used to gain support for foreign Protestant figureheads among the moderates of the Protestant camp. The dissertation also investigates the presentation of Emperor Ferdinand II and Duke Maximilian of Bavaria in order to determine how propagandists denounced German Catholic rulers as no longer worthy of German Protestant allegiance or tolerance. My conclusion demonstrates how radical propagandists sought to change moderate Protestant attitudes towards German Catholic rulers and foreign allies through a cohesive and sophisticated campaign.

This study seeks to describe the public communication practices of the authorities in the Dutch Golden Age. It is a study of 'state communication': the manner in which the authorities sought to inform their citizens, publicise their laws, and engage publicly in quarrels with their political opponents. These communication strategies underpinned the political stability of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. Concerned about their decorous appearance, the regents who ruled the country always understated the extent to which they relied on the consent of their citizens. The regents shared a republican ideal which dismissed the agency of popular consent; but this was an ideal, like so many ideals in the Dutch Republic, which existed in art and literature, but was not practised in daily life. The practicalities of governance demanded that the regents of the Dutch Republic adopt a sophisticated system of communication. The authorities employed town criers and bailiffs to speed through town and country to repeat proclamations; they instructed ministers to proclaim official prayer days at church; and they ensured that everywhere, on walls, doors, pillars and public boards, one could find the texts of ordinances, notices and announcements issued by the authorities. In the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, politics was not the prerogative of the few. That this was due to the determined efforts of the authorities has never been appreciated. Far from withholding political information, the regents were finely attuned to the benefit of involving their citizens in the affairs of state. The Dutch public was exposed to a wealth of political literature, much of it published by the state. The widespread availability of government publications also exposed the law to prying, critical eyes; and it paved the way to make the state, and the bewildering wealth of legislation it communicated, more accountable.