from Anglican Futures
The pamphlet ‘Assertio Septem Sacramentorum’ published in 1521 and attributed to Henry VIII is credited with earning him the title “Defender of the Faith”. It was a response, of course to perhaps the most powerful of all such publications – Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.
The Tudor king was an ‘earlier adopter’ of the power of the pamphlet and during the rest of the century pamphlets appeared on all manner of topics – political, religious and social. From the middle of the century Elizabeth I was frequent writer of pamphlets, not least on issues of gender.
The invention of the printing press and increasingly literacy were followed by intense and often heated exchanges of ‘Pamphlet Wars’. In the late 16th Century the ‘Marprelate Controversy’ saw the fight being taken, including by John Milton, by way of pamphlet to the Church of England in general and Archbishop William Laud in particular. Apparently 2,200 pamphlets were printed between 1600 and 1715 alone, in England alone. Amidst a panoply of subjects, the ‘hot takes’ of the day – the Civil War, execution of Charles I, Free Will, Judaism, Christology, nonconformity, Catholicism were key themes. Many pamphlets of the period were brutally sarcastic, witheringly satirical or simply wrathful polemics worthy of the worst of Twitter/X.
Later the French Revolution became a pamphlet debate enjoined by, amongst others, Thomas Paine, William Godwin, Edmund Burke and Mary Wolstonecraft.. The USA’s own most influential ‘pamphlet war’- what became the ‘Federalist Papers’ – was being waged around the same time. Many other pamphleteers such as Daniel Defoe and later Jonathan Swift became celebrated writers.
What Caxton did for the Bible, novel and pamphlet the internet has re-energised. The electronic pamphlet- the e-book and the like has revived the genre.