Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England

"This book explores and exemplifies some of the subtler links between opinion, governance and law in early modern England by investigating moral panics. Modern media-driven 'law and order' panics may have originated in eighteenth-century England, with the development of the press and government sensibility to opinion, but there were earlier panics about witchcraft and popery. Essays by an experienced team of scholars discuss broadly episodes of moral panic before and after 1689, and consider their implications for changes in governance"--Provided by publisher. An exploration of links between opinion and governance in Early Modern England, studying moral panics about crime, sex and belief. Hypothesizing that media-driven panics proliferated in the 1700s, with the development of newspapers and government sensibility to opinion, it also considers earlier panics about cross-dressing and witchcraft. A fascinating study of moral panics about religion, women, witchcraft, revolution, crime, and corruption, ranging from the late seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth, Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England considers whether media-driven 'law and order' panics proliferated after 1700, with the development of the newspaper press and heightened sensibility to crime and the anonymity of London, as well as the availability of legislative solutions from regular law-producing parliaments. Together the essays reveal the importance of opinion as an influence on government throughout the period, but they also nuance our understanding of the public sphere. Whereas sixteenth and early seventeenth-century panics imply a political culture where involving the people in affairs of state was exceptional, by the mid-eighteenth century media-savvy governments routinely sought to manipulate public opinion to legitimize their rule. Moreover, the popular discourses informing moral panics shifted from a fundamentalist religious mindset of heaven against hell to concerns about social problems such as crime and the corrupting effects of commerce. By 1800 the reading public was clearly much less deferential and more demanding of government: and the rule of law depended on extended public discussion, even though much of it took the form of sensationalist reporting and panic Contents......Page 6 List of Illustrations......Page 8 Acknowledgements......Page 9 Notes on Contributors......Page 10 Note on Works Cited in Endnotes......Page 12 1 Introduction: Law and Order, Moral Panics, and Early Modern England......Page 14 2 The Concept of the Moral Panic: An Historico-Sociological Positioning......Page 35 3 ‘This Newe Army of Satan’: The Jesuit Mission and the Formation of Public Opinion in Elizabethan England......Page 54 4 Cross-dressing and Pamphleteering in Early Seventeenth-Century London......Page 76 5 Fear made Flesh: The English Witch-Panic of 1645–7......Page 91 6 ‘A sainct in shewe, a Devill in deede’: Moral Panics and Anti-Puritanism in Seventeenth-Century England......Page 110 7 ‘Remember Justice Godfrey’: The Popish Plot and the Construction of Panic in Seventeenth-Century Media......Page 130 8 The Dark Side of Enlightenment: The London Journal, Moral Panics, and the Law in the Eighteenth Century......Page 152 9 Forgers and Forgery: Severity and Social Identity in Eighteenth-Century England......Page 170 10 ‘How frail are Lovers vows, and Dicers oaths’: Gaming, Governing and Moral Panic in Britain, 1781–1782......Page 189 11 A Moral Panic in Eighteenth-Century London? The ‘Monster’ and the Press......Page 208 12 The British Jacobins: Folk devils in the Age of Counter-Revolution?......Page 234 13 Conclusion: Moral Panics, Law and the Transformation of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England......Page 258 B......Page 280 C......Page 281 E......Page 282 G......Page 283 I......Page 284 L......Page 285 M......Page 286 N......Page 287 P......Page 288 R......Page 289 S......Page 290 W......Page 291 Z......Page 292

This book explores and exemplifies some of the subtler links between opinion, governance and law in early modern England by investigating moral panics. Modern media-driven 'law and order' panics may have originated in eighteenth-century England, with the development of the press and government sensibility to opinion, but there were earlier panics about witchcraft and popery. Essays by an experienced team of scholars discuss broadly episodes of moral panic before and after 1689, and consider their implications for changes in governance.