Rumour, news, and trust

This chapter focuses on the circulation and reception of news in sixteenth-century St Gall. Through an analysis of sixteenth-century conceptions of fama (rumour, reputation, news) and a series of case studies relating to rumours about witchcraft in the Black Forest, a volcanic eruption in Naples, and an Ottoman–Catholic alliance, the chapter traces the processes by which fama became fact in the eyes of Rütiner and his contemporaries. Since it was usually impossible to verify news independently, St Gallers relied on an elaborate system of ‘source criticism’; a system which often worked in favour of oral news because it made people’s trust in a piece of news conditional on their trust in the messenger. St Gall’s newsmongers, in turn, used the flexibility of oral news to adjust their stories to their audience’s expectations, to present themselves and their sources as trustworthy, to hide their reliance on anonymous printed news, and to discredit their competition on the marketplace of information.