
On the Women’s Petition Against Coffee of 1674 - benbreen
https://resobscura.blogspot.com/2017/04/that-newfangled-abominable-heathenish.html
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_audakel
Imagine a space where you can bet on bear fights, warm your legs by the fire,
witness public dissections (human and animal), solicit prostitutes (male and
female), buy and sell stocks, purchase tulips or pornographic pamphlets,
observe the activities of spies, dissidents, merchants, and swindlers, and
then read your mail, delivered directly to your table. The thread tying it all
together is a new drug from the Muslim world—black, odiferous, frightening,
bewitching—called “coffee.”

~~~
gcb0
Hold your horses. Author is citing from a satirical text. it's probably 110%
false. Telling like a fact in the first paragraphs and title is just click
bait at its finest.

~~~
benbreen
Author here - the opening paragraph is based on Brian Cowan's academic
monograph on 17th century coffee houses which I recommend highly to anyone
interested in this. None of the things I wrote there are mentioned in the
satirical text, but are instead based on documented cases, such as Lloyds
coffee house becoming an insurance brokerage.

~~~
tomlock
I've been pretty fascinated by the idea of ancient coffee houses since reading
Raymond E. Feist's fictional novel "Rise of a Merchant Prince" in which most
of the action happens in a coffee house.

Are there any more articles or books you'd suggest to get more across the
topic, and particularly the salacious and dramatic details?

~~~
benbreen
It's so funny you mention that book because it was one of the things that set
me on my current path (got a Phd in early modern history and am now writing a
book about the drug and spice trade). I need to reread it, it's been a long
time. Anyway, Cowan's "The Social Life of Coffee" is a good read, I thought.
The diary of Samuel Pepys is an exceptional book if you're looking for
something written by a contemporary, although he spends more time in taverns.
I suspect that Dutch and French coffeehouses were even more interesting than
English ones but there doesn't seem to be much on them unfortunately.

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walrus01
I for one wish for the days when one could order a bespoke codpiece, bet on a
bear fight and hire a prostitute all in a single establishment.

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inputcoffee
Not sure if this is satirical, but obviously we are all convinced.

Who is going to join me in taking freeing our land from the scourge of coffee
houses?

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rustynails
If you're looking for a more insightful history to the "penny university", the
Wikipedia page contains much more detail about coffee houses and some analysis
of the pamphlet.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_17th_and_18th_centuries)

It's a fascinating read. Trying to capture how people lived and thought a few
hundred years ago is very difficult today because much history is now overlaid
with politics and filters. The Wikipedia page paints a picture that seems
feasible based on my wide reading of history.

The resobscura speculates (without evidence) that the pamphlet was most
probably written by a man. This view is not shared by the Wikipedia article
for multiple reasons that anybody can speculate over.

~~~
benbreen
Re: whether the pamphlet was written by a man or a woman, if you reread you'll
see that I simply note that others have speculated, but there's no evidence
either way. Suffice to say, 17th century pamphlets aren't always what they
purport to be, so I think it's best to be agnostic about claims of authorship
without additional documentation.

~~~
pilsetnieks
Either way, authorship doesn't really matter that much. At the time, printing
these pamphlets still cost some money, it wasn't something done entirely on a
whim; therefore, if a pamphlet exists, there was someone with a purpose behind
it, either religious, or political, or economic motivation but it wasn't just
someone expressing an opinion, it was someone hoping to somewhat influence the
public narrative.

