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Rachel Midura, "Postal Intelligence: The Tassis Family and Communications Revolution in Early Modern Europe" (Cornell UP, 2025)
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- [00:00]
A
Hello, everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network. And if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Productions. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:07]
B
Hello everyone, and welcome back to New Books in Early Modern History, a podcast on the New Books Network. I'm Yana Byers, your host, and I'm here today with Rachel Nadora to talk about her new book, Postal the Tasis Family and Communications Revolutions in Early Modern Europe. Oh, this year 2025 with Cornell University Press. Hi, Rachel.
- [01:27]
C
Hi. It's such a pleasure to be here.
- [01:29]
B
Thanks so much. Welcome to the program.
- [01:32]
C
Yay. How are you today? I'm doing all right. I actually just finished grading some of my students podcasts.
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B
Oh, fantastic. And how were they?
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C
Really interesting. It's really fun to have them bring on a friend or family member and talk through some of the material.
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B
That's very cool. I love that. I love we can do these new meaningful and exciting, like, you know, assessment tools that aren't just write a paper. Not that, I mean that is obviously an incredibly important skill, but there are so many ways to make an argument. So cool.
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C
Congratulations on that.
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B
That sounds very fun. Thank you. Okay, so how did you come to the topic for this book?
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C
Yes, so there's a somewhat longer story and a somewhat shorter story. The longer story is that I'm the daughter of an American diplomat and so I grew up overseas. In large part, I've always been really interested in how cross cultural communication works, both official and unofficial. So when I started grad school, that was a time in which there was a lot of really fascinating new work happening on this, particularly with regards to Mediterranean studies. So a lot of great scholars looking at Ottoman Italian relations and I thought that's where I'll go. Right. So the somewhat shorter story is that I tried to learn Ottoman Turkish and figured out that I was several years from where I was going to need to be to do that research, which ended up being good fortune because that drove me to go back to some of the languages that I already had and take some of those approaches and look at the transalpine environment instead. And that's where I found the thosis. And you know, with the suggestions of my excellent mentor, Paula Finlan, was really able to find a story that was fundamentally cross cultural and hadn't been explored in the ways that I wanted to perfect.
- [03:26]
B
That's awesome. That's a great story. I love how that works. So let's get our listeners up to speed. What's happening between say 15 and 1700 that makes a postal service necessary?
- [03:40]
C
Sure. So this is of course the period that we tend to refer to as the early modern because it's starting to see many of the patterns that will define our own lives. I'm a historian of information and communication and so a lot of the parallels that I see have to do with the ways that new communications technologies are fundamentally shifting daily life. For early modern Europeans, this takes the form of paper technology. Right. That paper has traditionally been one of the more expensive mediums. But with the advent of new paper making mills, particularly from the North African world, you suddenly have this proliferation of paper and states are increasingly employing it for all kinds of bureaucracy. With this and with the growth of states comes the need to actually maintain communication. That's true for merchants like Francesca Bettini who have these big international corporations. It's true for rulers who might need to stay in touch with very distant countries, even non contiguous territories. So there's a real demand for message carrying of various forms and there understandably becomes quite a diverse environment of messengers as a result.
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B
Yeah. And so we're talking about political communications, but also a lot of like legal and merchant related financial translation transactions that are kind of being recorded as well.
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C
Right? Yeah. This is a world of paper. Increasingly, business is done on paper in the ways that we recognize in the modern world.
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B
And for this book, let's talk about our friends, the Habsburgs.
- [05:23]
C
Of course, they're always there, inescapable.
- [05:29]
B
So.
- [05:29]
C
The Habsburgs, of the many ruling dynasties that are coming to rule these large territories, have one of the largest. And in fact, I've seen it said that Charles V and his son Philip II will lay claim to over a quarter of the Earth's land mass. And that's, of course, not including just Europe. That's including the Atlantic, the Pacific. So vast, vast territories. Right. Inherited and somewhat strategically collected, let's say. So the Habsburgs are facing this need more than any other ruler at this point in time. And this is what drives them to essentially poach some of the better practitioners. The Tassis family had originally gotten their start working for the Venetians and for the papacy. And so it's most likely in that way that the Habsburgs hire them as essentially contractors to build out their own postal network.
- [06:21]
B
Okay, and what kind of territory, like a quarter of the earth surfaced or something? I mean, it's.
- [06:28]
C
It's the.
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B
All over Europe and not. And the rest of the world and not contiguous and. And never ending. Right. And the Habsburgs are such an incredible power that they're the. The. It's kind of, I would imagine, hard to make a distinction here between what's political and what's economic and what's financial. What's about power? You know, like what's personal, what's political?
- [06:51]
C
Well, interestingly, this is one of the problems that postmasters and postmistresses face early on is that dividing the public mail, in this case, referring to state mail and from the particulars. Right. Things that belong to individual businessmen. Right. It's still a fairly expensive system, so you likely need to be fairly wealthy to use it. But the issue is that the Habsburgs. The Habsburgs are great at promising large things. They aren't necessarily always paying the bill. So what you have are these postal systems that are increasingly integrating private mail, especially for these wealthy businessmen, and needing to justify this to their bosses as well. Right. To basically create an economy of scale in where the state mail is subsidized effectively by the carrying of private mail.
- [07:39]
B
All right, so back to the paper. And it's funny, I almost always ask about sources right away. And that's funny because it's part of the story of your book. But so let's talk about the source material you're using, all the paper you're using.
- [07:56]
C
Yeah. So I. One of the things that made me very interested in this project from early on is that I think most early modernists work with letters. That's one of the biggest source materials for any given project. And if you go into a state archive in particular, 90% of it is going to be correspondence of some kind. That being said, I think we frequently tend to overlook how that correspondence actually worked, who carried it, in what conditions, at what speed, at what cost. There's obviously been a couple foundational works on this, including Fernand Braudel as well as Wolfgang Beringer's books. One of the things that I wanted to do was not just look at the correspondence for these clues. Since infrastructure is often not mentioned in the letters themselves, they take it for granted, but instead looking at the archives created by postmasters and postmistress and postal lieutenants. Right. The ways in which they actually manage their day to day business of dealing in paper on paper.
- [08:56]
B
Okay, so we've got this technology that's part of this technology that is new paper that is allowing for kind of a revolution in some ways, of a radical change in kind of the way you're able to communicate. And so it's very, it feels really meta.
- [09:17]
C
Well, I think, you know, one of the comparisons I like to draw is that we frequently talked about the printing press is a type of Internet revolution, right. But in fact the press and all this paper technology is the hardware and in fact it's the networks, the postal networks that are the equivalent of what social media has been for the Internet, for example, Right. Where it's fundamentally redefined the ways in which technology is interacting with society and politics and economics.
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B
Cool. Right on. So tell me what the postal service looks like. How's the post moving? What's it taking? Like, how long does it take to tell me, tell me, tell me everything.
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C
Sure. So as I mentioned, there's been a great demand for messengers in Europe and particularly in the highly urbanized areas like Italy since the late Middle Ages. But what had arisen to meet that need was a very diverse ecosystem where it could be everything from foot messengers to, you know, messengers employed by the universities or the churches. What makes a postal system different is actually in the name. It's the establishment of staging posts. These are places where riders could stop, change horses, rest a while, but most importantly, ride and relay which is the fastest way to carry mail physically, essentially. So actually the postal horn that we associate with the messenger is from the tool that they would have used to alert the next rider to be ready to basically leave as soon as the rider arrived at that staging post. So this is a vast amount of infrastructure. It is extremely expensive because ideally you're establishing these way stations really within a few miles of each other. You're keeping them staffed, you're keeping them, you're keeping horses there, which is a massive expense in the early modern world. So there's all kinds of ways in which the postal system becomes integrated into existing hospitality and travel systems, and then becomes even its own hospitality and travel system. So these staging posts are often also postal inns. So the way that this works, basically, is that you would go to your post office. If you're in a big city, there's likely a couple different options, depending on who's operating out of there. You would go to the post office in your city. There might be a couple different options, depending on who is operating there. I particularly look at the Tassa's postal systems, but the Venetian company of couriers, the papal messengers, all of these could be active in a single hub like Milan or Venice. You could then negotiate somewhat a postal rate. You could send the fastest possible mail, but increasingly, by the 16th century, you could even send mail at a much reduced rate that would travel with what was known as the ordinary messenger. And these were messengers who did not travel at the fastest speed. In fact, they were often on foot, but they would carry amounts of mail on a given timetable, which meant that they were pretty predictable and affordable. And so this is increasingly what a postal system really means for a wider society.
- [12:27]
B
So is there danger for these people.
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C
Who are carrying the post? There is a lot of danger. And in fact, there is an Italian proverb that to ride by post is to play with death.
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B
All right.
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C
Because a lot of what they're carrying is valuable and literally valuable in terms of their ferrying large amounts of money. But the intelligence that they carry is also quite valuable. And the reason that I keep mentioning that territory was not contiguous is that you're often having to cross somebody else's territory in the course of a journey. So this would open itself up to all kinds of dangers, both from brigandage, but also espionage, potentially.
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B
Yeah, and both at once. Okay, so let's walk through the body of your book. So first, tell us about the Tassis family.
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C
Yes. So the Tasis family are one of a number of families from just north of Bergamo, which is located outside of Milan in Lombardy in Italy. These are brokers, families who are good at being merchants, bankers, and increasingly messengers. So the Tassas are one of a number that get their start in the Venetian company of couriers, which is so dominated by people from these particular valleys that the company is often even referred to as the Compania DEI Bergamaschi or of the Folks from Bergamo. So the Tassas are particularly successful in part because they land an early contract to act as postmasters to the popes. And it's from there that they end up acting as postmasters and postmistresses for the Habsburgs. This family, I frequently see that there's, you know, between 10 to 20 Tassas, postmasters and postmistresses located all across Europe from Brussels to Madrid to, you know, Vienna and Prague.
- [14:16]
B
So what does a postmaster or mistress do?
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C
So I should say the Tassas in particular kind of invent the role of the postmaster or postmistress general. So this is someone who oversees not just these vast networks of postal infrastructure, but also is essentially the chief representative, right, the person who is overseeing the many postmasters and postmistresses who staff all of those way stations along the way. Increasingly, this is an incredibly large bureaucratic task, which is one of the reasons that the Tassas I find succeed at it is because they're able to be many places at once, essentially through this family firm system of distributing various nieces and nephews. It means constant contact. You need to basically maintain with every messenger some form of documentation of what he's carrying, for whom, at what price, who needs to be reimbursed, what right. All of this is complicated by the fact that the Habsburgs also experience a dynastic split with the abdication of Charles V. So now you've got Thassa's postmasters who are working for the imperial system on the one hand, but also the Spanish system on the other. And so that leads into family disputes that really mirror those of the Habsburgs themselves.
- [15:34]
B
All right, I love a good story, especially one that becomes a good micro history. So tell me about, and our listeners about the arrest of a postmaster.
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C
Yes, so this was one of my favorite chapters to research and write, actually. So Giovanni Antonio Tassis is the central character for this story. And I begin talking about the years of the Italian wars where we really see the Habsburgs and other European powers duking it out in the Italian peninsula for pan European domination, essentially. So, you know, this has transformed Italy not just into a hub for communications, but also an extremely dangerous one. And that's especially true with the advent of the Carafa Pope, who is no friend to the Habsburgs. So Giovanni Antonio Tassis is one of a, what I call postmasters in residence. These are postmasters who are living outside of the territories of the ruler that they're serving. And so he's acting as a kind of diplomatic representative. Right? He's not officially an ambassador or part of the embassy, but he's working closely with the Spanish representatives and the imperial representatives at this time. So this is how he gets tied into the espionage and counter espionage. Essentially, a messenger has been sent out of the city, contravening papal edicts about controlling communications. The messenger is discovered to carry a number of ciphered documents. So cryptology is very much in its development at this time period. The way. The best way that you could guard information was to make sure nobody actually knew it was traveling. But if they did come across, you know, a letter that's just a set of numbers, they might immediately become suspicious that this was, in fact, intelligence. So what happens is that the postmaster and his staff are arrested. Jovan Antonio Tassis is held for close to two years, I think, and subject to torture as a part of these investigations. But what's unusual about it is that this is really the last time that we see that kind of harassment of a postmaster from. There's such an international outpouring against these actions that what we're seeing is a kind of customary protection become increasingly enforced in an international arena where we now see this institution of the postmasters in residence become much more permanent in the way that ambassadors do. For example, at the end of the day, the Habsburgs and the Tassas emerge successful from the struggle. Giovann Antonio Tassas is eventually released. But I make the case that, you know, this is really a turning point in the Italian wars that focuses on this core issue of to what extent do you have communications monopoly over a territory? And to what extent can international powers enjoy a form of information sovereignty, essentially the ability to send and receive correspondence even in times of war.
- [18:31]
B
So, I mean, having the control, having the ability to send post even at time of war is strategically incredibly important, right?
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C
It is, but I think the other thing is that Italy's elite in particular had become so dependent upon these systems that a lot of the pressure is actually coming from the private patrons of the post. Right. Where these kinds of disruptions are disrupting everything. Right. These are essential personnel, essentially. And so there's a kind of common consensus that crosses political boundaries that these systems need to be permitted to continue even in times of political crisis.
- [19:08]
B
So there then we get this idea that the post is just something that is. Is so essential that nothing, nothing can get in the way of that, even war.
- [19:16]
C
Okay, yes. And I think that's really key for thinking about the arrival of an international system. Right. One that is dependent upon social ties. Right. As well as Social and economic ties, I should say, as well as political.
- [19:31]
B
So I mean, are we going to see something emerge here that it feels like, it feels like the, you know, this is going to go hand in hand with the development of the diplomatic corps? Yeah. Is that a, is that a kind of a thing to. An appropriate thing to think?
- [19:46]
C
Absolutely. I mean the first, most consistent use of these state run postal systems are by diplomatic representatives. So to answer one of your earlier questions about speed, one of the great source materials for me are the letters of the Venetian diplomatic representative living in Milan, which is Spanish Habsburg territory at this point in time. So he frequently, not being a member of the elite, he's not considered a high status ambassador, but he is responsible for managing basically the entirety of the Venetian diplomatic network that stretches west of Milan. So he's constantly keeping account books, you know, basically asking for additional funding for the cost of sending all this mail, and gives a very good sense of the fact that his own letters are routinely traveling between Venice and Milan within two days.
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B
That's amazing.
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C
Yeah. And I mean it's, that may seem slow to us today, but that was really a speed that had, was unmatched in, in that world.
- [20:48]
B
I don't think I've ever gotten post from Milan to Venice in two days.
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C
Fair enough.
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B
I'm impressed. But I mean also that's just an immense amount of territory that is as fast as something can be carried. Right. Like it is.
- [21:02]
C
And the interesting thing there is that's not even technically the fastest that a messenger could go. That system tended to be the ordinary messenger. And so not only was this happening within two days, it was happening within two days at a reasonably reliable pace, which meant that you could say that the messenger would arrive on this day and leave at this time, and could have an interlocking system of messengers so that something could get from, from Venice all the way to Madrid, for example.
- [21:29]
B
Yeah. And safely and reliably. And as we noted, like post is a dangerous business. This is a, it's politically dangerous as well.
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C
Right.
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B
Like there, the politics is part of this.
- [21:41]
C
Absolutely. And the, there's plenty of reasons to distrust many of the Tassas and the other postmasters and postmistresses who follow in their, their stead. I mean, in order to act as this kind of broker, the way I describe it in the book is that these are servants to many masters. Right. Where you are essentially a state official, you are handling incredibly sensitive intelligence, but you're also routinely working with foreign rulers, foreign courier bodies. And so the allegiances of the postmaster or the postmistress are frequently questioned. And even, you know, this has resulted in a couple of major incidents, right, where I particularly explained the allegiances of the postmaster of Frankfurt, who is not a Tasa's family member, but is employed by them and is one of increasingly a whole body of postal lieutenants who need to be brought into the system from outside of the family. But it's for that very reason that there's all kinds of resentment from the family. There's concern about Protestants in the system and where their allegiances may lie, all of which is incredibly pressing at the outset of the thirty Years War.
- [22:46]
B
Right, so tell me about this Italian road.
- [22:51]
C
So one of the questions I had going into this project was what were the major arteries of the system? So I basically explore this in a couple different chapters, one of which focuses on the Italian Road, which is that key connection between Milan and Venice. The point that I like to make for, you know, when I have more visuals in front of me, is that if you look at a map of Europe, the east west access and the north south axis pretty much directly fall along that route between Milan and Venice, right? Where you have a choice of either going over the Alps, which is quite tricky terrain, or going under the Alps and in the area known as the Po Valley, which is much easier terrain in general. The issue is that the Po Valley is divided between Venetian rulership and the Spanish Lombard dominion at this point in time. And so those are frequently political enemies, Right? But one of the benefits of the Thassis is that they're able to work across this dividing line. One of the complications is that with the abdication of Charles V, you now have a Spanish postmaster of Milan who is atossis, and then you have an imperial postmaster in residence in Venice who was also atases. And so one of the lenses I use for talking about this Italian road is the conflict between two cousins who occupy these two roles. Both are named, confusingly, Ruggero Tassis, and they absolutely hate each other. And so they're constantly in contest with one another for laying claim to the various postal way stations there. Between these two ventures, they end up working with the Venetian company of couriers on the one hand and then a whole separate body on the other, where they're basically, the expectation from the rulers is that they'll just work it out and work together, and instead they go to third parties because that dislike of one another is so strong.
- [24:43]
B
That's so funny. And of course, they have the same name listeners. They're like 10 Italian names, and then they are used over and over again.
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C
In the same families.
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B
It's incredibly confusing.
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C
I eventually had to sit down and just work out a whole family tree for the Taz's family that I wish I'd started at the beginning of this project.
- [25:01]
B
Yeah, well, you know, next time it'll be, you'll know. In chapter five, you talk about digitally reconstructing the mailbags, which is interesting on its face and is also interesting methodologically. So just tell our listeners how this works.
- [25:16]
C
What did you do here? Yeah, so this is one of the other hats that I wear. In fact, in my position here at Virginia Tech, I'm a digital historian as well as early modernist. This can sometimes seem strange to people as a combination. But in fact, what I'm talking about, this world of paper, was dealing with many of the information overload issues that we face in dealing with digital data. So in some ways, the, the methods that I bring to these much older forms of documentation are addressing some of the same issues and the same know fundamental questions that postmasters had about this system. So, for example, one of the ways that, you know, thinking quantitatively was quite helpful was in working through all of these ledgers of what mail had been sent to where, from where. Right. And at whose cost. And so that lets me tell a longer story and one that's more accurate about. Okay, this is how much it likely would have cost and how that cost changed over time. And similarly for the speed at which mail could travel. I also tend to work quite a bit in spatial and network analysis. And I still remember when I was in the Thassa's family archives, which are located in Regensburg now because the family became turn intoxis. And I found a network diagram among the many documents. It was a bit later in time from the 18th century, but as soon as I pulled it out and folded it out, that was exactly what I was looking at, was a postmaster trying to work out, here are the nodes of the network. If the mail leaves from here at this day, at this time, how can it then leave, you know, from the next location and be a part of this bigger system? So the point that I want to make here is that the digital technologies have helped me to see the sources in the ways that these original administrators did, which was as systems administrators. Right. Trying to figure out and predict where problems might occur, as well as optimizing the existing system.
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B
Okay, and what did you find out?
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C
Well, I. This was the process that helped me to unearth what the real arteries of the system were right. The places that if something went wrong, all of a sudden there was a cascading effect across the system. So, you know, this also ties into some of the more qualitative explorations in the book where I talk about the issues with the establishment of black chambers. These were places where postal surveillance and espionage were routinely being carried out, but that had a delaying effect upon the mail itself, which was then felt across the network and disliked by private users, let's say, who. Who made their distaste for this kind of interference known, then posing this as a problem for postal administrators who would have to justify, in turn, why the mail was being stopped, why it was being opened. Right. So this. There's a couple of hubs that become quite important for this, one of which is Brussels, another which is Cologne, which is a later addition to this network as it becomes more oriented towards the European north.
- [28:22]
B
All right, in the 17th century, travel becomes easier. Yeah. Probably still not easy, but easier. No.
- [28:31]
C
Yes. I mean, certainly there is now public transportation in ways that have all the issues we associate with public transportation today, but that are widely available. Like what?
- [28:42]
B
What does that look like? What's 17th century public transportation?
- [28:47]
C
So one of the logics structuring the book is that it moves chronologically, but each chapter considers what I call a fundamental transformation of the existing postal system. Right. That the technology itself, this idea of putting something on paper, carrying it from one place to another, whether that was on foot or by carriage, as it was increasingly the case that technology doesn't change that much. It's the whole system that surrounds it that is suddenly reinvented with each new social change. So in later chapters, I talk about the reinvention of this postal system as posting people, as becoming a means of public transportation for a much wider swath of society than those initial rulers able to send mail at the highest cost. This comes with the establishment of the postal stagecoach, as we often refer to it today, which is underway in the 1620s, somewhat put on pause by the Thirty Years War, but by the 1650s, 1660s, you're seeing these systems of carriages, of coaches, of what are increasingly referred to as diligences right across Europe, where you could know that the mess that this postal coach would leave from a given inn at a given time, it would cost you this much. You would be able to travel as a part of a group. It would be an extremely diverse group. Right. So we have travelers commenting on, you know, the postal stage coach being like Noah's Ark. Right. And so this becomes itself a kind of interesting mixture of peoples. I think in the same way that we experience when we travel overseas and are, you know, suddenly navigating a new bus system. Right. Where it can be confusing, it can be frustrating, it can be, you know, you can easily run into scams, but at the same time, that infrastructure exists and is accessible to you as a foreign traveler.
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B
Sure. And it's safer.
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C
Yes, it's certainly safer than traveling alone. Right. So I think the key is to compare it to the alternatives and there's places where it is very safe indeed. And in fact, Montaigne talks about how he would be comfortable with his 8 year old daughter, basically walking along some of these alpine routes that have been in use for many centuries. There again, all of that pressure on protecting the postal routes is now benefiting the private traveler who goes by the same. Right. Where for the same reason that you're guarding the stagecoach against robbery, you're guarding now the travelers by that same route.
- [31:15]
B
So.
- [31:16]
C
Right.
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B
The motto of the U.S. postal Service. I learned as a child growing up in the giant pro USA propaganda machine that was public education in the late 20th century. And it always seems a little over romanticized to me. I was like, I know Mr. Arnt, my mail carrier is not all that committed. But then I read your, your final body chapter, High Towers and Black Chambers and I was like, oh no, this is just of a piece. Right. Like Post A Legend is crazy. There's so much melodrama.
- [31:46]
C
There is. And this was always really funny to me is that, you know, I would occasionally get asked what we working on? What is your book about? And I would say postal history. And people would say oh, how interesting. Right.
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B
And pivot.
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C
Right, right. Because the assumption was that this would be a really somewhat dry topic to say the least. The point that I make in the final chapter is that that perception of the postal system is a testament to the effectiveness of a propaganda campaign. Right. In which I call this the domestication of the post. That these systems that had existed and were fundamentally transnational systems that were intelligence gathering systems, become a part of domestic and particularly fiscal governance. Right. In ways that both managed to sell it as being somewhat impartial and partisan. Right. A system that is a part of a civil service of state, but also serves to disguise the fact that it is the. Still the black chamber. Right. It is still the origin point for things like the NSA in the US where, you know, the. This is a system that could be subject to compromise at any point in time.
- [33:02]
B
So one of the things I'm really having trouble wrapping my Brain around here is thinking about, you know, the relationship between the things that we think about when we talk about, like just characteristics of the early modern era, the expansion in bureaucracy, multinational empires, like growth in technology. And I'm having trouble figuring out how much this makes the post office, this postal service, possible and how much the postal service makes this possible.
- [33:32]
C
Yeah.
- [33:33]
B
Do you have any comments there? Help me out.
- [33:35]
C
Yeah. I mean, I think this is a. A story of communications revolution, right? So I use the postal system as a lens for understanding the much vaster transformations that are happening in early modern society. But I will say that for technologies, they don't create change, but they do accelerate and even aggravate change in ways that I think we experience in our own daily lives, where they can fit into a system and bring a lot of tension and conflict. Right. So this is one of the ways that I talk about the postal systems here, is that they are fitting into existing tensions and culture wars, but they are adding to a more reactive environment in which things are perceived as happening faster, as being more immediately dangerous. Right. And becoming so essential to society that many of the emotions surrounding it. Right. Also become quite, you know, up for discussion. So one of the points that I am keen to make is that the idea of privacy. Right. Is constantly in debate throughout the system, much as it is for our own information systems today. It is frequently a reaction rather than a proactive policy. And so we see individual letter writers talking about feeling violated by these black chambers and letter interception. Right. That that kind of emotion seems to come about and really become common in society before it leads to any real policy shift. So this, for me, is an area of interest of thinking about, you know, the ways in which the Internet today similarly seems like just this leviathan of everything. Right. And that our attempts to kind of parse out what is the social, what is the economic, what is the political, are fundamentally defied by the system that has transformed and become so essential to all of them.
- [35:37]
B
All right, you know, you've got these. These three points that you wanted to kind of really make in kind of three areas. You wanted to talk about bureaucracy, of empire, the commercial revolution. I feel like we've done this, but I want to talk a little bit more about social discipline. Any further comments?
- [35:54]
C
There fundamentally, a lot of the transformations that I'm talking about are taking place during the Reformation years. So the Tassis and the Bergamoski rise to prominence at the end of the 15th century through the end of the 17th century. These are years in which there's a Great deal of social distrust as a result of the. The rise of new confessions within Europe. So there is a great deal of tension between even neighbors about things like hiding true belief. Right. So it is understandable then that the letter and the kind of personal access that that is associated with becomes part of this contested terrain. Right. Both by rulers who were anxious to control radical communications that could lead to conspiracies and rebellions, but also by individuals who are using this to keep contact across an increasingly refugee plagued Europe.
- [36:54]
B
Yeah, refugee plagued is really important to recognize, I think for a lot of people. We tend to think of the pre modern world like really anything before say World War II actually as this time where people don't go anywhere. And that's just not the case in the early modern period. Right.
- [37:13]
C
Yes. There's a ton of movement of peoples. In addition to this kind of confessional, you know, pressure, there is also several incidents of really terrible epidemic of plague which similarly cause people to move. And so you have systems in which people are not.
- [37:33]
B
Are.
- [37:34]
C
There's. You absolutely have these cosmopolitan individuals who are on the move as a part of their job, as a part of their belonging to the diplomatic systems. But you also have people who have traveled very far from home, not always in their own will. Right. But are maintaining these connections abroad. And that in itself is viewed with suspicion by these territorializing, confessionalizing rulers who see this as potential paths of influence. Right. And are increasingly working with their postmasters to surveil correspondence to identify potential fifth columns in places like Milan. Yeah.
- [38:09]
B
All right. That probably feels like a pretty good place to pull this to a close and to talk about how this works. This has been. It was a fascinating book. It really was. And I understand when you told people, like when you tell people, yeah, I'm interested in the history of the Post. You're like, cool, and I'm going to go get a drink. But it really is a fascinating story and it's so important. So thanks very much for doing the work. I'm sorry that you, you know, occasionally maybe got a little blown off at, you know, drinks, but.
- [38:43]
C
No, it's all in good fun. Thank you.
- [38:45]
B
Yeah, fantastic. All right, so just one more question. What's next?
- [38:50]
C
Well, you know, going to this point about the Post not being so boring after all. I'm now working on a second project which is tentatively titled the Age of Conspiracy, Treason, Assassination and the Hunt for Angelo Badaware, who I find is a fugitive from the Venetian state. And one of the things I discovered in the course of the first project is the ways in which Venetians are using their postal systems to attempt extradition, assassination, et cetera. So very much picking up from the themes of the ways in which the state is suddenly becoming much more active in people's lives. Not always for the better. Yeah, absolutely.
- [39:30]
B
Wow. I'm excited about that book. Fantastic. All right, listeners, this was me talking to Rachel Maduro about postal intelligence. Find the link on our website. All right, thanks very much, Rachel.
- [39:43]
C
Thank you.