SOURCE: “Personal News,” in Some Forerunners of the Newspaper in England, 1476-1622, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1929, pp. 13-34.

In the following excerpt, Shaaber shows that broadside ballads and other inexpensive verse often served as a means of disseminating news about the British royalty and popular heroes, and he notes that these publications eventually evolved into newspapers.

Personal news, as we may call it, is probably the oldest kind. It is a record or, more often, merely a celebration of the achievements of a personage of importance, from the sovereign himself to a prominent London merchant, written by one of his liegemen, retainers, or clients, or by an admirer whom his attainments have inspired at a distance. Sometimes encomia of this sort were written from motives little better than selfish, for the courtier who wrote a poem glorifying the virtues of his master might reasonably expect a reward, and...