"Con esta uera Vuestra Excelencia las nueuas que corren". The Franz von Dietrichstein's communication networks
Abstrakt
Having good access to information belonged to the priorities of the noble elite and aristocracy in the Early Modern Age. Cardinal and bishop of Olomouc, Franz von Dietrichstein, a faithful servant of the House of Austria, had a very complex system of informants and mediators who helped him maintain contact with various centres of political power across the Europe.
His communication network stretched from Rome, Madrid, Naples, and Milan to the court of Brussels, and included people of varied character and social status. The epistolary with agents preserved in the Regional Archive in Brno allows us not only to reconstruct, at least partially, his communication system but also to analyse the working of the news exchange and the postal service in the context of the first half of the seventeenth century, including some problems that may have occurred.
Hereby, the paper forms part of the recent line of historiographical research on the court, the phenomenon of agents, patronage, and news networks.