On the Women’s Petition Against Coffee of 1674 | Hacker News Reader

On the Women’s Petition Against Coffee of 1674

resobscura.blogspot.com

137 pointsbenbreen19 comments

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.”

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.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were sources for each of these happening on some occasion at a 17th-century coffee house. I would be quite surprised if they all happened, with regularity, at the same coffee house.

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.

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?

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.

It's fiction, but Stephenson's Baroque Cycle features many coffee house intrigues in this exact setting (Restoration England)

Was coffee being used roughly the same way it's used today at Starbucks or whatever, or was it used closer to the way that the Sufis used it? The article doesn't really make any sense without this context.

I'd say much closer to Starbucks in that it was bought and sold at a place of business, and consumed in a secular context. One important difference is that many coffeehouse goers on the 17th century appear to have been drinking alcohol as well, which helps explain why things were so much more raucous.

So essentially 17th-century Four Loko

Lots of coffee shops have fireplaces. The rest is covered by free WiFi. Not the end of the world as we know it. Well, actually it is, but not because of coffee or prostitutes.

Sounds like the Internet.

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.

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?

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_...

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.

non-mobile:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_17...

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.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemileia_vastatrix#History

From the recent discussion about banana monoculture, I read an article suggesting that Coffee Leaf Rust destroyed coffee production in British held Sri Lanka, initiating the switch to tea. Its a silly conjecture, but maybe the lower amounts of caffeine contributed to the decline of coffeehouses.

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