English coffeehouses in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Encyclopedia
Historians define English
coffeehouse
s as public social houses during the 17th and 18th centuries, in which patrons would assemble for conversation and social interaction, while taking part in newly emerging coffee consumption habits for the time. Travellers introduced coffee as a beverage to England
during the mid-17th century. Within English coffeehouses, patrons ordered and consumed the new drink. Prior to its popularisation, experimentalists used coffee
for its medicinal properties. Coffeehouse proprietors served other modern beverages, such as tea
and chocolate
, as well.
For the price of a penny
, customers purchased a cup of coffee and admission to a coffeehouse, where men engaged in conversation. Topics discussed within the coffeehouses included politics and political scandals, daily gossip, fashion, current events, and debates surrounding philosophy
and the natural science
s. Historians often associate English coffeehouses, during the 17th and 18th centuries, to the intellectual and cultural history of the Age of Enlightenment
.
Throughout their conception, coffeehouses acted as an alternate sphere for intellectual thought, supplementary to the university. Also having a political significance, political groups frequently used English coffeehouses as meeting places. Historians agree that a diverse demographic of customers frequented English coffeehouses. Relative equality was believed to have existed among patrons of coffeehouses despite station, as one could participate in conversation regardless of class, rank, or political leaning. Socially similar to English alehouse
s or inn
s, the historian Brian Cowan describes English coffeehouses as "places where people gathered to drink coffee, learn the news of the day, and perhaps to meet with other local residents and discuss matters of mutual concern." However, the absence of alcohol created an atmosphere in which one could engage in sober conversation.
English coffeehouses also implemented a strict set of rules. According to the first posted "Rules and Orders of the Coffee House" illustrated and printed in 1674 as a coffee broadside, equality was supposed to have prevailed amongst all men in these establishments, and "no man of any station need give his place to a finer man". If one should swear, they would have to forfeit a twelve-pence
. If a quarrel broke out, the instigator would have to purchase the offended a cup of coffee. The topic of "sacred things" was barred from coffeehouses, and rules existed against speaking poorly of the state as well as religious scriptures. The rules forbade games of chance
, such as cards and dice, as well.
While most English coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th centuries conformed to this set of rules and encouraged these values and characteristics, the diversity of social practises within summarises the character of the English coffeehouse. This article will focus on the diversity of coffeehouse character in 17th and 18th century England.
ans first learned about coffee consumption and practise through accounts of exotic travels to "oriental" empires of Asia
. According to Ellis, Travellers accounted for how men would consume an intoxicating liquor, "black in colour and made by infusing the powdered berry of a plant that flourished in Arabia." Native men consumed this liquid "all day long and far into the night, with no apparent desire for sleep but with mind and body continuously alert, men talked and argued, finding in the hot black liquor a curious stimulus quite unlike that produced by fermented juice of grape."
Cowan explains how European perceptions of the initial foreign consumption of coffee was internalised and transformed to mirror European traditions through their acquisition of coffee and its transfusion into popular culture
. As such, through Cowan's evaluation of the English virtuosi
's utilitarian project for the advancement of learning involving experiments with coffee, this phenomenon is well explained. Sir Francis Bacon
was an important English virtuoso whose vision was to advance human knowledge through the collection and classification of the natural world in order to understand its properties. His work with coffee inspired further research into its medicinal properties. Experiments with coffee led to supposed "cures" for ailments such as "Head-Melancholy", gout
, scurvy
, smallpox
and excessive drunkenness. Adversely, there were those who were cautious of the properties of coffee, fearing they had more unfavourable effects than positive ones. Experimentalists put forth speculations surrounding coffee's consumption. These experimentalists feared that excessive coffee consumption could result in languor, paralysis
, heart conditions and trembling limbs, as well as low spiritedness and nervous disorders.
. Oxford
, possessing the unique combination of exotic scholarship interests and a vibrant experimental community, was the first English city
to establish a coffeehouse. A Jewish
entrepreneur named Jacob established the first English coffee house in 1650, which he named the Angel. According to Cowan, Oxford was seen as an important fixture for the creation of a distinctive coffeehouse culture
throughout the 1650s. The first coffeehouses established in Oxford were known as penny universities
, as they offered an alternative form of learning to structural academic learning, while still being frequented by the English virtuosi who actively pursued advances in human knowledge. Cowan states: "The coffeehouse was a place for like-minded scholars to congregate, to read, as well as learn from and to debate with each other, but was emphatically not a university institution, and the discourse there was of a far different order than any university tutorial." Despite later coffeehouses being far more inclusive, early Oxford coffeehouses had an air of exclusivity, catering to the virtuosi. Early Oxford coffeehouse virtuosi included Christopher Wren
, Peter Pett
, Thomas Millington
, Timothy Baldwin, and John Lampshire, to name a few. The memoirs of Anthony Wood
and John Evelyn
provide evidence of the nature of early Oxford coffeehouses. The early Oxford coffeehouses also helped establish the tone for future coffeehouses in England, as they would differ from other English social institutions such as alehouses and tavern
s. "The coffeehouse was a place for "virtuosi" and "wits", rather than for the plebes or roués who were commonly portrayed as typical patrons of the alcoholic drinking houses. Ellis concludes, "(Oxford's coffeehouses') power lay in the fact that they were in daily touch with the people. Their purpose was something more than to provide a meeting-place for social intercourse and gossip; there was serious and sober discussion on all matters of common interest."
, where English coffeehouses became popularised and embedded within the English popular and political culture. Pasqua Rosée
, the Greek
servant of a Levant Company
merchant named Daniel Edwards, established the first London coffeehouse in 1652. London's second coffeehouse was named the Temple Bar
, established by James Farr in 1656. Initially, there was little evidence to suggest that London coffeehouses were popular and largely frequented, due to the nature of the unwelcome competition felt by other London businesses. When Harrington's Rota Club
began to meet in another established London coffeehouse known as the Turk's Head, to debate "matters of politics and philosophy", English coffeehouse popularity began to rise. This club was also a "free and open academy unto all comers" whose raison d'être was the art of debate
, characterised as "contentious but civil, learned but not didactic
." According to Cowan, despite the Rota's banishment after the Restoration
of the monarchy, the discursive framework they established while meeting in coffeehouses set the tone for coffeehouse conversation throughout the rest of the 17th century.
of 1665 and the Great Fire of London
that followed in 1666, the coffeehouse popularity did not wane. Ellis explains: "Londoners could not be entirely subdued and there were still some who climbed the narrow stairs to their favourite coffeehouses although no longer prepared to converse freely with strangers. Before entering they looked quite around the room, and would not approach even close acquaintances without first inquiring the health of the family at home and receiving assurances of their well-being."
English coffeehouses acted as public houses in which all were welcome, having paid the price of a penny for a cup of coffee. Ellis accounts for the wide demographic of men present in a typical coffeehouse in the post-restoration period: "Like Noah's ark
, every kind of creature in every walk of life (frequented coffeehouses). They included a town wit, a grave citizen, a worthy lawyer, a worship justice, a reverend nonconformist
, and a voluble sailor." Some historians even claimed that these institutions acted as democratic bodies due to their inclusive nature: "Whether a man was dressed in a ragged coat and found himself seated between a belted earl and a gaitered bishop it made no difference; moreover he was able to engage them in conversation and know that he would be answered civilly."
Coffeehouse conversation
was supposed to conform to a particular manner. The language of polite
and civil conversation was considered to be essential to the conduct of coffeehouse debate and conversation. There is dispute among historians as to the main role that civility played in polite conversation in coffeehouse conversation and debate. Klein argues the importance of the portrayal of utmost civility in coffeehouse conversation to the public was imperative for the survival of coffeehouse popularity throughout the period of restoration-era anxieties. Cowan applies the term "civility" to coffeehouses in the sense of "a peculiarly urban brand of social interaction which valued sober and reasoned debate on matters of great import, be they scientific, aesthetic, or political." He argues that the underlying rules and procedures which have enabled coffeehouses to "keep undesirable out". These include established rules and procedures as well as conventions outlined by club
s when frequenting coffeehouses, such as Harrington's Rota Club. Cowan argues that these "rules" have had a great impact on coffeehouse sociability. Mackie argues that Addison
and Steele
's popularised periodicals, The Tatler
and The Spectator
, infused politeness into English coffeehouse conversation, as their explicit purpose lay in the reformation of English manners and morals. Others still contest the holistic presence of polite civility within coffeehouse conversation. Helen Berry uses the example of Elizabeth Adkins
, better known as Moll King, coffeehouse slang known as "flash" to counter the axiom of polite culture within coffeehouse culture. Ellis explains that because Puritan
ism influenced English coffeehouse behaviorisms, intoxicants were forbidden, allowing for respectable sober conversation. He offers an example of one coffeehouse patron who, upon seeking ale
within a coffeehouse, was asked to leave and visit a nearby tavern.
Various coffeehouses catered to diverse groups of individuals who focused on specific topics of discussion. The variety of topics and groups to which the coffeehouses catered to offers insight into the non-homogeneous nature of English society during the period in which coffeehouses rose to their peak in popularity. These different coffeehouse characters are evident when evaluating specific coffeehouses in detail during the period. After the Restoration, coffeehouses known as penny universities catered to a range of gentlemanly arts and acted as an alternate centre of academic learning. These included lessons in French
, Italian
or Latin
, dancing
, fencing
, poetry
, mathematics
and astronomy
. Other coffeehouses acted as a centre for social gathering for less learned men. Helen Berry evaluates one coffeehouse, known as Moll King's coffeehouse, which is depicted to be frequented by lowlifes and drunkards as well as "an unusual wide social mix of male customers, from courtiers to Covent Garden
market traders and pimps." It was also frequently associated with prostitution
. Customers also habitually engaged in a type of conversation known as "flash", a derivative of criminal speak
. Moll King's coffeehouse was used as a case study for Berry to prove that polite conversation was not always used within a coffeehouse setting. Other groups frequented other coffeehouses for various reasons. For example, Child's coffeehouse, "near the Physician's Warwick Lane and St. Paul's
church yard", was frequented by the clergy
and by doctors." Edward Lloyd's
coffeehouse, now Lloyd's of London
, on Lombard Street
, for example, was a public house where ship sales and merchant business was conducted and where merchant
s and sailor
s frequented.
. Historians strongly associate English coffeehouses with print
and scribal
publications, as they were important venues for the reading and distribution of such materials, as well as the gathering of important news information. Most coffeehouses provided pamphlet
s and newspaper
s, as the price of admission
covered their costs. Patrons perused reading material at their leisure. Coffeehouses became increasingly associated with news culture, as news became available in a variety of forms throughout coffeehouses. These forms include: "Print, both licensed and unlicensed; manuscripts; aloud, as gossip, hearsay, and word of mouth." Runners also went round to different coffeehouses* reporting the latest current events*. Circulation of bulletins announcing sales, sailings, and auctions was also common in English coffeehouses.
Richard Steele and Joseph Addison's news publications, The Spectator and the Tatler, were considered the most influential venue of print news that circulated in English coffeehouses. These journals were likely the most widely distributed sources of news and gossip
within coffeehouses throughout the early half of the 18th century. Addison and Steele explicitly worked to reform the manners and morals of English society, accomplished through a veiled anecdotal critique of English society. As these anecdotal stories held underlying, rather than explicit, social critiques, "readers were persuaded, not coerced, into freely electing these standards of taste and behaviour as their own." Addison and Steele relied on coffeehouses for their source of news and gossip as well as their clientele
, and then spread their news culture back into the coffeehouses as they relied on coffeehouses for their distribution. According to Bramah, the good standing of the press during the days in which Addison and Steele distributed The Tatler and The Spectator in English coffeehouses can be directly attributed to the popularity of the coffeehouse.
became a substitute for other forms of authority that had previously governed human action, such as religion
, superstition
, or customs of arbitrary authority
. In his analysis of the Enlightenment, Jürgen Habermas
argues that the age of Enlightenment had seen the creation of a bourgeois
public sphere
for the discussion and transformations of opinions. According to Habermas, this 'public realm' "is a space where men could escape from their roles as subjects, and gain autonomy in the exercise and exchange of their own opinions and ideas." Consequently, there is also no simple and uniform 'public sphere', as it can encompass different spheres within, such as an intellectual of political public sphere of the age of Enlightenment.
In regard to English coffeehouses, there is contention among historians as to the extent to which coffeehouses should be considered within the public sphere of the Enlightenment. Dorinda Outram places English coffeehouses within an intellectual public sphere, focusing on the transfusion of enlightened ideas. She justifies her placement of English coffeehouses within an 'intellectual public sphere' by naming them "commercial operations, open to all who could pay and thus provided ways in which many different social strata
could be exposed to the same ideas." She also argues that enlightened ideas were transfused through print culture, a culture that became open to larger number of individuals after the 'reading revolution' at the end of the 18th century. According to Outram, as English coffeehouses offered various forms of print items, such as newspapers, journals and some of the latest books, they are to be considered within the public sphere of the Enlightenment. Historian James Van Horn Melton offers another perspective and places English coffeehouses within a more political public sphere of the Enlightenment. According to Melton, English coffeehouses were "born in an age of revolution, restoration, and bitter party rivalries. (They) provided public space at a time when political action and debate had begun to spill beyond the institutions that had traditionally contained them." He uses the fact that Harrington's "arch republican" Rota club met within an early London coffeehouse to discuss political issues as evidence that English coffeehouses were depicted as centres of "religious and political dissent." He also offers evidence that different political groups used the popularity of coffeehouses for their own political ends: Puritans encouraged coffeehouse popularity because proprietors forbade the consumption of alcohol
within their establishment, whereas royalist
critics associated coffeehouses with incessant and unwarranted political talk by common subjects.
, business
and cultural criticism, which did not particularly concern women and thus their participation within coffeehouses was unwarranted. Historians depict coffeehouses as a gentlemanly sphere where men
could partake in conversation and where a man could be safe from his womenfolk; coffeehouses were consequently not a place for a lady
who wished to preserve her respectability. As such, complaints against the coffeehouse were commonly vocalised by women. Women used subtle arguments against coffeehouse frequenting, as well as coffee consumption, outlined in "The Women's Petition Against Coffee." They protested against the consumption of coffee arguing that it made men sterile
and impotent
and stated that it contributed to the nation's failing birth rate
. According to the petition
, coffee made men "as unfruitful as the sandy deserts, from where that unhappy berry is said to be brought." Women also raised protest against the coffeehouse itself as it "provided in times of domestic crisis when a husband should have been attending to his duties at home."
Cowan cites a handful of instances in which women were allowed to frequent English coffeehouses: When partaking in business ventures, in Bath, where female sociability was more readily accepted, in gambling/coffeehouses, and while auction
s were held within coffeehouses, as a woman acted in the service of her household. Historians have accounted for female involvement in the male public sphere of the coffeehouse by evaluating female news hawkers who enter temporarily within a male-dominated coffeehouse. Paula McDowell views these women as "passive distributors of other people's political ideas", while also "shaping the modes and forms of political discourse through their understanding of their customer's desires for news and print ephemera." Cowan disagrees, saying that although they may have been physically placed within the male public sphere of the coffeehouse, their rank
and gender
prevent them from fully participating within the sphere. Cowan also refutes the belief that the presence of women within coffeehouses in general means that they are participating equally in the public sphere of coffeehouses. Cowan views female proprietors of coffeehouses, known as "coffee-women", as a pertinent example of women's presence in, while not necessarily participating in, the public realm of coffeehouses. They acted as proprietors of the establishment as well as coffee servers, while not necessarily taking part in coffeehouse conversation. Famous female coffeehouse proprietors are Anne Rochford and Moll King, who subsequently became publicly satirised figures.
, at the time, had a greater interest in the tea trade than the coffee trade, as competition for coffee had heightened internationally with the expansion of coffeehouses throughout the rest of Europe. Government policy fostered trade with India
and China
, and, according to Ellis, the government offered encouragements to anything that would stimulate demand for tea. Tea had become fashionable at court
, and tea house
s, which drew their clientele from both sexes, began to grow in popularity. The growing popularity of tea is explained by the ease with which it is prepared. "To brew tea, all that is needed is to add boiling water; coffee, in contrast, required roasting, grinding and brewing." Ellis offers evidence that tea consumption rose in English society, from 800000 lb (362,873.9 kg) per annum in 1710 to 100000000 lb (45,359,237 kg) per annum in 1721. In regards to the decline in coffee culture, Ellis concludes: "They had served their purpose and were no longer needed as meeting-places for political or literary criticism and debate. They had seen the nation pass through one of its greatest periods of trial and tribulation; had fought and won the battle age of profligacy; and had given us a standard of prose-writing and literary criticism unequalled before or since."
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
coffeehouse
Coffeehouse
A coffeehouse or coffee shop is an establishment which primarily serves prepared coffee or other hot beverages. It shares some of the characteristics of a bar, and some of the characteristics of a restaurant, but it is different from a cafeteria. As the name suggests, coffeehouses focus on...
s as public social houses during the 17th and 18th centuries, in which patrons would assemble for conversation and social interaction, while taking part in newly emerging coffee consumption habits for the time. Travellers introduced coffee as a beverage to England
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
during the mid-17th century. Within English coffeehouses, patrons ordered and consumed the new drink. Prior to its popularisation, experimentalists used coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
for its medicinal properties. Coffeehouse proprietors served other modern beverages, such as tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
and chocolate
Hot chocolate
Hot chocolate is a heated beverage typically consisting of shaved chocolate, melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and sugar...
, as well.
For the price of a penny
Penny
A penny is a coin or a type of currency used in several English-speaking countries. It is often the smallest denomination within a currency system.-Etymology:...
, customers purchased a cup of coffee and admission to a coffeehouse, where men engaged in conversation. Topics discussed within the coffeehouses included politics and political scandals, daily gossip, fashion, current events, and debates surrounding philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and the natural science
Natural science
The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...
s. Historians often associate English coffeehouses, during the 17th and 18th centuries, to the intellectual and cultural history of the Age of Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
.
Throughout their conception, coffeehouses acted as an alternate sphere for intellectual thought, supplementary to the university. Also having a political significance, political groups frequently used English coffeehouses as meeting places. Historians agree that a diverse demographic of customers frequented English coffeehouses. Relative equality was believed to have existed among patrons of coffeehouses despite station, as one could participate in conversation regardless of class, rank, or political leaning. Socially similar to English alehouse
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
s or inn
INN
InterNetNews is a Usenet news server package, originally released by Rich Salz in 1991, and presented at the Summer 1992 USENIX conference in San Antonio, Texas...
s, the historian Brian Cowan describes English coffeehouses as "places where people gathered to drink coffee, learn the news of the day, and perhaps to meet with other local residents and discuss matters of mutual concern." However, the absence of alcohol created an atmosphere in which one could engage in sober conversation.
English coffeehouses also implemented a strict set of rules. According to the first posted "Rules and Orders of the Coffee House" illustrated and printed in 1674 as a coffee broadside, equality was supposed to have prevailed amongst all men in these establishments, and "no man of any station need give his place to a finer man". If one should swear, they would have to forfeit a twelve-pence
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
. If a quarrel broke out, the instigator would have to purchase the offended a cup of coffee. The topic of "sacred things" was barred from coffeehouses, and rules existed against speaking poorly of the state as well as religious scriptures. The rules forbade games of chance
Game of chance
A game of chance is a game whose outcome is strongly influenced by some randomizing device, and upon which contestants may or may not wager money or anything of monetary value...
, such as cards and dice, as well.
While most English coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th centuries conformed to this set of rules and encouraged these values and characteristics, the diversity of social practises within summarises the character of the English coffeehouse. This article will focus on the diversity of coffeehouse character in 17th and 18th century England.
European discovery of coffee
EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
ans first learned about coffee consumption and practise through accounts of exotic travels to "oriental" empires of Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. According to Ellis, Travellers accounted for how men would consume an intoxicating liquor, "black in colour and made by infusing the powdered berry of a plant that flourished in Arabia." Native men consumed this liquid "all day long and far into the night, with no apparent desire for sleep but with mind and body continuously alert, men talked and argued, finding in the hot black liquor a curious stimulus quite unlike that produced by fermented juice of grape."
Cowan explains how European perceptions of the initial foreign consumption of coffee was internalised and transformed to mirror European traditions through their acquisition of coffee and its transfusion into popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. As such, through Cowan's evaluation of the English virtuosi
Virtuoso
A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...
's utilitarian project for the advancement of learning involving experiments with coffee, this phenomenon is well explained. Sir Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
was an important English virtuoso whose vision was to advance human knowledge through the collection and classification of the natural world in order to understand its properties. His work with coffee inspired further research into its medicinal properties. Experiments with coffee led to supposed "cures" for ailments such as "Head-Melancholy", gout
Gout
Gout is a medical condition usually characterized by recurrent attacks of acute inflammatory arthritis—a red, tender, hot, swollen joint. The metatarsal-phalangeal joint at the base of the big toe is the most commonly affected . However, it may also present as tophi, kidney stones, or urate...
, scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
, smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
and excessive drunkenness. Adversely, there were those who were cautious of the properties of coffee, fearing they had more unfavourable effects than positive ones. Experimentalists put forth speculations surrounding coffee's consumption. These experimentalists feared that excessive coffee consumption could result in languor, paralysis
Paralysis
Paralysis is loss of muscle function for one or more muscles. Paralysis can be accompanied by a loss of feeling in the affected area if there is sensory damage as well as motor. A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed...
, heart conditions and trembling limbs, as well as low spiritedness and nervous disorders.
Early Oxford coffeehouses
During the mid-17th century, coffee was no longer viewed solely as a medicinal plantPlant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
. Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, possessing the unique combination of exotic scholarship interests and a vibrant experimental community, was the first English city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
to establish a coffeehouse. A Jewish
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
entrepreneur named Jacob established the first English coffee house in 1650, which he named the Angel. According to Cowan, Oxford was seen as an important fixture for the creation of a distinctive coffeehouse culture
Coffee culture
Coffee culture describes a social atmosphere or series of associated social behaviors that depends heavily upon coffee, particularly as a social lubricant. The term also refers to the diffusion and adoption of coffee as a widely consumed stimulant by a culture...
throughout the 1650s. The first coffeehouses established in Oxford were known as penny universities
Penny university
Penny University is a term originating from the 18th-century coffeehouses in London, England. Instead of paying for drinks, people were charged a penny to enter a coffeehouse. Once inside, the patron had access to coffee, the company of others, various discussions, pamphlets, bulletins, newspapers,...
, as they offered an alternative form of learning to structural academic learning, while still being frequented by the English virtuosi who actively pursued advances in human knowledge. Cowan states: "The coffeehouse was a place for like-minded scholars to congregate, to read, as well as learn from and to debate with each other, but was emphatically not a university institution, and the discourse there was of a far different order than any university tutorial." Despite later coffeehouses being far more inclusive, early Oxford coffeehouses had an air of exclusivity, catering to the virtuosi. Early Oxford coffeehouse virtuosi included Christopher Wren
Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...
, Peter Pett
Peter Pett
Peter Pett, was an English Master Shipwright, and Second Resident Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard. He is noted for the incident concerning the protection of his scale models and drawings of the King's Fleet during the Dutch Raid on the Medway, in Kent in June 1667, during the Second Anglo-Dutch...
, Thomas Millington
Thomas Millington
Thomas Millington was a London publisher of the Elizabethan era, who published first editions of three Shakespearean plays...
, Timothy Baldwin, and John Lampshire, to name a few. The memoirs of Anthony Wood
Anthony Wood
Anthony Wood or Anthony à Wood was an English antiquary.-Early life:Anthony Wood was the fourth son of Thomas Wood , BCL of Oxford, where Anthony was born...
and John Evelyn
John Evelyn
John Evelyn was an English writer, gardener and diarist.Evelyn's diaries or Memoirs are largely contemporaneous with those of the other noted diarist of the time, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time John Evelyn (31 October 1620 – 27 February...
provide evidence of the nature of early Oxford coffeehouses. The early Oxford coffeehouses also helped establish the tone for future coffeehouses in England, as they would differ from other English social institutions such as alehouses and tavern
Tavern
A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....
s. "The coffeehouse was a place for "virtuosi" and "wits", rather than for the plebes or roués who were commonly portrayed as typical patrons of the alcoholic drinking houses. Ellis concludes, "(Oxford's coffeehouses') power lay in the fact that they were in daily touch with the people. Their purpose was something more than to provide a meeting-place for social intercourse and gossip; there was serious and sober discussion on all matters of common interest."
Early London coffeehouses
The Oxford-style coffeehouses, which acted as a centre for social intercourse, gossip, and scholastic interest, spread quickly to LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where English coffeehouses became popularised and embedded within the English popular and political culture. Pasqua Rosée
Pasqua Rosée
Pasqua Rosée opened the first coffeehouse in London in 1652. The coffeehouse was located in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill.Rosée was born in Ragusa in Sicily. A merchant named Daniel Edwards, a member of the Levant Company and a trader in Turkish goods, encountered Rosée at Smyrna in Anatolia,...
, the Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
servant of a Levant Company
Levant Company
The Levant Company, or Turkey Company, was an English chartered company formed in 1581, to regulate English trade with Turkey and the Levant...
merchant named Daniel Edwards, established the first London coffeehouse in 1652. London's second coffeehouse was named the Temple Bar
Temple Bar, London
Temple Bar is the barrier marking the westernmost extent of the City of London on the road to Westminster, where Fleet Street becomes the Strand...
, established by James Farr in 1656. Initially, there was little evidence to suggest that London coffeehouses were popular and largely frequented, due to the nature of the unwelcome competition felt by other London businesses. When Harrington's Rota Club
Rota Club
The Rota Club refers to a debate society, composed of learned gentlemen, who debated republican ideology in London between November 1659 and February 1660. The Club was founded and dominated by James Harrington...
began to meet in another established London coffeehouse known as the Turk's Head, to debate "matters of politics and philosophy", English coffeehouse popularity began to rise. This club was also a "free and open academy unto all comers" whose raison d'être was the art of debate
Debate
Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
, characterised as "contentious but civil, learned but not didactic
Didacticism
Didacticism is an artistic philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature and other types of art. The term has its origin in the Ancient Greek word διδακτικός , "related to education/teaching." Originally, signifying learning in a fascinating and intriguing...
." According to Cowan, despite the Rota's banishment after the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
of the monarchy, the discursive framework they established while meeting in coffeehouses set the tone for coffeehouse conversation throughout the rest of the 17th century.
English coffeehouse character
English coffeehouses had a particular character during their height in popularity, spanning between 1660, after the Restoration of the monarchy, till their decline towards the end of the 18th century. Coffeehouses soon became the "town's latest novelty." A relaxed atmosphere, their relative cheapness and frequency contributed to coffeehouse sociability and their rise in demand. Despite two major setbacks faced by the coffeehouses during their height in popularity, the outbreak of the plagueGreat Plague of London
The Great Plague was a massive outbreak of disease in the Kingdom of England that killed an estimated 100,000 people, 20% of London's population. The disease is identified as bubonic plague, an infection by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, transmitted through a flea vector...
of 1665 and the Great Fire of London
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...
that followed in 1666, the coffeehouse popularity did not wane. Ellis explains: "Londoners could not be entirely subdued and there were still some who climbed the narrow stairs to their favourite coffeehouses although no longer prepared to converse freely with strangers. Before entering they looked quite around the room, and would not approach even close acquaintances without first inquiring the health of the family at home and receiving assurances of their well-being."
English coffeehouses acted as public houses in which all were welcome, having paid the price of a penny for a cup of coffee. Ellis accounts for the wide demographic of men present in a typical coffeehouse in the post-restoration period: "Like Noah's ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
, every kind of creature in every walk of life (frequented coffeehouses). They included a town wit, a grave citizen, a worthy lawyer, a worship justice, a reverend nonconformist
Nonconformism
Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...
, and a voluble sailor." Some historians even claimed that these institutions acted as democratic bodies due to their inclusive nature: "Whether a man was dressed in a ragged coat and found himself seated between a belted earl and a gaitered bishop it made no difference; moreover he was able to engage them in conversation and know that he would be answered civilly."
Coffeehouse conversation
Conversation
Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette.Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational...
was supposed to conform to a particular manner. The language of polite
Politeness
Politeness is best expressed as the practical application of good manners or etiquette. It is a culturally-defined phenomenon, and therefore what is considered polite in one culture can sometimes be quite rude or simply eccentric in another cultural context....
and civil conversation was considered to be essential to the conduct of coffeehouse debate and conversation. There is dispute among historians as to the main role that civility played in polite conversation in coffeehouse conversation and debate. Klein argues the importance of the portrayal of utmost civility in coffeehouse conversation to the public was imperative for the survival of coffeehouse popularity throughout the period of restoration-era anxieties. Cowan applies the term "civility" to coffeehouses in the sense of "a peculiarly urban brand of social interaction which valued sober and reasoned debate on matters of great import, be they scientific, aesthetic, or political." He argues that the underlying rules and procedures which have enabled coffeehouses to "keep undesirable out". These include established rules and procedures as well as conventions outlined by club
Club
A club is an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities; there are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.- History...
s when frequenting coffeehouses, such as Harrington's Rota Club. Cowan argues that these "rules" have had a great impact on coffeehouse sociability. Mackie argues that Addison
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was a man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison...
and Steele
Richard Steele
Sir Richard Steele was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator....
's popularised periodicals, The Tatler
Tatler
Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
and The Spectator
The Spectator (1711)
The Spectator was a daily publication of 1711–12, founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in England after they met at Charterhouse School. Eustace Budgell, a cousin of Addison's, also contributed to the publication. Each 'paper', or 'number', was approximately 2,500 words long, and the...
, infused politeness into English coffeehouse conversation, as their explicit purpose lay in the reformation of English manners and morals. Others still contest the holistic presence of polite civility within coffeehouse conversation. Helen Berry uses the example of Elizabeth Adkins
Elizabeth Adkins
Elizabeth Adkins was a prominent figure in London's underworld during the early 18th century as a prostitute, pickpocket and thief whose aliases included "Mary"' or "Maria Godson," although she is best known as Moll King...
, better known as Moll King, coffeehouse slang known as "flash" to counter the axiom of polite culture within coffeehouse culture. Ellis explains that because Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
ism influenced English coffeehouse behaviorisms, intoxicants were forbidden, allowing for respectable sober conversation. He offers an example of one coffeehouse patron who, upon seeking ale
Ale
Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...
within a coffeehouse, was asked to leave and visit a nearby tavern.
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
or Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, dancing
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....
, fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
, poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
. Other coffeehouses acted as a centre for social gathering for less learned men. Helen Berry evaluates one coffeehouse, known as Moll King's coffeehouse, which is depicted to be frequented by lowlifes and drunkards as well as "an unusual wide social mix of male customers, from courtiers to Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
market traders and pimps." It was also frequently associated with prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. Customers also habitually engaged in a type of conversation known as "flash", a derivative of criminal speak
Thieves' cant
Thieves' cant or Rogues' cant was a secret language which was formerly used by thieves, beggars and hustlers of various kinds in Great Britain and to a lesser extent in other English-speaking countries...
. Moll King's coffeehouse was used as a case study for Berry to prove that polite conversation was not always used within a coffeehouse setting. Other groups frequented other coffeehouses for various reasons. For example, Child's coffeehouse, "near the Physician's Warwick Lane and St. Paul's
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...
church yard", was frequented by the clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
and by doctors." Edward Lloyd's
Edward Lloyd (coffeehouse owner)
Edward Lloyd ran the Lloyd's Coffee House in Lombard Street in the City of London which became a meeting place for merchants and shipowners. From the habit of their members to meet there, Lloyd's Coffee House spawned Lloyd's of London, Lloyd's Register, and Lloyd's List. There is no connection...
coffeehouse, now Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance and reinsurance market. It serves as a partially mutualised marketplace where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk...
, on Lombard Street
Lombard Street, London
Lombard Street is a street in the City of London.It runs from the corner of the Bank of England at its north-west end, where it meets a major junction including Poultry, King William Street, and Threadneedle Street, south-east to Gracechurch Street....
, for example, was a public house where ship sales and merchant business was conducted and where merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
s and sailor
Sailor
A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...
s frequented.
English coffeehouses and print news culture
The English coffeehouse also acted as a primary centre of communication for newsNews
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
. Historians strongly associate English coffeehouses with print
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
and scribal
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
publications, as they were important venues for the reading and distribution of such materials, as well as the gathering of important news information. Most coffeehouses provided pamphlet
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
s and newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s, as the price of admission
Admission to an event or establishment
Admission to a journey or other event or establishment may be subject to paying an entrance fee / buying a ticket. A pass may give admittance without a ticket for a given time period, or give the right to obtain free tickets. A discount pass allows buying tickets at a reduced price...
covered their costs. Patrons perused reading material at their leisure. Coffeehouses became increasingly associated with news culture, as news became available in a variety of forms throughout coffeehouses. These forms include: "Print, both licensed and unlicensed; manuscripts; aloud, as gossip, hearsay, and word of mouth." Runners also went round to different coffeehouses* reporting the latest current events*. Circulation of bulletins announcing sales, sailings, and auctions was also common in English coffeehouses.
Gossip
Gossip is idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others, It is one of the oldest and most common means of sharing facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and variations into the information transmitted...
within coffeehouses throughout the early half of the 18th century. Addison and Steele explicitly worked to reform the manners and morals of English society, accomplished through a veiled anecdotal critique of English society. As these anecdotal stories held underlying, rather than explicit, social critiques, "readers were persuaded, not coerced, into freely electing these standards of taste and behaviour as their own." Addison and Steele relied on coffeehouses for their source of news and gossip as well as their clientele
Customer
A customer is usually used to refer to a current or potential buyer or user of the products of an individual or organization, called the supplier, seller, or vendor. This is typically through purchasing or renting goods or services...
, and then spread their news culture back into the coffeehouses as they relied on coffeehouses for their distribution. According to Bramah, the good standing of the press during the days in which Addison and Steele distributed The Tatler and The Spectator in English coffeehouses can be directly attributed to the popularity of the coffeehouse.
English coffeehouses and the public sphere of the enlightenment
There is contention among historians as to the extent to which English coffeehouses contributed to the public sphere of the age of Enlightenment. There is no simple and uniform way to describe the Age of Enlightenment; however, historians generally agree that during this period, reasonReason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
became a substitute for other forms of authority that had previously governed human action, such as religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
, or customs of arbitrary authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...
. In his analysis of the Enlightenment, Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...
argues that the age of Enlightenment had seen the creation of a bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
public sphere
Public sphere
The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action...
for the discussion and transformations of opinions. According to Habermas, this 'public realm' "is a space where men could escape from their roles as subjects, and gain autonomy in the exercise and exchange of their own opinions and ideas." Consequently, there is also no simple and uniform 'public sphere', as it can encompass different spheres within, such as an intellectual of political public sphere of the age of Enlightenment.
In regard to English coffeehouses, there is contention among historians as to the extent to which coffeehouses should be considered within the public sphere of the Enlightenment. Dorinda Outram places English coffeehouses within an intellectual public sphere, focusing on the transfusion of enlightened ideas. She justifies her placement of English coffeehouses within an 'intellectual public sphere' by naming them "commercial operations, open to all who could pay and thus provided ways in which many different social strata
Social stratification
In sociology the social stratification is a concept of class, involving the "classification of persons into groups based on shared socio-economic conditions ... a relational set of inequalities with economic, social, political and ideological dimensions."...
could be exposed to the same ideas." She also argues that enlightened ideas were transfused through print culture, a culture that became open to larger number of individuals after the 'reading revolution' at the end of the 18th century. According to Outram, as English coffeehouses offered various forms of print items, such as newspapers, journals and some of the latest books, they are to be considered within the public sphere of the Enlightenment. Historian James Van Horn Melton offers another perspective and places English coffeehouses within a more political public sphere of the Enlightenment. According to Melton, English coffeehouses were "born in an age of revolution, restoration, and bitter party rivalries. (They) provided public space at a time when political action and debate had begun to spill beyond the institutions that had traditionally contained them." He uses the fact that Harrington's "arch republican" Rota club met within an early London coffeehouse to discuss political issues as evidence that English coffeehouses were depicted as centres of "religious and political dissent." He also offers evidence that different political groups used the popularity of coffeehouses for their own political ends: Puritans encouraged coffeehouse popularity because proprietors forbade the consumption of alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
within their establishment, whereas royalist
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
The monarchy of the United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 6 February 1952. She and her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and representational duties...
critics associated coffeehouses with incessant and unwarranted political talk by common subjects.
Women and the English coffeehouse
Historians disagree on the role and participation of women within the English coffeehouse. Bramah states that women were forbidden from partaking in coffeehouse activity as customers. Cowen, on the other hand, explains that while coffeehouses were free and open to all subjects despite class, gender, or merit, conversation revolved around male-centred issues such as politicsPolitics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
and cultural criticism, which did not particularly concern women and thus their participation within coffeehouses was unwarranted. Historians depict coffeehouses as a gentlemanly sphere where men
Man
The term man is used for an adult human male . However, man is sometimes used to refer to humanity as a whole...
could partake in conversation and where a man could be safe from his womenfolk; coffeehouses were consequently not a place for a lady
Lady
The word lady is a polite term for a woman, specifically the female equivalent to, or spouse of, a lord or gentleman, and in many contexts a term for any adult woman...
who wished to preserve her respectability. As such, complaints against the coffeehouse were commonly vocalised by women. Women used subtle arguments against coffeehouse frequenting, as well as coffee consumption, outlined in "The Women's Petition Against Coffee." They protested against the consumption of coffee arguing that it made men sterile
Male infertility
Male infertility refers to the inability of a male to achieve a pregnancy in a fertile female. In humans it accounts for 40-50% of infertility. Male infertility is commonly due to deficiencies in the semen, and semen quality is used as a surrogate measure of male fecundity.-Pre-testicular...
and impotent
Erectile dysfunction
Erectile dysfunction is sexual dysfunction characterized by the inability to develop or maintain an erection of the penis during sexual performance....
and stated that it contributed to the nation's failing birth rate
Birth rate
Crude birth rate is the nativity or childbirths per 1,000 people per year . Another word used interchangeably with "birth rate" is "natality". When the crude birth rate is subtracted from the crude death rate, it reveals the rate of natural increase...
. According to the petition
Petition
A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer....
, coffee made men "as unfruitful as the sandy deserts, from where that unhappy berry is said to be brought." Women also raised protest against the coffeehouse itself as it "provided in times of domestic crisis when a husband should have been attending to his duties at home."
Cowan cites a handful of instances in which women were allowed to frequent English coffeehouses: When partaking in business ventures, in Bath, where female sociability was more readily accepted, in gambling/coffeehouses, and while auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
s were held within coffeehouses, as a woman acted in the service of her household. Historians have accounted for female involvement in the male public sphere of the coffeehouse by evaluating female news hawkers who enter temporarily within a male-dominated coffeehouse. Paula McDowell views these women as "passive distributors of other people's political ideas", while also "shaping the modes and forms of political discourse through their understanding of their customer's desires for news and print ephemera." Cowan disagrees, saying that although they may have been physically placed within the male public sphere of the coffeehouse, their rank
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
and gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
prevent them from fully participating within the sphere. Cowan also refutes the belief that the presence of women within coffeehouses in general means that they are participating equally in the public sphere of coffeehouses. Cowan views female proprietors of coffeehouses, known as "coffee-women", as a pertinent example of women's presence in, while not necessarily participating in, the public realm of coffeehouses. They acted as proprietors of the establishment as well as coffee servers, while not necessarily taking part in coffeehouse conversation. Famous female coffeehouse proprietors are Anne Rochford and Moll King, who subsequently became publicly satirised figures.
The decline of the English coffeehouse
Towards the end of the 18th century, coffeehouses had almost completely disappeared from the popular social scene in England. Historians offer a wide range of reasons for the decline of English coffeehouses. Ellis argues that coffeehouse patron's folly through business endeavours, the evolution of the club and the government's colonial policy acted as the main contributors to the decline of the English coffeehouse. Coffeehouse proprietors worked to gain monopoly over news culture and to establish a coffeehouse newspaper as the sole form of print news available. Met with incessant ridicule and criticism, the proposal discredited coffee-men's social standing. Ellis explains: "Ridicule and derision killed the coffee-men's proposal but it is significant that, from that date, their influence, status and authority began to wane. In short, coffee-men had made a tactical blunder and had overreached themselves." The rise of the exclusive club also contributed to the decline in popularity of English coffeehouses. Bramah explains how the coffeehouse rules that had made coffeehouses once accessible meeting places for all sections of society, fell into disuse. "Snobbery reared its head, particularly amongst the intelligence, who felt that their special genius entitled them to protection from the common herd. Strangers were no longer welcome." For example, some coffeehouses began charging more than the customary penny to preserve frequent attendance of the higher standing clientele they served. Literary and political clubs rose in popularity, as "the frivolities of coffee-drinking were lost in more serious discussion." With a new increased demand for tea, the government also had a hand in the decline of the English coffeehouse in the 18th century. The British East India CompanyEast India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, at the time, had a greater interest in the tea trade than the coffee trade, as competition for coffee had heightened internationally with the expansion of coffeehouses throughout the rest of Europe. Government policy fostered trade with India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and, according to Ellis, the government offered encouragements to anything that would stimulate demand for tea. Tea had become fashionable at court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
, and tea house
Tea house
A tea house or tearoom is a venue centered on drinking tea. Its function varies widely depending on the culture, and some cultures have a variety of distinct tea-centered houses or parlors that all qualify under the English language term "tea house" or "tea room."-Asia:In Central Asia this term...
s, which drew their clientele from both sexes, began to grow in popularity. The growing popularity of tea is explained by the ease with which it is prepared. "To brew tea, all that is needed is to add boiling water; coffee, in contrast, required roasting, grinding and brewing." Ellis offers evidence that tea consumption rose in English society, from 800000 lb (362,873.9 kg) per annum in 1710 to 100000000 lb (45,359,237 kg) per annum in 1721. In regards to the decline in coffee culture, Ellis concludes: "They had served their purpose and were no longer needed as meeting-places for political or literary criticism and debate. They had seen the nation pass through one of its greatest periods of trial and tribulation; had fought and won the battle age of profligacy; and had given us a standard of prose-writing and literary criticism unequalled before or since."