Abstract: In 1652, the first coffee-house was established in London by Pasqua Rosee and became a space for men to come and debate the news. Habermas stated that the public sphere was created for the first time in London coffee-houses during the golden age of 1680-1730. Was Habermas correct about the coffee-houses becoming a public sphere by his definitions of it or did he create an ideal form? To figure out if this is correct or not. I looked at different historical documents such as Pasqua Rosee’s The Vertue of the Coffee Drink (1652), Women’s Petition Against Coffee (1674), The Royal Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffeehouses (1675), and Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s publication The Spectator.
Keywords: London; coffee-house; Habermas; public sphere; public opinion; Charles II; freedom of speech; Pasqua Rosee; debate; women; The Spectator; 1680-1730;
In London, coffee-houses were used as a way for men to get their news and to have debates about it. The first coffee-house in London was established in 1652 by merchants after seeing similar establishments in the Ottoman Empire and discovering the benefits of drinking coffee. Before Londoners discovered coffee, they drank ale because the water was too dirty to drink, but when the men drank ale, they were getting into fights with each other (Ellis, 2004, p. 29). After the first coffee-house was established, this type of establishment became popular throughout London and by the 1700s, they helped with implementing freedom of speech because they became famous due to their costumers reading newspapers and debating in the coffeehouses (pp. 37-38).
According to Habermas (1980), the public sphere is defined as a space where people can discuss their attitudes toward the policies of the state. “The public sphere we mean first of all a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed” (p. 198). It can also be defined as the meditator of society by the author that “a sphere which mediates between society and the state, in which the public organizes itself as the bearer of public opinion” (p. 198).
The author points out within the public sphere it is separated from the government by “although state authority is to speak the executer of the political public sphere, it is not a part of it” (Habermas, 1980, p. 198). With being separated from the government, the public sphere can be accessed by everyone regardless of social class, gender, or race. “Access is guaranteed to all citizens” (p. 198).
The author discusses that public spheres for example coffee-houses foster rational debates by saying that “public discussions about the exercise of the political power which are both crucial in intent and institutionally guaranteed have not always existed –grow out of a specific phase of bourgeois society” (p. 198). The author points out people leave behind their private interests when they enter. “They then behave neither like business or professional people transacting private affairs, nor like members of a constitutional order subject to the legal constraints of a state bureaucracy” (p. 198).
The author talks about the public sphere creates public opinion by “the public sphere as a sphere which mediates between society and state in which the public organizes itself as the bearer of the public opinion, accords with the principle of the public sphere” (p. 198). After public opinion is created, the public sphere also gives the freedom to express that opinion. “Citizens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion –that is with the guarantee of the freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their opinions –about matters of general interest” (p. 198).
Finally, the author points out transparent government is willing to provide information about affairs of state that “only when the exercise of political control is effectively subordinated to the democratic demand that information be accessible to the public, does the political public sphere win an institutionalized influence over the government through the instrument over the government” (p. 198). With the government providing information, people gained information from the media as well. “Today newspapers and magazines, radio, and television are the media of the public sphere” (p. 198).
Habermas believed that during the golden age of coffee-house in London (1680-1730) became the center for the public sphere. Was Habermas correct on how he saw coffeehouses or was he presenting a normative ideal of the coffeehouses?
First Coffee-House
Figure 2: This sign is where Pasqua Rosee's coffee-house used to be on St. Michael's Alley. This sign is there today.
The first coffee-house in London was created by Pasqua Rosee in 1652, a Greek servant whom merchant Daniel Edwards encountered during his visit in Izmir, Turkey. Edwards and Rosee brought coffee drinking to London with them and the drink became a favorite to the Levant Company, which is where Hodges worked. After seeing many men coming to Edwards’s house to drink coffee, Rosee set up a business in St. Michael’s Alley to sell coffee to the public with the help of Hodges and Edwards. Ellis (2004, p. 29) points out that Hodges and Edwards were sponsoring Rosee to create the first coffee-house based on the ones the London Merchants experienced in the Ottoman Empire. “Edwards and Hodges resolved to open a public coffee-house, conceiving the venture as a business enterprise modelled on the Ottoman cave-hone Edwards had experienced… the solution was to sponsor Pasqua Rosee; setting him up a small business selling coffee to the public” (p. 29). Most of Rosees’ costumers never had coffee before because in London most people drank ale, but they found out coffee kept them more alert (p.31).
To promote his new business adventure, Rosee published a pamphlet titles The Vertue of the Coffee Drink (1652), explaining to the people of London how coffee is usually drunk. “And about half a pint of it to be drunk, fasting an hour before, and not Eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured… The Turks drink at meals, and other times, is usually water, and their Diet consists much of fruit; the crudities whereof, are very much corrected by this drink” (p. 1). Another thing he brings up in his writing is the benefits of coffee such as it makes people more alert, can cure diseases, and prevent miscarriages. “It is very good to prevent Miscarryings Child-bearing women… It will prevent drowziness, and make one fit for business, if one have occasion to watch; and therefore you are not to drink of it after super, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will hinder sleep for three or four hours. It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not troubled with the Stone, Gout, Dropsie, or Scurvy” (p. 1). After Rosee’s coffee-house, at the end of the 1650s further coffee-houses were established and become more prominent in the city and came to the place where people go to read and discuss the news (Ellis, 2004, p. 38).
Women's Opinion
Women were against coffee-houses in 1674 because their husbands were spending most of their time in the coffee-houses spilling gossip instead of being home with their wives. Women’s Petition Against Coffee (Anonymous, 1674) was written to express how women felt about the coffee-houses, but women were not part of the coffeehouses, for the most part, similarly they did not have a role in society either. Therefore, women probably did not write the petition themselves and had a man write and represent them. Women blamed coffee-houses for the reason they were becoming feminine. “For the continual sipping of this pitiful drink is enough to bewitch Men of two and twenty, and tie up the Codpiece-point without a Charm. It renders them that use it as Lean as feminine, as Rivvel’d as envy, or an old meager Hagg over-ridden by an Incubus” (p. 2).
With the coffee-houses bringing in men to debate political issues, it left the women at home for the most part. In the women’s petition it stated women were jealous of their husbands because while they were gossiping in the “stygian” or dark coffee-houses, their wives were being unpleased during sex. “For besides, we have reason to apprehend and grow jealous, that men by frequenting these stygian tap-houses will usurp on our Prerogative of Tatlling, and soon learn to exeel us in talkativeness: a quality wherein our sex has ever been claimed preheminence: For here like so many frogs in a puddle, they sup muddy water, and murmur insignificant notes till half a dozen of them out-babble an equal number of us at gossiping, talking all at once in confusion” (Anonymous, 1674, pp. 3-4). In the women’s petition, it was stated that in the coffee-houses, men discuss important matters, but they do not get anything done. “Yet for being dangerous to Government, we dare to be their Compurgators, as well knowing them to be too tame and talkative to make any desperate Politians” (pp. 4-5). Even though, the petition is written like it is from women themselves, but the petition is probably written by man because women did not have a role in society. It is also believed that the man that wrote the women’s petition could have wrote for the royal interest because the king was trying to suppress coffee-houses at the same time, and it the women’s petition it states that coffee-houses were a danger to the government (Ellis, 2004, p. 63).
Suppression of Coffee
After coffee-houses were established and were being used as a way people got their news and having debates about what they read, and the king believed they would eventually want to overthrow him. Therefore, to restrict the people speaking against the government, King Charles II put out (Anonymous, 1675) because he felt they were “unlawful,” disturbing the peace, spread false information. King Charles II came from Paris after the Republic fell and was king during the Resoration period after the Republic fell. He was trying to get the country back to where it was before the Commonwealth where no one spoke against the king. He did this by passing the Test Act that people in government positions to not go against the king, the Excise Act of 1660 to regulate coffee houses, and the Additional Excise Act of 1663 that required a bond to be paid from the owner (Ellis, 2004, pp. 87-90). None of those measures succeeded, therefore he attempts to shut down the coffee-houses.
The Royal Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffeehouses issued by the Crown in 1675 banned coffeehouses as well as the selling of coffee, chocolate, sherbet, and tea either from a shop or from a home. The king thought coffee-houses were spreading false information about the government, therefore, he wanted them to be shut down. “But also, for that in such Houses, and by occasion of the meetings of such persons therein, divers false, malitious and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad, to the Defamation of his majesty hath thought it fit and necessary, that the said Coffee-houses be (for the future) put down and suppressed,” claimed the proclamation (Anonymous, 1675, p. 1).
Ellis (2004) claims that even though the proclamation failed, it showed freedom of speech meant a lot to the English people. “Charles II’s attempt to suppress the coffee-houses cast a long shadow. That the proclamation failed, was widely understood as a confirmation not only of the Stuart conspiracy against parliamentary government, but also that freedom of speech was deeply embedded in the British constitution” (p. 105). The proclamation’s failure was because the coffee-houses were a huge part of the economy and the owners of the coffee-houses agreed to be spies for the government and let them know if anyone was plotting against him (pp. 88-90).
Coffeehouses During Freedom of Press
In 1695 following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when William and Mary took the throne, the Triennial Act (1641) required Parliament to meet at least for a fifty-day session once every three years, and the Licensing Act that censored writers, publishers, and publican activists lapsed in 1695 causing newspapers to boom. J. A. Downie claims that “the combined effect of the triennial act and the abandonment of the licensing system was a tremendous growth in the production of political literature” (Downie, 1979, p. 1). With the freedom of the press, the government thought it could not survive but Robert Harley showed that it can when he gained power in 1701 became similar to a Prime Minister but without the title of one. Harley showed this by creating a PR machine and passing the Stamp Act of 1712 that taxed paper and made it harder for the poor to buy newspapers, then he hired writers like Daniel Defoe and he wrote what Harley wanted and in return kept him out of trouble. “Harley proved beyond reasonable doubt that government could survive under the conditions imposed by the existence of a free press” (p. 2).
Figure 3: Title pages of the 1788 edition of Addison and Steele's publication of The Spectator.
While Defoe wrote for Harley’s Tory government, the most important voices representing Whig’s opposition, Addison and Steele (1853) publishes The Spectator to show the reality of the coffeehouses. Spectator was written by both Addison and Steele, but no one knows which essays they wrote. Issue no. 49 of The Spectator, published on April 26, 1711 addressed the different groups of men who come at different times of the day. “In the place I most usually frequent, men differ rather in the time of day in which they make a figure, than in any real greatness above one another. I, who am at the coffee-house at six in a morning know that my friend Beaver… has the audience and admiration of his neighbors from six til within a quarter of eight, at what time he is interrupted by the students” (pp. 314-315). Another group in the coffee-house was the waiters who were the last ones in the coffee-house. An example of one of these waiters was Tom the Tyrant who gave orders to the servants. “I shall mention the monarchs of the afternoon on another occasion, and shut up the whole series of them with the history of Tom the Tyrant; who, as first minister of the coffee-house, takes the government upon him between the hours of eleven and twelve at night, and gives his orders in the most arbitrary manner to the servants” (Addison and Steele, 1711, p. 317). Spectator No. 49 also explains the ideal man of the coffee-house by using a fictional man called Eubulus. “The coffee-house is the place of rendezvous to all that live near it, who are thus turned to relish calm and ordinary life. Eubulus presides over the middle hours of the day, when this assembly of men meet together. He enjoys a great fortune handsomely, without launching into expense; and exerts many noble and useful qualities without appearing in any public enjoyment” (Addison and Steele, 1711, p. 316).
Final Analysis
In Habermas’s definition of the public sphere, he describes eight characterizes that make the public sphere, which is separated from government, accessed by everyone, rational debate, no private interest, creates public opinion, freedom to express your opinion, media and the government will give information. These characteristics create a normative ideal of coffee-houses. The reality of coffee-houses is written in the Women’s Petition Against Coffee, The Royal Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffeehouses, The Spectator, and Rosee.
Rosee’s The Vertue of the Coffee Drink shows that coffee-houses gave a space for the public sphere and helped create public opinion. Habermas would have agreed with Rosee’s writing about coffee because it shows Habermas’s point about the public sphere creates public opinion. Even though, Rosee’s writing did not state coffee-houses creating public opinion, the coffee-house he created did. Rosee also wrote coffee made men more alert instead of ale that made men drunk, this implying with staying alert they were allowed to discuss politics in the coffee-houses.
The women’s petition shows the reality of coffee-houses because it showed women were not involved with the coffee-houses, despite Habermas claiming the public sphere is accessed to all. The petition itself was most likely not even written by a woman instead of a man because they did not have any role in society either and probably could not write. If Habermas were correct about the public sphere being accessed by all then women would have had a role in coffee-houses for example being an owner.
Charles II’s The Royal Proclamation for the Suppression of Coffeehouses created a reality because coffee-houses were not separated from the government because in the proclamation the king believes coffee-houses were a danger to the government and wanted to suppress them. If Habermas were correct about the public sphere, then the government would have never got involved with the coffee-house. Habermas also stated government would give the people information while in reality, the government used the coffee-houses owners as spies to report to the king if anyone spoke against the Crown. This was the result of the failure of the king’s proclamation.
Finally, Addison and Steele’s The Spectator issue No. 49 shows the different groups of people and when they go to the houses. Where Addison and Steele discussed the ideal man, who went to the coffee-houses which supports Habermas theory of the public sphere because issue no. 49 states the ideal man “Eubulus” would remain calm, and Habermas stated the public sphere created rational debate. This issue adds to the ideal of coffee-houses that Habermas talked about.
Even though Habermas was correct about how the public sphere started in London Coffee-houses, he also created an ideal form of the coffee-houses. There were times his definitions of the public sphere were correct, but for the most part, his public sphere was not the reality. Even though, Habermas was right about coffee-houses creating public opinion, he was wrong about other aspects of the public sphere, because in coffee-houses men did fight, government got involved, the government used owners as spies, and women did not have role in them.
About the Author
Makayla Anson is a first-year student at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. She plans to major in government and possibly minoring in psychology. She is also planning to graduate a year early in her junior year, and she hopes to study aboard in London or have an internship in D.C. in her junior year as well. On campus, Makayla is apart of the SLU Advocates club, SLU Spectrum, and works at Dana.
Makayla is currently enrolled in the first-year seminar class called London Coffeehouses Culture and Modernity. This class is focused on using historical documents and research techniques to analyze coffeehouses in London in the 17th and 18th Century. The class also helps students with their writing, presentation, and research techniques.
When Makayla is not on campus, she lives in Essex, New York with her parents, her twin sister, her older brother, her nephew, and her pets. In her free time she enjoys swimming, listening to music, hiking the Adirondack Mountains where she lives, camping, and traveling.
Works Cited
Addison, J. & Steele, R. (1853). The Spectator, vo1. 1. New York: Appleton & Co.
Anonymous (1674). Women’s petition against coffee. London, NB.
Anonymous (1675). The royal proclamation for the suppression of coffeehouses. London, NB.
Downie, J. A. (1979). Robert Harley and the press: Propaganda and public opinion in the age of Swift and Defoe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, M. (2004). The coffee-house: A cultural history. Weidenfield & Nicolson.
Habermas, J. (1980). The public sphere. In A. Mattelart, & S. Sieglaub (Eds.), Communication and class struggle. International General.
Rosee, P. (1652). The vertue of the coffee drink. London, NB.