1 - The paradox of slander

Summary

To gain a sense of the scope and operation of early modern defamation, one might begin with the complexity and contradiction contained in the definition of the various terms used to denote it. I should explain at this point that I tend to privilege the use of “slander” as a general term, following general usage of common parlance and the central courts in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, which employ various expressions for false imputations interchangeably. Because distinctions in the terms “libel” and “slander” were still unclear during this period, legal historians tend to use the term “defamation” to cover both safely. Although the Star Chamber tended to see written defamation as a more serious offense than spoken defamation, the common law courts did not consistently distinguish them as libel and slander respectively until 1660 (Baker 1990: 506). This ambiguity of terms is evident in the language of bills presented to the Star Chamber alleging defamatory attacks in poetry and drama, in legal treatises on the subject and even in state proclamations and statutes; take, for example, this 1581 statue making it a felony to “deuise, and write, print, or set foorth, anie maner of booke, rime, ballad, letter or writing conteining any false, seditious, and slanderous matter to the defamation of the queenes majestie” (23 Eliz.c.2). As F. G. Emmison notes: “Libel and slander, for our purposes, scarcely need to be distinguished, for the scandalous writing, if in ballad form, was also meant to be sung” (Emmison 1970: 66).