Other languages

• Dutch: formulier 
• French: formulaire 
• German: Formular 
• Italian: modulo prestampato
• Polish: formularz, blankiet, odpus (= indulgence)
• Spanish: formulario 

Material form

Subject

Description

A widely used genre of broadsides commissioned by authorities were official forms. Such forms included indulgences, certificates, permissions, receipts, bills of sale and similar genres. They were perhaps not ‘mass popular literature’ in the sense that large batches of print would be sold, but many people encountered them in a variety of contexts nonetheless. Usually the forms would be standardized (often according to commission from secular or religious authorities) with blank spaces left for individualization of the content. 

Sources

F. Eisermann, ‘Zu den Anfängen des gedruckten Formulars‘, in: R. Abdullah and K. Henze (eds.), Formulare: Von der Wiege bis zur Bahr. Formulare im Corporate Design (Munich: Stiebner, 2007), 12-25.

S. González-Sarasa Hernáez, Tipología editorial del impreso antiguo español, thesis Universidad Complutense de Madrid (2013), esp. Chapter 7, ‘Productos editoriales de información o notificación privada (particular o de sociedades privadas) y documentación personal’ (191-201) and 563-614. https://eprints.ucm.es/id/eprint/24020/

A. Pettegree, ‘Broadsheets: Single-Sheet Publishing in the First Age of Print. Typology and Typography’, in: A. Pettegree (ed.), Broadsheets: Single-Sheet Publishing in the First Age of Print (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2017), 1-32, esp. 19-22.

A. Pettegree and A. der Weduwen, ‘Forms, Handbills and Affixed Posters’, Quaerendo 50.1-2 (2020), 15-40.

U. Rozzo, La strage ignorata. I fogli volanti a stampa nell’Italia dei secoli XV e XVI (Udine: Forum, 2008).