![]() The ban’s failure was history’s gain: The very type of open discussion Charles II feared led to the explosion of new ideas during the Enlightenment. Coffee Houses Become Known as ‘Penny Universities’ The people had spoken: Coffee was here to stay. To combat this “evil,” Secretary of State Sir Joseph Williamson embedded a network of spies in London coffee houses and in December of 1675, Charles II went as far as ordering the closure of all coffee houses in London. On June 12, 1672, Charles II issued a proclamation to “Restrain the Spreading of False News, and Licentious Talking of Matters of State and Government,” which read in part: “men have assumed to themselves a liberty, not only in Coffee-houses, but in other Places and Meetings, both public and private, to censure and defame the proceedings of State by speaking evil of things they understand not.” King Charles II’s father, Charles I, had been decapitated during the English Civil War, so he was understandably paranoid about his subjects gathering to talk politics. “Coffeehouses were the motor of the news industry in 18th-century London,” Ellis explains. The defining feature of English coffee houses were communal tables covered with newspapers and pamphlets where guests would gather to consume, discuss and even write the news. ![]() The idea that you could go and sit next to someone as an equal was radical,” says Markman Ellis, author of The Coffee House: A Cultural History. “British culture was intensely hierarchical and structured. Pasqua Rosée opened the first coffee house in London in 1652, prompting a revolution in London society. But by then, coffeehouses had already spread to Europe and were striking fear into the hearts of kings.ĭid You Know? Coffee was such an ingrained part of society in Saudi Arabia that failing to supply your wife with coffee was grounds for divorce. ![]() Ottoman sultans issued and retracted coffeehouse bans well into the 18th century to prevent the gathering of dissidents. The sultan was so dedicated to catching coffee sippers in the act that he allegedly disguised himself as a commoner and prowled Istanbul, decapitating offenders with his hundred-pound broadsword. Murad IV’s brother and uncle had been killed by janissaries, infantry units who were known to frequent cafes. In 1633, Sultan Murad IV decreed that the consumption of coffee was a capital offense. Coffee’s affordability and egalitarian structure-anyone could come in and order a cup-eroded centuries of social norms. Since liquor and bars were off-limits to most practicing Muslims, coffeehouses provided an alternative place to gather, socialize and share ideas. Coffee houses began in the Ottoman Empire. ![]()
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