How did medieval rulers communicate to their entire population effectively?

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Maybe a weird/stupid question. Today we have mass media, and any new law/political scandal that happens reaches almost everyone instantly. Previously, radio broadcasts. Before telecommunications, information could go around presumably by letters, word of mouth, etc. Before even any of that, how would entire populations in, for example, the 11th century find out about new laws that were passed in their country, or if their country was going to war, and was it ever possible to communicate this fairly quickly (that is, within a week or two?)

In: 1822

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Another thing I was always fascinated by is how the Spanish, English, and other European empires would command armies across the ocean. It would take months for the King to get updates on something as insanely huge as the US revolutionary war and whatnot. Not to mention that they succeeded in many cases with this level of delay, though not in the case of the revolutionary war obviously.

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