Showing posts with label 1500s and earlier. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1500s and earlier. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Cloves, cumin, ginger

Vasco da Gama, the famous Portuguese explorer, died all of 490 years ago today. Although he did not leave behind a diary of his own, an unknown author did keep a journal of da Gama’s first expedition to India. This was stored in a Portuguese convent for centuries, before being published in the 1860s, and then translated into English in the 1890s. It provides a rich and colourful account of the very earliest days of European attempts to colonise the sub-continent.

Da Gama was born in Sines, Portugal, around 1460. His father was Estêvão da Gama, commander of the local fort. In 1492, Vasco da Gama was sent by King John II to the south of the country to take revenge against the French, who had been seizing Portuguese ships. Meanwhile, Estêvão da Gama was chosen by the king to lead a Portuguese fleet to India in search of lucrative trade routes. However, both the king and Estêvão da Gama died, and the mission was handed to Vasco de Gama by the new King Manuel.

In 1497, da Gama sailed from Lisbon with four ships; he rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and, with the aid of a pilot found on the east coast of Africa, sailed to the west coast of India, stopping at various ports, before reaching Calicut (now Kozhikode) on the Malabar coast. Unable to establish a colony because of opposition from the local Muslims, da Gama returned to Portugal, with a cargo of very profitable spices and the certain knowledge of a potential trade route. The mission was, thus, celebrated as a great success. Around 1500, he married Catarina de Ataíde who bore him six sons.

Vasco da Gama, by this time ranked as an admiral, undertook a second journey, in 1502, to try and secure the trading colony established in the interim by Pedro Carbal, but which had been wiped out in a massacre. He successfully laid siege to Calicut, and concluded favourable peace treaties with the native rulers. However, on his return, he felt inadequately rewarded, and became embroiled in an ongoing dispute concerning his ownership of the town of Sines (given him by the king in 1499, but still claimed by the Military Order of Santiago).

For some years after, da Gama lived a relatively quiet life. In 1519, he was appointed Count of Vidigueira; and, in 1524, after Manuel’s death, King John III appointed him as Portuguese Viceroy in India. He set sail for a third time, to try and restore administrative order to the Portuguese holdings. However, he fell ill at Cochin and died on 23 December 1524. Further information is available from Wikipedia, or from various out-of-copyright biographies available at Internet Archive, such as Vasco da Gama and his successors 1460-1580 by K. G. Jayne.

A diary account of da Gama’s first voyage - named Roteiro - survived over 300 years, and was first published in 1838. This was edited by Diogo Kopke and Dr. Antonio da Costa Paiva, both teachers at the Academia Polytechnica of Oporto, and funded by subscription. Only 392 copies were printed then, but a second edition appeared in Lisbon in 1861. A few years later, in 1869, the Hakluyt Society published Lord Stanley of Alderley’s translation of the Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, and intended to bring out an English translation of the Roteiro, but this latter was left in abeyance for another three decades, until the Society published, in 1898, A journal of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama in 1497-99 as translated and edited by E. G. Ravenstein. The book is freely available online at Internet Archive or Googlebooks.

Ravenstein notes, in his introduction, that the extant manuscript is not the original, but only a copy, and that the author of the original remains unknown. He explains: ‘The manuscript originally belonged to the famous Convent of Santa Cruz at Coimbra, whence it was transferred, together with other precious manuscripts, to the public library of Oporto. [. . .] This copy, however, was taken in the beginning of the sixteenth century, as may be seen from the style of the writing. [. . .] It is quite possible, as suggested by Prof. Kopke, that the title by which the Roteiro was known at the convent of Santa Cruz misled certain bibliographers into a belief that Vasco da Gama himself had written this account of his voyage. [. . .] No one has yet succeeded in discovering the author of the Roteiro.’ Ravenstein adds that his translation is ‘literal and complete’. Here are a few extracts.

8 April 1497
‘On Palm Sunday the King of Mombaça sent the captain-major a sheep and large quantities of oranges, lemons and sugar-cane, together with a ring, as a pledge of safety, letting him know that in case of his entering the port he would be supplied with all he stood in need of. This present was conveyed to us by two men, almost white, who said they were Christians, which appeared to be the fact. The captain-major sent the king a string of coral-beads as a return present, and let him know that he purposed entering the port on the following day. On the same day the captain-major’s vessel was visited by four Moors of distinction.

Two men were sent by the captain-major to the king, still further to confirm these peaceful assurances. When these landed they were followed by a crowd as far as the gates of the palace. Before reaching the king they passed through four doors, each guarded by a doorkeeper with a drawn cutlass. The king received them hospitably, and ordered that they should be shown over the city. They stopped on their way at the house of two Christian merchants, who showed them a paper (carta), an object of their adoration, on which was a sketch of the Holy Ghost. When they had seen all, the king sent them back with samples of cloves, pepper and corn, with which articles he would allow us to load our ships.’

10 April 1497
‘On Tuesday, when weighing anchor to enter the port, the captain-major’s vessel would not pay off, and struck the vessel which followed astern. We therefore again cast anchor. When the Moors who were in our ship saw that we did not go on, they scrambled into a zavra attached to our stern; whilst the two pilots whom we had brought from Moçambique jumped into the water, and were picked up by the men in the zavra. At night the captain-major “questioned” two Moors whom we had on board, by dropping boiling oil upon their skin, so that they might confess any treachery intended against us. They said that orders had been given to capture us as soon as we entered the port, and thus to avenge what we had done at Moçambique. And when this torture was being applied a second time, one of the Moors, although his hands were tied, threw himself into the sea, whilst the other did so during the morning watch.

About midnight two almadias, with many men in them, approached. The almadias stood off whilst the men entered the water, some swimming in the direction of the Berrio others in that of the Raphael. Those who swam to the Berrio began to cut the cable. The men on watch thought at first that they were tunny fish, but when they perceived their mistake they shouted to the other vessels. The other swimmers had already got hold of the rigging of the mizzen-mast. Seeing themselves discovered, they silently slipped down and fled. These and other wicked tricks were practised upon us by these dogs, but our Lord did not allow them to succeed, because they were unbelievers.

Mombaça is a large city seated upon an eminence washed by the sea. Its port is entered daily by numerous vessels. At its entrance stands a pillar, and by the sea a low-lying fortress.Those who had gone on shore told us that in the town they had seen many men in irons; and it seemed to us that these must be Christians, as the Christians in that country are at war with the Moors.

The Christian merchants in the town are only temporary residents, and are held in much subjection, they not being allowed to do anything except by the order of the Moorish King.

It pleased God in his mercy that on arriving at this city all our sick recovered their health, for the climate (“air”) of this place is very good.

After the malice and treachery planned by these dogs had been discovered, we still remained on Wednesday and Thursday.’

17 April 1497
‘We approached nearer to the town [Malindi]. The king sent the captain-major six sheep, besides quantities of cloves, cumin, ginger, nutmeg and pepper, as also a message, telling him that if he desired to have an interview with him he (the king) would come out in his zavra when the captain-major could meet him in a boat.’

18 April 1497
‘On Wednesday, after dinner, when the king came up close to the ships in a zavra, the captain-major at once entered one of his boats, which had been well furnished, and many friendly words were exchanged when they lay side by side. The king having invited the captain-major to come to his house to rest, after which he (the king) would visit him on board his ship, the captain-major said that he was not permitted by his master to go on land, and if he were to do so a bad report would be given of him. The king wanted to know what would be said of himself by his people if he were to visit the ships, and what account could he render them? He then asked for the name of our king, which was written down for him, and said that on our return he would send an ambassador with us, or a letter.

When both had said all they desired, the captain-major sent for the Moors whom he had taken prisoner, and surrendered them all. This gave much satisfaction to the king, who said that he valued this act more highly than if he had been presented with a town. And the king, much pleased, made the circuit of our ships, the bombards of which fired a salute. About three hours were spent in this way. When the king went away he left in the ship one of his sons and a sharif, and took two of us away with him, to whom he desired to show his palace. He, moreover, told the captain that as he would not go ashore he would himself return on the following day to the beach, and would order his horsemen to go through some exercises.

The king wore a robe (royal cloak) of damask trimmed with green satin, and a rich touca. He was seated on two cushioned chairs of bronze, beneath a round sunshade of crimson satin attached to a pole. An old man, who attended him as page, carried a short sword in a silver sheath. There were many players on anafils, and two trumpets of ivory, richly carved, and of the size of a man, which were blown from a hole in the side, and made sweet harmony with the anafils.’

19 April 1497
‘On Thursday the captain-major and Nicolau Coelho rowed along the front of the town, bombards having been placed in the poops of their long-boats. Many people were along the shore, and among them two horsemen, who appeared to take much delight in a sham-fight. The king was carried in a palanquin from the stone steps of his palace to the side of the captain-major’s boats. He again begged the captain to come ashore, as he had a helpless father who wanted to see him, and that he and his sons would go on board the ships as hostages. The captain, however, excused himself.’

The Diary Junction

Monday, June 16, 2014

And so made significant

Sir John Cheke, an English classical scholar and statesman, was born exactly 500 years ago today. He left behind no diaries, but he is credited with influencing Edward VI - the Boy King who died aged only 15 - to keep a diary. King Edward’s diary is one of earliest surviving English diaries, and is all the more remarkable for having been written by a teenager who was also a reigning monarch. Remarkable, too, is the fact that we have some idea of why Cheke advised the young man to keep a diary. 

John Cheke was born on 16 June 1514 in Cambridge, the son of Peter Cheke an administrator at the university. He was educated at St John’s College, where he excelled at Latin and Greek, became a fellow, and became a protestant. Dr William Butts, a friend of his father, was also a great friend and counsellor to John. He spoke highly of the young man to King Henry VIII, who gave him an exhibition [grant] in 1538 to aid his studies. Two years later, on Henry VIII’s foundation of the regius professorships, Cheke was elected to the chair of Greek.

In 1544, Cheke was confirmed as tutor to the young Prince Edward to teach him, according to documents in the famous Cotton Library (part of the British Library), ‘of toungues, of the scripture, of philosophie and all liberal sciences’. He left Cambridge to live in the prince’s household, and continued as Edward’s tutor after he became king in 1547, until 1549. Also, in 1547, Cheke married Mary Hill, and they would have three sons.

Cheke increasingly became more active in public life: he sat as member for Bletchingley for two short parliaments; he was made provost of King’s College, Cambridge; he was one of the commissioners for visiting Cambridge and Oxford universities and Eton College; and he was appointed to help with draw up a body of laws for the governance of the church. He was knighted in 1551, and in 1553 the new and protestant queen, Lady Jane Grey, made him one of her secretaries of state, and he joined the privy council.

On the accession of Mary, a Catholic, however, just days later, Cheke lost his positions and was, briefly, imprisoned in the Tower of London. On his release, he fled abroad, living mostly in Strasbourg. He published further papers on Greek pronunciation, but was beset with debts and concerns over the lack of provision for his family. He continued, however, to oppose Mary’s Catholic regime, and was arrested again, in Belgium, and imprisoned in the Tower. There, faced with the prospect of death by burning, he publicly and humiliatingly recanted his Protestant faith - providing Mary with a propaganda coup. He died of shame - or so it is said - soon after, in 1557. Further information can be found at Wikipedia, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (log-in required), or from John Strype’s 1821 biography, The Life of the Learned Sir John Cheke, freely available at Internet Archive.

More about Edward VI’s historically valuable diary - some extracts and links to online texts - can be found in another Diary Review article. Here, though, is a passage from Strype’s biography explaining Cheke’s advice to the young King Edward VI to keep a diary:

‘And that all King Edward’s transactions, and the emergencies of his kingdom, whether public or private, might be the better remembered by him, (whereby his experience might be the greater,) Cheke directed him to keep a diary of all occurrences of weight; and to write down briefly, under each day of every month, debates in Council, despatch of Ambassadors, honours conferred, and other remarks, as he thought good: and this, we may conclude, produced that excellent Journal of this King preserved in the Cotton library, and printed thence by Bishop Burnet. And, to set forth the benefit of keeping of such a day’s book, Cheke is said to use this aphorism, “That a dark and imperfect reflection upon affairs floating in the memory, was like words dispersed and insignificant; whereas a view of them in a book, was like the same words digested and disposed in good order, and so made significant.” ’


The Diary Junction

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

After private prayers

Margaret Hoby died all of 380 years ago today. She married three times, kept a rich household, and was a very religious person. There is nothing remarkable about her life except for the fact that she kept a diary, and that this is the oldest known extant diary - written over four centuries ago - by any English woman. Unfortunately, it is more a record of her private prayers than her private thoughts.

Margaret was born in 1571, the only child of a landed gentleman, Arthur Dakins of Linton, East Riding, and his wife Thomasine Gye. Margaret was educated at a school for young gentlewomen in a Puritan household. She married Walter Devereux, the younger son of Essex, and a court favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. The manor and parsonage of Hackness near Scarborough were purchased for the couple, and remained Margaret’s property after Devereux died at the siege of Rouen in 1591. She married Sir Thomas Sidney, but he died in 1595, and she then married Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby, son of the translator and English ambassador to France, in 1596. They lived at Hackness, but had no children. Margaret spent much of her time tending the sick and infirm in her own community, as well as running her household. She died on 4 September 1633.

A little further biographical information about Hoby can be found at Wikipedia, in A Historical Dictionary of British Women by Cathy Hartley, or in Early Modern English Lives: Autobiography and Self-representation, 1500-1660 (several authors).

Between 1599 and 1603, Margaret kept a diary fairly regularly. According to Arthur Ponsonby, editor of More English Diaries (1927), ‘she was no doubt instructed to keep a diary for the sake of religious discipline.’ He continues: ‘Her piety is very pronounced. Not only does she go to church frequently and listen to many sermons, but she has private prayers, writes out sermons, writes notes in her Testament, sings psalms, listens to lectures and nurses the sick. [. . .] But the diary is not exclusively confined to her religious exercises. We learn much of her daily occupations. How she gathers “apples”, exercises her “body at bowles a while of which I found good”; is busy “preserving quinces” and damsons, busy in the kitchen, busy dyeing woold, “stilling”, “working some fringe”, “dressing sores”, taking “the aire in my cocsh”, out fishing or relining “a sute of blake satan for Mr. Hoby”.

Ponsonby concludes the chapter in his book on Hoby by explaining that her manuscript is in the British Museum (now the British Library), but that he was able to read a transcript with full notes in the possession of the Librarian of the House of Lords. He, Ponsonby, recommends the diary ‘should be published in full’. In fact, it was edited a few years later by Dorothy M. Meads and published as Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby 1599-1605 by George Routledge & Sons in 1930. Meads, however, can’t help but give vent to her own frustration that Hoby did not write more extensively on issues other than her religious devotions.

In her introduction Meads writes: ‘This daily record is of great value as a contemporary document, though it is not nearly so full as we would have it. The religious element is prominent, to the exclusion of much else, for the record seems to have been kept largely as a means of assisting in the religious exercise of self-examination, and only partly because it was useful in other ways. [. . .] Her daily personal record is very introspective, yet she shows no real capacity for self-knowledge or ability in self-analysis, for she sets down more or less conventional religious expressions of self-disparagement. A perusal of the contents of the diary gives one to think that she may have written with an eye on a possible reader, for we are rarely allowed a glimpse of the living woman. In spite of this barrier which she herself has raised, every detail of the record increases our acquaintance with her and our sympathy for her. She is interesting because she matters so much to herself.’

More recently, in 1998, Sutton Publishing brought out a new edition, The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady: The Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby, 1599-1605 by Joanna Moody. The following extracts, though, come from Meads’ edition, which includes over 600 annotations (for 150 pages of diary text). In one of these notes - linked to the first extract below -  Meads cannot help but repeat the frustrations voiced in her introduction: ‘If only Lady Hoby had committed more of her feelings, impressions, and offences to paper, her diary would have increased greatly in interest’.

18 July 1600
‘After priuatt praers I went about the house and deliuered some directions to Iurden: after, I talked with my Cosine Isons and about his goinge to yorke, and then I went to diner: after, I was busie pouidinge some thinge to be carried to York: afte, I wrought and, lastly, I went to priuate examenation and praier: after, I went to supper, then I walked abroad: after, I Came in to publeck praers and, after, to priuate, wher I pleased the lord to touch my hart with such sorrow, for some offence Cometted, that I hope the lord, for his sonne sake, hath pardoned it accordinge to his promise, which is ever Iust: after, I reed apaper that wrought farther humiliation in me, I thanke god.’

17 October 1600
‘from thence I tooke my Iurnie to London wher, in the way, I was tould that order was giuen to fetch all the stuffe from york, and and to giue ouer house ther, vpon which and about we had laied forth 18li, which newes did much touch me, so that I procured Contrarie directions forth with: after I Came to london I praied, and was viseted with all my Cosines Cookes: then I praied after supper and went to bed, wher I was more meanly lodged, with so great Cost, then to my remembrance I was euer in my Life: and yet I was Glad of my brothers house’ [Meads believes this house was in The Strand or nearby].

5 May 1601
‘After praers I went to the church, wher I hard a sermon: after, I Came home and hard Mr Rhodes read: after diner I went abroad, and when I was come home I dressed some sore: after, I went to see a calfe at Munckmans, which had: 2: great heades, 4 eares, and had to ether head a throte pipe besides: the heades had long heares like brisels about the mouths, such as n’other Cowe hath: the hinder legges had no parting from the rumpe, but grewe backward, and were no longer but from the first Ioynte: also the backe bone was parted about the midest bicke, and a rowne howle was in the midest into the bodie of the Calfe: but one would haue thought that haue comed of strocke it might gett in the Cowes bely: after this I Came in to priuat medetation and praier.’

13 May 1603
‘his Majestie remoued from the Tower to Grennige’ [Greenwich]

7 June 1603
‘this day Mr Hoby and my selfe remoued from London in kent, to Mr Bettnames house, wher, I praise god, I had my health very well’ [those not with a need to remain at court had been ordered to leave London because of the plague, Meads explains, because James was alarmed at the multitudes besieging the court]

20 June 1603
‘this day we removed from thence towards Yorkshere, and the first night lay at Barnett’

21 June 1603
‘this day we lay at Noth hamton’

22 June 1603
‘at Ashbye, wher I kissed the Queens hand’

23 June 1603
‘we lay at Notingame’

24 June 1603
‘we lay at Dankester’

25 June 1600
‘at Yorke, wher we staied all the Lordes day’

27 June 1603
‘we lay at Linton wt my Cosine Dakins’

28 June 1603
‘we Came safe, I praise god, to Hacknis’

27 September 1603
‘thes day we hard from Hacknes that all there was well, But that the sicknes was freared to be at Roben Hood bay, not farr off: I Continewe my accostomed exercises but my increasinges in goodes waies is not as I thirst for’

The Diary Junction

Thursday, March 28, 2013

A swarme of bees

Adam Winthrop, a lawyer and prosperous Suffolk landowner, died all of 390 years ago today. He is remembered partly because he kept a diary, and partly because his immediate descendants were leading figures in the development of colonies in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Winthrop was born in 1548 in London but he spent some of his youth in Suffolk, where his father, also Adam (see picture), a master clothmaker, had purchased a manor at Groton. He studied at Magdalene, Cambridge, where he met John Still, and later married Alice Still. He trained for the law at the Inns of Court. In 1575, Winthrop was appointed steward of the college’s Kentish manors.

Alice died young, and Winthrop married Anne Browne, son of Henry Browne, a former clergyman of Groton. He acted as a minor landowner in his own right and as estate manager for his brother John, who had inherited Groton Manor, and performed legal services for local landowners. In 1592, he was appointed auditor of Trinity College and travelled regularly to Cambridge.

Over time, Winthrop acquired a theological library which he shared with clerical friends. He continued to correspond with John Still who became the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Winthrop died on 28 March 1623 at Groton. His son by Anne Browne, John, became a historically important figure - one of the founders of New England and the first Governor of Massachusetts - and Adam’s grandson, another John, was one of the founders of the Connecticut Colony. A little further information can be found from the DeLoria-Hurst family tree website, from Rootsweb, or the Miller-Anderson Histories.

Winthrop kept a diary which, because his son, John Winthrop, achieved such a high position in early American society, has proved of some historical importance. Indeed, extracts were published (by Tickner and Fields, Boston, 1864) in Life and Letters of John Winthrop by Robert C. Winthrop - which is freely available at Internet Archive - and in the so-called Winthrop Papers. Millersville University has used the diary to replicate Winthrop’s library. Further information about Winthrop’s diary can also be found in Francis Bremer’s book, John Winthrop - America’s Forgotten Founding Father, much of which can be read at Googlebooks.

Here is an extract from the opening pages of the published diary (in the Appendix of Life and Letters of John Winthrop).

‘Special matters & observations noted in the yere of our Lords God 1595: by me A. W.

This yere Corne was very scarce vntil haruest, notwithstanding yet there was muche wheate & rye brought into Inglande from by yonde the Seas, whereby the price of corne was abated.

Also al other kinde of vitaile was in the begynnynge of this yere sould at great prices.

On Whitsonday I had a great swarme of bees, and on Munday in Witsonweeke ther did come a swarme of bees flyeng ouer Castleynes heathe into Carters grounde. [There were many superstitions about bees in Suffolk County; and, among others, that bad luck was portended by a stray swarm of bees settling on one’s premises, unclaimed by their owner.]

The same day & tyme Mr. Gatcheroode, Mr. Walton, Mr. Th. Waldgraue, Mr. Clopton & my selfe were ther present about the bounding of the heathe.

On Thursday the 3. of July, Mr. Brampton Gurdon had a soonne borne to him: who was baptized on Sunday the 13 of July and named John. Sr Wm Waldegraue and old Mr. John Gurdon were godfathers: and the Lady Moore & olde Mris. Gurdon were godmoothers.

This yeare at ye Sommer assises, viz: 22 Julij 1595, diuers Justices of the Peace were put out of ye Comission by the Q. comandement [. . .]

This yere the viiith Day of July my brother Roger Alibaster, & my sister his wife wth their iij sones, George, John & Thomas, & Sara their daughter, tooke their iourny from Hadleigh to goe into Irelande.

The same day it Thundred, hailed & Rayned very sore.

Willm Alibaster their eldest soonne departed from my house towards Cambrige the ixth of July, malcontent.

This yere harvest began not wth vs vn till the xijth of August & contynued vntill the _ of September.

The 27 of August Mr. Hanam fell sicke & recouerd the iiijth of Sept. The same day my brother killed a brocke [badger] wth his hounds. [. . .]

The 3, 4 & 5 daies of October Sr Wm Waldegraue mustred all souldiors viz. 400, vppon a hill nere Sudbury.

The 8 day of October my wyfe rydde to her father at Pritlewell in Essex & returned the xxth.

The xth day of October Adam Seely retourned home, & the same day I Recd a lre from my L. of Bathe. [Dr John Still]

In the moneth of Octobre, Ano 1595, Sr Thomas Heneage died, Vir bonus & pius, & on the same day & monethe Philip, late Erle of Arundell died in the Tower of London.

The XXXth day of Octobre Richard Bronde of Boxford sherman [cloth worker] Departed out of this life, ano etatis 59.

The 7 of November the Erle of Hertford was comitted to the Tower.

The xiiijth of Decembre I receyved a lre from my brother Alibaster written from Tenby in Wales concernynge his ill successe in his Irisshe iourny.

The _ Day of January the butcher of Netherden woodde was cruelly murdered viz. his hed was cutt of & his body devided into iiij qrtrs & wrapt in a sheet & layd vpon his owne horse, as he came from Bury markett; & so brought home to his wyfe, who vppo the sight therof pntly died. [. . .]

The last of Aprill Sr J. Puckringe, L. keper of the great seale died of the deadde palsey.

The xth of May Grymolde of Nedginge did hange himselfe in his Barne.

The xvijth of May Adam Seely went privilie from my house & caried awaye xv he did steale from Richard Edwardes, pro quo facto dignus est capistro.

The xxviijth of May Mr. Pie of Colchester died suddenly.

The xjth of June Sr Wm Waldegraue trayned his whole band of footemen & horsemen on Babar heathe.

The 16 of June my brother Winthrop departed from my house towards Ireland, & my brother Alibaster went wth him.’

Thursday, February 28, 2013

No good barber in Italy

Michel de Montaigne, the great 16th century French essayist and philosopher, was born 480 years ago today. His essays on any number of topics - from sleep to smells and from cannibals to cruelty - remain in print to this day, and a new biography, by Sarah Bakewell, even credits him with inventing the idea of writing about oneself. For a short while in the 1580s, he travelled beyond the French borders, often seeking out spas in search of relief for his kidney stones. He kept a fine journal of his journeys, often full of detail about the cures he found, and several translations are freely available online.

Montaigne was born in Chãteau de Montaigne, near Bordeaux, in southwest France, on 28 February 1533. His father was a soldier and a lawyer, and his mother came from a Spanish Jewish family converted to protestantism. He studied at Collège de Guyenne in Bordeaux, and then trained for the law in Bordeaux and Toulouse. He worked at the Court des Aides of Périgueaux, and then in 1557 was appointed to the Bordeaux Parliament. From 1561 to 1563 he served at the court of Charles IX. In 1565, he married Françoise de la Chassaigne. They had one daughter that survived infancy.

After his father died in 1568, Montaigne moved to the family Chãteau. There he wrote the many essays - on numerous topics including sadness, idleness, the education of children, sleep, smells, the greatness of Rome - which, subsequently, brought him fame. From 1578, he suffered from kidney stones which led him in search of cures in Switzerland, Germany and Italy. In 1581, while at La Villa, in Italy, Montaigne found out he had been elected mayor of Bordeaux. He returned to the city, and served in that post for four years. In 1588 he accompanied Henry III to Rouen. He died in 1592. Further information is available from Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or Adam Thorpe’s review of Sarah Bakewell’s How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer.

Montaigne was no regular diarist, but he did keep a journal during his travels of 1580 and 1581 - across France to Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy - and this often appears with his essays as part of a set of ‘complete works’. The most modern translation of the journal was made by Donald M. Frame in The Complete Works of Montaigne published by Stanford University Press in the US in 1957, and Hamish Hamilton in the UK in 1958.

Frame says, in his ‘notes on the travel journal’, that Montaigne’s journal has a curious history. Part of it was dictated in French to a secretary, and part of it was written by Montaigne in French and Italian. The manuscripts lay buried in a chest at the Chãteau for two centuries before being discovered by a historian in 1770. This led to it being published soon after in five editions during the mid-1770s; thereafter, though, the original manuscripts vanished during the Revolution. All subsequent editions and translations, thus, rely on the French printed editions from the 1770s which, according to Frame, ‘offer only many variants but also a good many apparent misplacements and misreadings’. Nevertheless, more modern editions in French and Italian, Frame adds, are helpful for their geographical amendments or conjectural emendations.

The Journal, Frame explains, has been translated into English three times, by William Hazlitt (1842), W. G. Waters (1903) and E. J. Trechmann (1929), though he only rates the latter as any good. All three of these translations are available freely online, the first two at Internet Archive, and the latter at the Hathi Trust Digital Library. The following extracts are taken from Frame’s The Complete Works of Montaigne. (The journal reads more as a narrative than a diary in that the dates are incorporated into the text, and I have left the extracts thus.)

1581
‘Monday early we left there. And along the road, without dismounting, after stopping a while to visit the villa of the bishop, who was there (and were made much of by his men, and invited to stay there to dinner), we came to dine at the baths of La Villa, fifteen miles. I received a warm welcome and greetings from all those people. In truth it seemed that I had come back to my own home. I went back to the same room I had the first time, at the price of twenty crowns a month, and on the same conditions.

Tuesday August 15th I went to the bath early and stayed there a little less than an hour. I again found it rather cold than otherwise. It did not start me sweating at all. I arrived at these baths not only healthy, but I may further say in all-round good spirits. After bathing, I passed some cloudy urine; and in the evening, after walking a good bit over alpine and not at all easy roads, I passed some that was quite bloody; and in bed I felt something indefinably wrong with the kidneys.

On the 16th I continued the bathing, and I went to the women’s bath, where I had not yet been, in order to be separate and alone. I found it too hot, either because it was really so or indeed because my pores, being opened from the bathing of the day before, had made me get hot easily. At all events I stayed there an hour at most and sweated moderately. My urine was natural; no gravel at all. After dinner my urine again came turbid and red, and at sunset it was bloody.

On the 17th I found this same bath more temperate. I sweated very little. The urine rather turbid, with a little gravel; my colour a sort of yellow pallor.

On the 18th I stayed two hours in the aforesaid bath. I felt I know not what heaviness in the kidneys. My bowels were reasonably loose. From the very first day I felt full of wind, and my bowels rumbling. I can easily believe that this effect is characteristic of these waters, because the other time I bathed I clearly perceived that they brought on the flatulence this way.

On the 19th I went to the bath a little later to give way to a lady of Lucca who wanted to bathe, and did bathe, before me; for this rule is observed, and reasonably so, that the ladies may enjoy their own bath when they please. I again stayed there for two hours. There came over me a little heaviness in my head, which had been in the best of condition for several days. My urine was still turbid, but in different ways, and it carried off a lot of gravel. I also noticed some commotion in the kidneys. And if my feelings are correct, these baths can do much in that particular; and not only do they dilate and open up the passages and conduits, but furthermore they drive out the matter, dissipated and scatter it. I voided the gravel that seemed really to be stones broken up into pieces.

In the night I felt in the left-side the beginning of a very violent and painful colic, which tore me for a good while and yet did not run its ordinary course; it did not reach the belly and the groin, and ended in a way that made me believe it was wind. [. . .]

On the 27th after dinner I was cruelly tormented by a very acute toothache, so that I sent for the doctor, who, when he had come and considered everything, and especially that my pain had left me in his presence, judged that this defluxion had no body unless a very subtle one, and that it was wind and flatulence that mounted from the stomach to the head and, mingling with a little humor, gave me that discomfort. This indeed seemed to me very likely, considering that I had suffered similar accidents in other parts of the body.

On Monday, August 28th, at dawn, I went to drink at Bernabo’s spring and drank seven pounds four ounces of the water, at twelve ounces to the pound. It made my bowels move once. I voided a little less than half of it before dinner. I clearly felt that it sent vapors to my head and made it heavy. [. . .]

On Thursday, September 7th, in the morning I was an hour in the big bath. This same morning they delivered into my hands, by way of Rome, letters from Monsieur de Tausin, written in Bordeaux on August 2nd, by which he advised me that the day before, by general consent, I had been made mayor of that city; and he urged me to accept this charge for the love of my country.

On Sunday, September 10th, I bathed for an hour in the morning in the women’s bath; and since it was a bit warm, I sweated some. After dinner I went alone on horseback to see some other places in the neighbourhood, and a little villa called Granajolo, which stands on top of one of the highest mountains in these parts. As I passed over these heights, they seemed to me the most beautiful, fertile, and pleasant inhabited slopes that could possibly be seen.

Talking with the natives, I asked one very elderly man whether they used our baths, and he replied that it worked out with them as it did with the people who live near Our Lady of Loreto; that those people rarely go there on a pilgrimage, and that there is little use of the baths except for the benefit of foreigners and those who live far away. He said he was very sorry about one thing, that for a number of years he had observed that the baths did more harm than good to those who used them [. . .].

Monday, September 11th, in the morning, I voided a good quantity of gravel, most of it looking like millet, solid, red on the surface and grey inside.

On September 12th, 1581, we left the baths of La Villa early in the morning and came to dine at Lucca, fourteen miles. These days they were beginning to gather the grapes. The Feast of the Holy Cross is one of the principal ones in this city; and for a week around it freedom is given to anyone who wants it and who has been banished on account of a civil debt, to return in security to his house, to give him opportunity to attend to his devotions.

I have not found in Italy a single good barber to shave my beard and cut my hair.’

Monday, October 31, 2011

Columbus in the Bahamas

Some five hundred and sixty years ago today, or thereabouts, was born Christopher Columbus, probably the most famous explorer of all time. His voyages across the Atlantic brought much knowledge to Europe of the American continents, and also set in motion Spanish colonisation - a process which would have the most profound impact on the future of the world. Fortunately, Columbus kept detailed logs or diaries, and these are among the earliest of any surviving European diaries.

The eldest of five children, Columbus was born on (or around) 31 October 1451 in Genoa (there is some dispute about the place as well as the date) into a wool weaving family, possibly of Spanish Jewish descent. How he became a sailor is unclear, although it seems he may have worked first as a commercial agent in his home city, a busy port. He may also have been in the service of a pirate for a while. He made his first trading voyage to Khios in the Aegean Sea. On one early voyage, his vessel sank during a battle off the Portuguese coast, and it is thought he swam ashore. He then settled in Portugal, and married, in 1479, the daughter of the governor of the island of Porto Santo, who bore him one son.

In the belief that the world was smaller than thought, and round, and that Asia could be reached quickly by sailing west, Columbus petitioned the Portuguese court for funds, only to be rejected. He moved to Spain where his plans were more favourably received. Here, Beatriz Enriquez became his mistress and bore him a second son, Ferdinand Columbus. In 1492, Columbus set off on the first of four famous voyages. On the first one, he explored the Caribbean islands. On the second, he founded the first European town in the New World - on Hispaniola (the island now shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti).

During his third voyage, Columbus discovered the mainland of South America before returning to Hispaniola, where considerable discontent had arisen among the settlers; lobbying against him then led to his arrest. On returning to Spain, he regained his freedom, but at the cost of much prestige and the governorship of the Indies, a title and role he’d acquired after his first voyage. On his fourth and somewhat ill-fated journey, Columbus explored the coast of Central America, but was later stranded on Jamaica for a year. He returned to Spain in 1504, and, in 1506, died a wealthy man, though still in dispute with the Spanish crown over his share of the income from the new lands.

There is much information about Columbus available online, at Wikipedia, Royal Museums Greenwich, The Smithsonian, and in his famous journals which are all freely available at Internet Archive. Here is an extract describing the first sighting of land in the West Indies. It is taken from The Journal of Christopher Columbus (during his First Voyage, 1492-93), and Documents relating to the voyages of John Cabot and Gaspar Real, published by The Hakluyt Society in 1892 (on the 400th anniversary of the voyage).

11 October 1492 ‘The course was WSW, and there was more sea than there had been during the whole of the voyage. They saw sandpipers, and a green reed near the ship. Those of the caravel Pinta saw a cane and a pole, and they took up another small pole which appeared to have been worked with iron; also another bit of cane, a land-plant, and a small board. The crew of the caravel Niña also saw signs of land, and a small branch covered with berries. Everyone breathed afresh and rejoiced at these signs. The run until sunset was 26 leagues.

After sunset the Admiral returned to his original west course, and they went along at the rate of 12 miles an hour. Up to two hours after midnight they had gone 90 miles, equal to 22 1/2 leagues. As the caravel Pinta was a better sailer, and went ahead of the Admiral, she found the land, and made the signals ordered by the Admiral. The land was first seen by a sailor named Rodrigo de Triana. But the Admiral, at ten in the previous night, being on the castle of the poop, saw a light, though it was so uncertain that he could not affirm it was land. He called Pero Gutierrez, a gentleman of the Kings bed-chamber, and said that there seemed to be a light, and that he should look at it. He did so, and saw it. The Admiral said the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the fleet as inspector, but he could see nothing, because he was not in a place whence anything could be seen. After the Admiral had spoken he saw the light once or twice, and it was like a wax candle rising and falling. It seemed to few to be an indication of land; but the Admiral made certain that land was close.

When they said the Salve, which all the sailors were accustomed to sing in their way, the Admiral asked and admonished the men to keep a good look-out on the forecastle, and to watch well for land; and to him who should first cry out that he saw land, he would give a silk doublet, besides the other rewards promised by the Sovereigns, which were 10,000 maravedis to him who should first see it.

At two hours after midnight the land was sighted at a distance of two leagues. They shortened sail, and lay by under the mainsail without the bonnets. The vessels were hove to, waiting for daylight; and on Friday they arrived at a small island of the Lucayos, called, in the language of the Indians, Guanahani [Watling Island, named San Salvador by Columbus]. Presently they saw naked people. The Admiral went on shore in the armed boat, and Martin Alonso Pinzon, and Vicente Yañez, his brother, who was captain of the Niña. The Admiral took the royal standard, and the captains went with two banners of the green cross, which the Admiral took in all the ships as a sign, with an F and a Y and a crown over each letter, one on one side of the cross and the other on the other.

Having landed, they saw trees very green, and much water, and fruits of diverse kinds. The Admiral called to the two captains, and to the others who leaped on shore, and to Rodrigo Escovedo, secretary of the whole fleet, and to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, and said that they should bear faithful testimony that he, in presence of all, had taken, as he now took, possession of the said island for the King and for the Queen, his Lords making the declarations that are required, as is more largely set forth in the testimonies which were then made in writing.

Presently many inhabitants of the island assembled. What follows is in the actual words of the Admiral in his book of the first navigation and discovery of the Indies. “I,” he says, “that we might form great friendship, for I knew that they were a people who could be more easily freed and converted to our holy faith by love than by force, gave to some of them red caps, and glass beads to put round their necks, and many other things of little value, which gave them great pleasure, and made them so much our friends that it was a marvel to see. They afterwards came to the ship’s boats where we were, swimming and bringing us parrots, cotton threads in skeins, darts, and many other things; and we exchanged them for other things that we gave them, such as glass beads and small bells. In fine, they took all, and gave what they had with good will. It appeared to me to be a race of people very poor in everything. They go as naked as when their mothers bore them, and so do the women, although I did not see more than one young girl. All I saw were youths, none more than thirty years of age. They are very well made, with very handsome bodies, and very good countenances. Their hair is short and coarse, almost like the hairs of a horse’s tail. They wear the hairs brought down to the eyebrows, except a few locks behind, which they wear long and never cut. They paint themselves black, and they are the colour of the Canarians, neither black nor white. Some paint themselves white, others red, and others of what colour they find. Some paint their faces, others the whole body, some only round the eyes, others only on the nose. They neither carry nor know anything of arms, for I showed them swords, and they took them by the blade and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their darts being wands without iron, some of them having a fish’s tooth at the end, and others being pointed in various ways. They are all of fair stature and size, with good faces, and well made. I saw some with marks of wounds on their bodies, and I made signs to ask what it was, and they gave me to understand that people from other adjacent islands came with the intention of seizing them, and that they defended themselves. I believed, and still believe, that they come here from the mainland to take them prisoners. They should be good servants and intelligent, for I observed that they quickly took in what was said to them, and I believe that they would easily be made Christians, as it appeared to me that they had no religion. I, our Lord being pleased, will take hence, at the time of my departure, six natives for your Highnesses, that they may learn to speak. I saw no beast of any kind except parrots, on this island.” The above is in the words of the Admiral.’

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The Great Earl of Cork

It is 444 years to the day since the birth of Richard Boyle, the First and ‘Great’ Earl of Cork, a British entrepreneur and politician who made his name and his fortune in the British colony of Ireland. He had many children, several of whom became famous. He was also a diary writer, and left behind an extensive archive of papers, now held by the National Library of Ireland.

Boyle was born on 13 October 1566 in Canterbury, and studied at Cambridge and the Middle Temple. While still in his young 20s, he decided to seek his fortune in Ireland. There he obtained a legal, and financially lucrative, appointment; and, in 1595, he married Joan Apsley, from a wealthy Limerick family, though she died during childbirth a few years later. Having accrued land and wealth, he lost it during the Munster rebellion in 1598.

Boyle was oliged to return to London, where, after a while, he was imprisoned on charges of embezzlement concerning his past activities in Ireland. He was acquitted, and then returned to Ireland on being appointed by Queen Elizabeth I as clerk of the council of Munster.

In 1602, he bought Sir Walter Raleigh’s large holdings in Cork, Waterford and Tipperary (including Lismore Castle), and then set about improving the lands and businesses, creating trade and founding towns. He also married again, to Catherine Fenton, who bore him many children, including Robert Boyle, today called the father of modern chemistry, and Roger Boyle, a soldier and dramatist, who also kept a diary - see Height and raptures.

In 1620, Richard Boyle was created Earl of Cork, and in 1629, he was appointed one of the lord justices of Ireland. Two years later he became lord high treasurer. But then, in 1933, began a long conflict with Thomas Wentworth, the new lord deputy of Ireland, which led to a decline in Boyle’s privileges and in his income. Boyle patiently opposed Wentworth and his harsh rule, and later testified against him when brought to trial by Parliament.

Boyle died in 1643, having been chased off his lands during the Irish Rebellion of 1641. His sons, however, recovered the family estates after the suppression of the rebellion. Further biographical information is available at Wikipedia and The Peerage.

The National Library of Ireland holds a large Boyle family archive, called the Lismore Castle Papers - its catalogue runs to nearly 900 pages! Included are the diaries, letters and other papers of Richard Boyle. Many of these were first transcribed by Alexander Balloch Grosart, a Scottish clergyman and literary editor, over a century ago, and printed in 10 volumes for private circulation in the 1880s. They were titled The Lismore Papers, viz Autobiographical, Notes, Remembrances and Diaries of Sir Richard Boyle, First and ‘Great’ Earl of Cork.

All of the Grosart volumes are freely available at Internet Archive. Here is a sample of Boyle’s diary from early on in the first volume

1 March 1612
‘I agreed with mason John Hamon to fynish my outward gate of my house in yoghall & the chymney in my perler there; the stones being all hewed and made fytt before by my Irish mason; for which I paid him [. . .]’

3 March 1612
‘Captn Robert Tynt was married in my studdy in yoghall by my cozen Richard Boyle dean of Waterforde to my Kinswoman Mrs Elizabeth Boyle als. Seckerston widdow; and I gaue her unto him in marriadge, and I beseech god to bless them wth good agreement and many vertuous children.’

10 March 1612
‘I rodd to the assizes at waterforde.’

16 March 1612
‘The assizes began at yoghall.’

25 March 1612
‘I am to receave of Katulen ffitz gerrald of my tyeth money in Kerry [. . .] she hath not paid me.’

29 March 1612
‘I had a mortgage from Edward Walches great orchard over against my garden, and paid him other [. . .] for the release of his Interest in that garden, and in the North Abbey of yoghall; whereof I was in possession, at the perfecting his said assurance to me.’

A longer, and more accessible, entry from Boyle’s diary is available on the Library Ireland website in an article on Lismore Castle taken from the Dublin Penny Journal in 1833. This entry is dated just two months before Boyle’s death.

10 July 1643
‘This day the rebel Lieutenant, General Purcell, commanding again in chief, in revenge of his former defeat received at Cappoquin, reinforced his army to 7,000 foot, and 900 horse, with three pieces of ordnance, and drew again near to Cappoquin, and there continued four days, wasting and spoiling the country round about, but attempted nothing of any consequence. And when the 22d at night, that the Lord Viscount Muskrie came to the Irish army with some addition of new forces, they removed from Cappoquin in the night before my castle of Lismore, and on Saturday morning the 23d July, 1643, they began their battery from the church to the east of Lismore-house, and made a breach into my own house, which Captain Broadripp and my warders, being about 150, repaired stronger with earth than it was before, and shot there till the Thursday the 27th, and never durst attempt to enter the breach, my ordnance and musket shot from my castle did so apply them. Then they removed their battery to the south-west of my castle, and continued beating against my orchard wall, but never adventured into my orchard, my shot from my turrets did so continually beat and clear the curteyn of the wall. The 28th of July God sent my two sons, Dungarvan and Broghill, to land at Youghal, out of England, and the 29th they rode to the Lord of Inchiquins, who with the army were drawn to Tallagh, and staid there in expectation of Colonel Peyn, with his regiment from Tymolay, who failed to join, but Inchiquin, Dungarvan and Broghill, and Sir John Powlett, the Saturday in the evening (upon some other directions brought over by Dungarvan from his Majesty,) he made a treaty that evening with Muskrie and others, and the Saturday the 30th, they agreed upon a cessation for six days. Monday night, when they could not enter my house, they removed their siege and withdrew the ordnance and army - two or three barrels of powder - two or three pieces of ordnance of twenty-three pounds, and killed but one of my side, God be praised.’

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Earthquakes in Florence

Exactly half a millennium ago today, Florence suffered two earthquakes in the morning, and another in the afternoon; two more came the next day. Indeed, 1510 was a bad year for the town, with thunderbolts, fever, fires and murders. We know all this thanks to Luca Landucci, a chemist but, more importantly, a diarist - one of Europe’s earliest. Not much is known, though, about Landucci personally, other than that he lived in Florence, was trained as a bookkeeper and ran a small chemist’s shop. His diary, which begins in 1450, focuses on the cycle of daily events, which seem to have been much affected not only by plague but by raids and sieges on Florence.
Landucci’s diary entries cease on his death in 1516, but the published version of the diary also contains additional diary entries to 1542 made by an anonymous writer. It was translated into English in 1927 by Alice de Rosen and published by J M Dent as A Florentine Diary from 1450-1516. Wikipedia has a little more information, and The Diary Junction has a few links to websites with extracts from the diary, including The Society for Medieval Military History. The diary is freely available online in Italian at Internet Archive

Here are a series of entries, not hitherto available online, from the year 1510, including one from 500 years ago today (give or take calendar differences!)
11 June 1510
‘A thunderbolt fell at San Donnino, killing a father and son, and two other children of his were frightened out of their wits and had fallen ill. At this time a girl was found drowned in a well, and it was never discovered who she was, no one seeming to know her; and there seemed no one in all the country round who had lost anyone.’
19 June 1510
‘The festaiuoli of San Giovanni (directors of the festivities) published a proclamation that no shops were to be opened from the 20th June till San Giovanni was over, without their permission, on pain of a fine of 25 lire; and those who received permission had to pay, some two grossi and some three or four. This was very hard upon the poor, because the proclamation said that it was not meant for the wool mercers, nor the silk mercers, nor the bankers; therefore it was considered an injustice and a mean and infamous thing to force the artisans to be idle.
At this time there was an epidemic of influenza, with a cough and fever, in Florence and all through Italy. Almost everyone suffered from it; the fever lasted four or five days, and was called in Florence the male del tiro (shooting complaint). The reason of this was that amongst all sorts of celebrations on the day of San Giovanni, the first consisted in jousting in the Piazza, that is to say, a number of men-at-arms, fully armed with lances as if they were on a field of battle, were made to perform feats of arms; then a man walked on a tight-rope; and lastly they hunted a bull. It was extremely hot that day, and then it poured with rain, which soaked everyone who was out of doors. A great number of raised seats had been made, and the whole of Florence was there, and many foreigner besides; and people having got wet when they were so heated is supposed to have caused the influenza.’
7 August 1510 There were two earthquakes at 6 in the morning, and at 7 came a third; and the next night there were two more at the same hour of the night. We heard that in the country round Bologna there had been such a severe storm of wind that it destroyed many houses. Think of the consequences to the fruit! At this time the foundations and pavement of the Ponte a Rubiconte were renewed.’
24 September 1510
‘The Pope reached Bologna.’ 26 September 1510 ‘Two cardinals came to Florence - no, three cardinals - who were going to Bologna to the Pope. They lodged at Santa Croce.’ 30 September 1510 ‘Two more cardinals came, on their way to Bologna. They lodged at the Servi.’ 
17 October 1510
‘They left here, and went in the direction of Pisa and Lucca, to cross into France and not to go to the Pope, being French and somewhat in fear of the Pope, besides not wishing to insult the king. During these days it was said that the King of France was coming to Bologna with two armies, to besiege the Pope, so that the Pope was supposed to have misgivings. It was also said that he thought of living in Florence. And then the King of France came, and advanced as far as Bologna, escorted by the sons of Messer Giovanni, who believed that the people would rise at their instigation; but there was not a movement, so that if the Pope had wished, he might have defeated the king when he first began to retire, before he withdrew to a considerable distance. Thus the Holy Father had no longer any misgivings, and expected to have Ferrara without delay.’
2 November 1510
‘The following accident occurred at the Ponte Rubiconte: They were rebuilding the wall between the Porticciuola and the bridge, and as there was plenty of water, about 12 braccia, the gravel and lime were brought by river in certain little boats. On these boats they had made a platform, and whilst some 25 men were carrying the gravel on to the little platform by the side of the wall, and were approaching it, the said boats filled with water, from the great weight, and drew down the platform and the men, so that three or four men were drowned. They afterwards used a large vessel with a platform. I saw some of the men drawn out of the water.’ 
4 December 1510
‘The apothecary’s shop at Canto de’ Tornaquinci, kept by the sons of Gampiero, apothecary at San Felice, was burnt down; the site belonged to Cardinal Rucellai. It was completely destroyed, nothing being left except a few copper utensils, which were found under the ashes quite spoilt; the walls were razed to the ground.’ 
22 December 1510
‘A plot was discovered against the Gonfaloniere, a certain man called Prinzivalle having intended to murder him. He was the son of Luigi della Stuffa, of Bologna, and it was said that he had proposed three ways of killing Soderini; first, to murder him in the Council-chamber; secondly, in his own room; and, thirdly, when he went out. A woman discovered this, and it was imparted to Filippo Strozzi, who as soon as he heard of it, went immediately to warn the Signoria; and they sent for Luigi della Stufa, the man’s father, and detained him in the Palagio.’

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Ricci the sinologist

Matteo Ricci, a pioneering Italian sinologist, died four hundred years ago today. He was one of the first Jesuit missionaries to be allowed into China, and never returned to Europe. He wrote several important books in Chinese and composed a now famous map of the world. However, his most important legacy, at least in the West, may be the manuscript he wrote in Italian, which was translated soon after into Latin, but not into English until more than 300 years later: China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci.

Matteo (or Matthew in English) Ricci was born in 1552 of a noble family in Macerata, then part of the Papal States but today a city in central Italy, 130 km east of Perugia. Aged 16, he went to Rome to study law but soon decided on joining the Jesuits. The Jesuits had only been given Papal legitimacy some 30 years earlier, but were already making a name for themselves in scientific research and with voyages to the New World.

In 1577, Ricci set out for Lisbon where he continued his studies while waiting for a ship to the East. He arrived in Goa in 1578, and stayed on the west coast of India for several years (he was ordained in Cochin in 1580) before being ordered to China in 1582. Once in the Portuguese province of Macau, Ricci started learning the Chinese language and Chinese customs - the Jesuits having recently decided on a strategy of adopting local customs.

In 1583, Ricci and Michele Ruggieri, another Jesuit priest now considered to be the first European sinologist, were given permission to settle in Zhaoqing, then the capital of Kwangtun province. Within the next few years, Ruggieri is credited with publishing the first Catholic catechism in Chinese, and Ricci is credited with producing the first edition of his Map of the Myriad Countries of the World, sometimes now called The Black Tulip of Cartography, because of its rarity, importance and exoticism. Together, Ricci and Ruggieri are also credited with compiling a Portuguese-Chinese dictionary, for which they developed a consistent system of transcribing Chinese words in the Latin alphabet.

Ruggieri returned to Italy in 1588, leaving Ricci in charge of the Jesuit mission in China. He was expelled from Zhaoqing in 1589, but relocated in Shaoguan. Further travels took him to Nanchang (1595-1598), where he became a friend of two princes of royal blood and wrote his first book in Chinese (On Friendship), and to Nanking (1599-1601) where he was engaged mostly in the study of astronomy and mathematics. In 1601, he won permission to settle in Beijing, where he remained until his death on 11 May 1610 - exactly 400 years ago today - teaching science, preaching the gospel, and writing several more books in Chinese. For further biographical information see Wikipedia, the Catholic Encyclopaedia, or Prof Joseph MacDonnell’s website at Fairfield University.

However, Ricci’s most important and enduring book, written in Italian, was based on his journals and entitled De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu (About Christian expeditions to China undertaken by the Society of Jesus). It was expanded and translated into Latin by Nicolas Trigault, and first published in 1615. A well-referenced Wikipedia article provides good details of the book’s history. It explains that excerpts first appeared in English in Purchas his Pilgrimes in 1625, but a complete English translation of the Latin text (by the Jesuit Louis J Gallagher) was not published until 1942. It was reprinted by Random House ten years later as China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci.

At the time, Kenneth Roxroth, writing in The New Republic, said: ‘It is not often that a classic, previously unknown to the world at large, appears on the book market. The only other example I can think of nowadays is the publication of the Boswell manuscripts. Matteo Ricci was of course a much greater man and occupied a much more important place in history, and was at least as interesting a writer. I am inclined to agree with the publishers that this is one of the most important books they have ever issued.’ (This review can be found online at the Bureau of Public Secrets.)

A little more from that review: ‘The best sinologists were the early Jesuits, and their Latin translations of the Chinese classics are still at least the equal of anything produced in the succeeding 300 years. They completely merged themselves with the Chinese; in fact they became Chinese literati, with considerable personal influence on the Emperor. They introduced Western science and philosophy to the Orient and Chinese culture to the Occident with such success that the eighteenth century was the century of chinoiserie. Even the Chinese Communists still respect Ricci as the greatest and least predatory of the culture-bearers from the West.’

Here are two extracts from the book (although not in diary form) as found in a pdf available on the Columbia Centre for Teaching and Learning website

‘The Chinese can distinguish between their magistrates by the parasols they use as protection against the sun when they go out in public. Some of these are blue and others yellow. Sometimes for effect they will have two or three of these sunshades, but only one if their rank does not permit of more. They may also be recognized by their mode of transportation in public. The lower ranks ride on horseback, the higher are carried about on the shoulders of their servants in gestatorial chairs. The number of carriers also has significance of rank; some are only allowed four, others may have eight. There are other ways also of distinguishing the magistracy and the rank of dignity therein; by banners and pennants, chains and censer cups, and by the number of guards who give orders to make way for the passage of the dignitary. The escort itself is held in such high esteem by the public that no one would question their orders. Even in crowded city everyone gives way at the sound of their voices with a spontaneity that correspond to the rank of the approaching celebrity. . .’

‘Another remarkable fact and quite worthy of note as marking a difference from the West, is that the entire kingdom is administered by the Order of the Learned, commonly known as The Philosophers. The responsibility for the orderly management of the entire realm is wholly and completely committed to their charge and care. The army, both officers and soldiers, hold them in high respect and show them the promptest obedience and deference, and not infrequently the military are disciplined by them as a schoolboy might be punished by his master. Policies of war are formulated and military; questions are decided by the Philosophers only, and their advice and counsel has more weight with the King than that of the military leaders. In fact very few of these and only on rare occasions, are admitted to war consultations. Hence it follows that those who aspire to be cultured frown upon war and would prefer the lowest rank in the philosophical order to the highest in the military, realizing that the Philosophers far excel military leaders in the good will and the respect of the people and in opportunities of acquiring wealth.’

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Japan, a millennium ago

‘The Minister of the Right praised the six-stringed koto. He became too merry, and made a great mistake, which sent a chill even to the onlookers.’ These are almost the final words of one of the oldest diaries in the world, and, astonishingly, were written almost exactly 1,000 years ago. Much of the diary written by Murasaki Shikibu’s, a lady-in-waiting in the Japanese court, is taken up with the birth of a prince, but there is plenty of gossiping, caustic at times, about such timeless subjects as fashion and manners.

Few details of Shikibu’s life are known, even her birth and death dates are uncertain, though are given as circa 973 and circa 1020. Shikibu’s father was the governor of a province and a well known scholar. He let his daughter learn Chinese classics, although girls were not usually allowed this privilege at the time. She married and had a daughter, and around 1006, some years after her husband had died, she entered the court of Emperor Ichijô as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi.

For two years, while at court, she wrote a diary - one of the historically oldest we know about today (see The Diary Junction for others). She is better remembered, however, for her novel, The Tale of Genji, which is considered one of the first ever written (and longest at 630,000 words). Some argue that Shikibu is the world’s first modern novelist. For a little more information on Shikibu (there isn’t much) see The Women in World History website, The Samurai Archives, Götterdämmerung.com, or Wikipedia.

A first translation of Shikibu’s diary appeared in Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, translated by Annie Shepley Omori and Kochi Doi, and published by Houghton Mifflin in New York (1920) and Constable in London (1921). Penguin published The Diary of Lady Murasaki in 1996, and reissued it in 2005 (a few pages are viewable on Amazon). Branislav L Slantchev, a professor at the University of California in San Diego, has a review of Shikibu’s diary on the Götterdämmerung.com website. He says the first part of the diary - which covers the birth of a prince - is ‘rather dull, concerning itself with visual depiction of room interiors, rituals, and positioning of the various (multitude) participants and observers’; but the second part is ‘engaging’ for it has ‘astute, and quite caustic, remarks about the Empress, her immediate circle . . , and courtiers in general’.

The full text of Shikibu’s diary, as it appeared in Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan, is available online thanks to Mary Mark Ockerbloom’s website, A Celebration of Women Writers. Here are the very last pages of the diary, dated 1010 - one whole millennium ago - in which Shikibu is much concerned about the fashion sense and manners of those around her.

1010
‘Third day of first month
The August Princes have presented themselves before the King for three days to receive gifts of mochi [rice cake]. Ladies of high rank accompanied them. Saémon-no-Kami held the Prince, and the mochi was brought to His Majesty by the Lord Prime Minister. The King, facing towards the east door, gave it to the August Princes. It was a beautiful sight to see the young Princes coming and returning through the corridor. The Queen Dowager did not present herself. On the first day Lady Saisho served at table; her colour combination was cunningly executed. Ladies Takumi and Hyogo officiated as the Queen’s secretaries. The ladies who tied their hair were particularly attractive. The lady who was entrusted with the preparation of toso [New Year drink of spiced saké] was very vain of her skill and behaved as if she were a doctor of medicine. Ointment was distributed as usual.

The Prime Minister took the younger Prince in his arms and the King embraced him lovingly, saying, ‘Long life and health’ as usual. The Lord Prime Minister replied, ‘I will uphold the younger Prince in my arms’; but at that His Augustness the Crown Prince became jealous and begged [to be taken up too], saying, ‘Ah! Ah!’ The Prime Minister was much pleased, and the General of the Right Bodyguard and others were amused by it.

The Lord Prime Minister had an audience with the King and they came out together to find amusement. The Minister was much intoxicated. ‘Troublesome!’ I thought, and hid myself away, but I was found. ‘You are summoned by the father of the Queen, yet you retire so early! Suspicious person!’ said he. ‘Now, instead of the Queen’s father it is you who must compose a poem! It is quite an ordinary occasion, so don’t hesitate!’ He urged, but it seemed to me very awkward to make one only to have it laughed at. As he was very much in liquor, his face was flushed and flamed out in the torchlight. He said, ‘The Queen had lived for years alone and solitary. I had seen it with anxiety. It is cheering to behold troublesome children on either side of her.’ And he went to look at the Princes, who had been put to bed, taking off the bedclothes. He was singing:

‘If there be no little pines in the field
How shall I find the symbol of 1,000 ages?’

People thought it more suitable that he should sing this old song than make a new one. The next evening the sky was hazy; as the different parts of the palace are built compactly in close rows I could only catch a slight glimpse of it from the veranda. I admired his recitation of last evening with the nurse Madam Nakadaka. This lady is of deep thought and learning.

I went home for a while. For the fifty days’ ceremony of the second Prince, which was the fifteenth day of the Sociable Month, I returned in the early morning to the palace. Lady Koshosho returned in embarrassing broad daylight. We two live together; our rooms adjoin and we throw them together, each occupying the whole when the other is absent. When we are there together we put kicho [thin curtains of opaque silk] between them. The Lord Prime Minister says we must be gossiping about other people. Some may be uneasy to hear that, but as there are no unfriendly strangers here we are not anxious about it.

I went to the Queen’s audience. My friend wore brocaded uchigi [a kind of robe] of old rose and white, a red karaginu and figured train. My dress was of red and purple and light green. My karaginu [a kind of jacket] was green and white. The rubbed design on the train was in the very latest fashion, and it would perhaps have been better if a younger lady had worn it. There were seventeen ladies of His Majesty the King’s court who presented themselves before the Queen. Lady Tachibana of the third rank served the royal table. Ladies Kodayu and Shikibu on the balcony. The serving of the young August Prince’s dinner was entrusted to Lady Koshosho. Their Majesties sat within the dais. The morning sun shone in and I felt too much brilliancy in their presence. The King wore a robe with narrow sleeves. The Queen was dressed in red as usual. Her inner kimonos were purple and red with pale and dark green and two shades of yellow. His Majesty’s outer dress was grape-coloured brocade, and his inner garment white and green - all rare and modern both in design and colour.

It seemed to be too dazzling in their presence, so I softly slid away into an inner room. The nurse, Madam Nakadaka, holding the young Prince in her arms, came out towards the south between the canopied King and Queen. She is short in stature, but of dignified demeanour. She was perfectly tranquil and grave and a good example for the young Prince. She wore grape-coloured uchigi and patternless karaginu of white and old rose. That day all did their utmost to adorn themselves. One had a little fault in the colour combination at the wrist opening. When she went before the Royal presence to fetch something, the nobles and high officials noticed it. Afterwards, Lady Saisho regretted it deeply. It was not so bad; only one colour was a little too pale. Lady Kotaiyu wore a crimson unlined dress and over it an uchigi of deep and pale plum colour bordered with folds. Her karaginu was white and old rose. Lady Gen Shikibu appears to have been wearing a red and purple figured silk. Some said it was unsuitable because it was not brocade. That judgment is too conventional. There may be criticism where want of taste is too apparent, but it were better to criticise manners. Dress is rather unimportant in comparison.

The ceremony of giving mochi to the Prince is ended and the table is taken away. The misu of the anteroom was rolled up, and we saw ladies sitting crowded at the west side of the dais. There were Lady Tachibana of the third rank, and Naishi Nosuké, the younger attendant of the August Princes sitting in the doorway. In the east anteroom near the shioji [paper doors] there were ladies of high rank. I went to seek Lady Dainagon and Lady Koshosho, who were sitting east of the dais. His August Majesty sat on the dais with his dining-table before him. The ornaments of it were exquisitely beautiful. On the south balcony there sat the Minister of the Right and Left and the Chamberlain, the first officials of the Crown Prince and of the Queen and the Great Adviser Shijo, facing towards the North, the West being the more honourable seat. There were no officials of low rank. Afterwards they begun to amuse themselves. Courtiers sat on the southeast corridor of the side building. The four lower officials took their usual places to perform some music. They were Kagemasa, Korekazé, Yukiyoshi, Tonomasa. Prom the upper seat the Great Adviser Shijo conducted the music. To no Ben played the lute, Tsunetaka played the harp. The Lieutenant-General of the Left Bodyguard and State Councillor played the flute. Some outsiders joined in the music. One made a mistake in the notes and was hissed. The Minister of the Right praised the six-stringed koto. He became too merry, and made a great mistake, which sent a chill even to the onlookers.

The Prime Minister’s gift was flutes put into two boxes.’

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Right and wrong in poetry

Hanazono, the 95th emperor of Japan, began his reign 700 years ago today (according to Wikipedia’s 28 December listing). However, after only 10 years he abdicated, and focused his attention on religious and literary matters. He also wrote a diary. Although there is very little information about him or his diary in English, there are a couple of extracts from the diary online, and these demonstrate a keen interest in music and poetry.

According to Wikipedia, Tomihito-shinnō was born on 14 August 1297, and died on 2 December 1348. He was the fourth son of the 92nd Emperor Fushimi, and belonged to the Jimyōin-tō branch of the Imperial Family. He became Emperor Hanazono on 28 December 1308 after the abdication of his second cousin, the Emperor Go-Nijō. (Of course, such dates from so long ago can only be tied down to the Gregorian calendar with much approximation.)

During Hanazono’s reign, both his brother and father, the retired-Emperor Fushimi, are said to have exerted influence as cloistered emperors. And the reign was marked by negotiations with another family line that claimed the throne and the Bakufu (military). An agreement to alternate the throne every 10 years between the two lines (the so-called Bumpō Agreement) was broken by Emperor Go-Daigo, Hanzono’s second cousin, who took over when Hanazono abdicated in 1318.

In 1335, Hanazono became a Buddhist monk of the Zen sect. He was considered very religious, never failing to miss prayers to the Amitabha Buddha. He was also literate, and is said to have excelled at tanka, a kind of poetry. He left behind a diary, Wikipedia says, called Hanazono Tennō Shinki (Imperial Chronicles of the Flower Garden Temple). There is very little information about this diary online and in English, but a couple of books, viewable on Googlebooks, use short extracts.

Sacred Gardens and Landscapes: Ritual and Agency by Michel Conan says this: ‘Emperor Hanazono describes in his diary an imperial progress in the fourth month of 1320; on this occasion, when the imperial party boarded two boats and played music in them under the moonlight, as the parties rowed around the lake, he observes that ‘the sounds of the wind and string instruments and the water’s voice from the waterfall filled our ears’. ’

Another quote from Hanazono Tennō Shinki can be found in Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku as a Combinatory Paradigm, edited by Mark Teeuwen and Fabio Rambelli. However, it comes (slightly modified) from another book Kyogoku Tamekane: Poetry and Politics in Late Kamakura Japan by Robert N Huey.

‘Ordinary people do not understand these religious truths. Tameyo, who claims the main descent from Shunzei and Teika, has no idea of such things. They just made no impression on him. He jealously holds to the six modes of poetry and cannot see the true meaning of the art. Yet most of the world follows him, and the true Way of Poetry is gradually being abandoned . . . In recent years I have met with the holy man of Sōko and learned the tenets of religion. I have also met with Shinsō Hōnin and heard doctrines of Tendai. I have perused the Five Classics and have come to understand the doctrine of Confucianism. With this knowledge I have thought anew about the Way of Poetry. Truly the distinction between right and wrong in poetry is like that between heaven and earth.’

Monday, November 17, 2008

Elizabeth becomes queen

Four and a half centuries ago, on 17 November 1558, Mary Tudor died, and her half-sister Queen Elizabeth I ascended the throne of England. A century before Pepys, Henry Machyn, a supplier of funeral trappings, was keeping a diary; and the text of this diary includes a fascinating entry for that particular day, 450 years ago.

Not much is known about Machyn other than that he was a supplier of furnishings to undertakers in London. His diary, held by the British Library, is primarily concerned with public events, including state visits and executions, which makes it invaluable to historians. It covers the period of the Reformation under Henry VIII and Edward VI, and the return to Catholicism under Mary. It was badly burned in a fire, and, according to modern linguists, the extant published versions are full of inaccuracies because of the idiosyncrasies of Machyn’s language. The Diary Junction provides links to various online texts.

The following entry, about the death of Mary and the succession of Elizabeth, is taken from The Diary of Henry Machyn - Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London (1550-1563) edited by John Gough Nichols. It was published by the Camden Society in 1848, and is fully accessible on British History Online. (Two notes for reading the text below: pelere - pillory; mad mere - made merry.)

‘The xij day of November was Saterday ther was a woman sett on the pelere for sayhyng that the quen was ded, and her grace was not ded then.

The xvij day of November be-twyn v and vj in the mornyng ded quen Mare, the vj yere of here grace(’s) rayne, the wyche Jhesu have mercy on her solle! Amen.

[The same] day, be-twyne a xj and xij a’ for[noon, the lady Eliza]beth was proclamyd quen Elsabeth, quen of England, France and Yrland, and deffender of the feyth, by dyvers haroldes of armes and trumpeters, and dukes, lordcs [and knights,] the wyche was ther present, the duke of Norfoke, [the] lord tresorer, the yerle of Shrousbere, and the yerele of Bedford, and the lord mayre and the althermen, and dyver odur lordes and knyghtes.

The sam day, at after-non, all the chyrches in London dyd ryng, and at nyght dyd make bonefyres and set tabulls in the strett, and ded ett and drynke and mad mere for the newe quen Elsabeth, quen Mare(’s) syster.’

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Tales of executioners

The diaries of Britain’s last hangman - Harry Allen - are up for auction. Gruesome they maybe, but they also provide a fascinating if somewhat clinical insight into the mind of a person with one of the strangest of all professions. Around 400 years ago, another hangman - Franz Schmidt - was hard at work in Germany, executing more than 10 times as many criminals as Allen, and he too kept a diary.

The Knutsford Guardian revealed on 19 October that Harry Allen’s diary is to be auctioned by local auctioneers, Marshall’s, on 11 November, on behalf of Allen’s widow, Doris. The lot will also include tools of Allen’s trade, such as two black bow ties and a 25ft tape measure. The national press soon picked up the story. The Daily Mail, for example, ran a story on 20 October with the headline ‘Revealed: The macabre diaries of death penned by Britain’s last hangman’.

By the time Allen, born in Yorkshire in 1911, reached 30 years of age he was already working at Manchester prison as assistant executioner. Following the resignation of Albert Pierrepoint (the subject of a recent film) and the death of Steve Wade (both in 1956), Allen and another hangman, Robert Leslie Stewart, jointly became the country’s Chief Executioners. Allen performed the last execution in Northern Ireland in December 1961, and the last in Scotland in August 1963. He also performed one of the two final executions in Britain, in August 1964, when Gwynne Owen Evans was hanged in Manchester (at the same time as Stewart hanged Evans’ accomplice Peter Anthony Allen in Liverpool).

According to Wikipedia’s article on the man, Allen’s most controversial case was that of James Hanratty, hanged in 1962 for the A6 murder case. Efforts to clear Hanratty’s name continued until 2001 when DNA testing finally confirmed Hanratty’s presence at the crime scene. Allen himself died in 1992. True Crime Library has just published a first biography - Harry Allen: Britain’s Last Hangman - penned by Stewart McLaughlin who works for the prison service and had access to prison files.

The Knutsford Guardian gives a good flavour of the diary: ‘In his journal he recorded details of each prisoner’s age, weight, height and worked out how long the rope needed to be to ensure a swift death. In his earlier entries he had also recorded how he felt. Mr Allen was 29 when he witnessed his first execution on 26 November 1940 at Bedford Prison. William Cooper, 24, had been convicted at Cambridge of murdering John Harrison, an elderly farmer. The execution was, according to Mr Allen, a ‘very good and clean job’ despite Cooper’s ‘loss of courage’. ‘The culprit had to be carried to the scaffold owing to faintness,’ Mr Allen wrote in his diary.’

The Daily Mail gives more details from the diary, about how Allen was involved in the execution of five Nazi prisoners of war for murdering a fellow German soldier who had grassed on their escape plan. Of their crime Allen wrote: ‘It was a foul murder. They staged a mock trial, kicking the victim to death and dragging him by the neck to the toilet where they hung his lifeless body on a waste pipe. These five prisoners are the most callous men I have ever met so far but I blame the Nazi doctrine for that. It must be a terrible creed.’

Another hangman, Franz Schmidt, was writing about his executions in the late 1500s and early 1600s. His diaries were last put into print 80 years ago, under the title A Hangman’s Diary: Being the Authentic Journal of Master Franz Schmidt. Although Abebooks has copies for sale, I can’t find any information about the book on the internet, other than that in Wikipedia’s article.

Schmidt was executioner in Germany, in Bamberg from 1573 to 1578, and in Nuremberg from 1578 to 1617. His diary contains details of 361 executions and 345 minor punishments (floggings, ears or fingers cut off), noting for each the date, place, and method of execution, as well as the name, origin, and station in life of the condemned. In later years, the diary becomes more verbose and gives details of each criminal’s crimes.

His executions, again according to Wikipedia, were carried out by rope, sword, breaking wheel, burning, and drowning. However, the wheel was reserved for severely violent criminals, and burnings - of which there were only two - for homosexual intercourse and counterfeiting money. Drowning was prescribed for a woman committing infanticide but was regularly commuted to execution by sword, partly upon the intervention of Schmidt himself. Schmidt’s journal is considered unique as a source of social and legal history. A first printed edition appeared in 1801.