The Flemings Around Magellan and the First Circumnavigation of the World - Part 2: Finance, Flanders and the Spice Trade

The Spice Islands as depicted by Magellan in his 1518 argument that they actually lay within Spain's global sphere of influence - versus Portugal's claim to them. Portuguese dominion is on the left, Spain is on the right.

In Part 1 we briefly saw that the sovereign Magellan sailed for, although correctly titled ‘King of Spain’ and (from July, 1519 on) as ‘Holy Roman Emperor’, was in fact a Fleming, born and raised. Charles V’s administration was of course dependent on financing in order to function – as all governments are and were. Expeditions like Magellan’s required real capital to fund them and that capital had to be sourced, either borrowed from merchant bankers or allocated from some existing revenue source.

As with most investment decisions taken today, a request for financing from the king meant that there had to be a reason for the funding. In this post we look at both the perceived purpose of this voyage (discovering a new route to the spice markets and plantations of Southeast Asia) and the financial backing of this venture to see yet another aspect of Flemish contributions to Ferdinand Magellan’s success.

A famous Italian author of the time, Ludovico Guicciardini, captured the essence of this connection between the Flemish, the Portuguese, the spice trade and finance in 1560:


Vasco da Gama's route across the bottom tip of the African continent to reach the spice emporiums of Calicut in India is of nearly equal importance as Columbus' westward voyages.

[One] of the notable advantages which ha[s] made the city of Antwerp so great, rich, and famous, began about the year 1503-1504, when the Portuguese, by marvelous and amazing navigation, and with warlike equipment, having, just before, occupied Calicut, made a treaty with the king of that region. They began to transport spices and drugs from India to Portugal and then to carry them from Portugal to the fairs in this city [Antwerp].

These spices and drugs were formerly brought by way of the Red Sea to Beirut and Alexandria, and from these places carried by the Venetians to Venice to supply Italy, France, Germany, and other Christian provinces. But once this commerce had been intercepted by the Portuguese, and they had sent an agent to Antwerp in the name of their king, little by little this trade attracted the Germans.

First the Fuggers, the Welsers, and Hochstaetters became interested, and perhaps before all of these Nicholas Rechtergem, already mentioned, who was the first to make an agreement at Antwerp with the agent of the king of Portugal concerning spices, and the first to send them from here [Antwerp] to Germany, where, not yet knowing anything about the new voyage of the Portuguese, the Germans were so astounded that they doubted the quality of said spices, and suspected that they were adulterated. This was because the Germans had been accustomed to furnish the people of these lands with the same drugs which came overland from Venice. At this time there were several honorable families of Spaniards in this city, such as those of Diego d’Aro [de Haro]…

Thus about the year 1516 all the foreign merchants who had been living at Bruges, one after the other…came to this place [Antwerp], with no less damage to Bruges than great profit and advantage to Antwerp.[i]

Spices to Europe were a Venetian monopoly until Vasco da Gama's return from India around Africa in 1499. Once in Venice, spices were shipped to Bruges, for further wholesaling and distribution into northern Europe.

The Spice Trade
It is important here to recall that it was only twenty years before Magellan’s departure – in 1499 – that Vasco da Gama had broken the Venetian-Arab monopoly on spices.[ii] By sailing to India by way of rounding the Cape of Good Hope, da Gama broke the Venetian-Arab monopoly on the distribution of Asian spices to Europe. Instead of hundred-pound sacks sent on a sea journey from the emporiums of India and then large camel caravans traveling at 2 miles an hour across the Arabian deserts to Mediterranean ports and a final dash avoiding pirates before reaching Venice[iii], bulk cargoes in the hundreds of tons could be tran-shipped across the Indian Ocean and, after rounding Africa’s southern tip, sail up around the western coast of Africa before docking in Lisbon.

Modern historians often view this event coming as it did at a chronologically convenient point (the year 1500) but also signaling the beginnings of European predominance globally.[iv]
Even though da Gama’s trip had taken three years to complete, and he had lost all but one ship (and the European goods that they had brought to trade sold in India at roughly 10% of their cost), the profits on the spice cargo made huge profits for investors – 60 times the cost of the expedition or over 4,700% return on investment.[v] The pepper that Da Gama purchased in Calicut, India for 3 ducats per hundredweight (which was already marked up by the Chinese, Malay, and Indian traders at each leg of the journey before it came to market in Malacca), was sold in Portugal for 80 ducats per hundredweight.[vi] In the context of broader trade numbers, at least 1,000 tons of pepper were imported annually into Europe.[vii] Moreover, it was not so much used as a casual confection, but more critically as a preservative for Autumn-slaughtered livestock, especially as the meat spoiled and rotted into the Spring.[viii] So the potential for great riches from a new channel of access to not only pepper but cloves, mace, nutmeg, and the rest[ix] was truly unimaginable.

Meet The Fuggers
Trade and finance have always had a symbiotic relationship. In early modern Europe, no less, trade was not only the engine of economic growth but also the primary source of taxes for the royal treasury. Since the royal treasury of young Charles V was seemingly always in need of extra cash, merchants who could extend loans to the sovereign, found trading privileges easier to come by.[x]

The most successful merchants of the Rennaissance were also bankers. At the pinnacle of early modern merchant bankers was the House of Fugger.[xi] The man who ran the Fuggers merchant banking house in the early 1500s was the third generation of that family to do so, Jakob Fugger.

Jakob Fugger as painted by Albrecht Durer between 1518 and 1520 - exactly the time when Magellan was preparing for and departing on the first leg of his circumnavigation.

The capital that the Fuggers had available to lend to European rulers was derived from trading profits. One large source of that profit at the Fuggers derived from their control of the European distribution of the pepper trust for Venice.

Sometimes called “Jakob the Rich”, Fugger was a German merchant banker with extensive pan-European ties. Fugger had factors in most major European cities whose location was recognized as “Fugger’s”.[xii] Jacob Fugger himself was stationed for long periods in Brugge, had a key postat Antwerp and frequently traded in merchant caravans with Bergen, Bristol and Lisbon.

An excerpt from the "Trachtenbuch" (Book of Achievements) of Matthias Schwarz. Schwarz joined Fugger's business in 1516 at the age of 19. The picture here shows Jakob Fugger telling Matthias Schwarz what to enter into the books.

For merchants connected to the court at this early stage in his reign – and in 1519, when Ferdinand sailed for the East, Charles V was only 19 – financing was an immensely profitable undertaking. “The Fuggers are said to have averaged profits of more than 50 percent per annum during the early 1520s, but as the demand [from the Hapsburgs especially] for credit rose, their [the Fuggers’] own funds proved inadequate and they began to borrow money at the Antwerp bourse rate of 6-8 percent, to which they, as creditworthy bankers, were entitled.”[xiii]

The Fuggers in today’s parlance, arbitraged the low cost of money based on their networks and reputation and lent it out at very high rates (with assets to back the cost of the loans, no less) to needy rulers. The Hapsburg royal family, of which Charles V of course was a member, had long depended upon the Fuggers for loans. Loans were provided much like pawnshops do so today: with something of value as collateral.[xiv] Often the collateral were gems, valuable paintings, or even land.[xv] If hard, transportable goods were not available as collateral, Charles V resorted to an asiento, or the right to collect certain taxes normally due to the Emperor.[xvi] Regardless of the property against which these loans were made, repayment was required in quarterly installments and “normally to be repaid in Antwerp at one of the quarterly fairs.”[xvii]

Were it not for a spectacular and opportunistic malaguetta pepper windfall on the West African coast by a Portuguese trading ship in 1485[xviii], Lisbon might have remained a backwater. But the arrival of this unexpected source of spices drew in Jakob Fugger. His arrival – and subsequent conferences with the Portuguese King and his advisors included a cartographer with deep ties to Antwerp, a Flemish wife, and a belief in a western route to the Spice islands: Martin Behaim (about whom I will write more in a future post). This visit also established a Fugger post at Lisbon (with monopoly rights to the pepper trade). The man who Jakob Fugger appointed to be his factor at the Lisbon post was Christopher de Haro of Antwerp.[xix]

Part 3 of this series will discuss Christopher De Haro of Antwerp and other Flemish contributions to Magellan's preparation for the world's first circumnavigation. Part 4 will detail the individual Flemings in the expedition.

Albrecht Durer's and Johannes Stabius' depiction of the world circa 1515, just before Magellan's circumnavigation.

Endnotes
[i] Ludovico Guicciardini, “Antwerp, The Great Market” in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.185-201, especially pp. 186-187.
[ii] Ludovico Guicciardini, “Antwerp, The Great Market” in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.185-201, especially p. 196.
[iii] “Venice at this time was not only Europe’s chief market place, but also its greatest shipbuilding center, its foremost transport agent, and one of the leading manufacturing communities, rivaling Ghent.” Charles McKew Parr, Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator: His Life and Explorations, 2nd ed., (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1964), p. 160.
[iv] For a recap of the historiography around this seminal turning point in history, see Peter Rietbergen, “Westerse geschiedschrijving en niet-wsterse geschiednis, onmogelijkheid of noodzaak, of wel: Europa in de ‘Vasco da Gama-era’” in Tijdschrift voor Geschiednis, 111e jaargang, aflevering 4, 1998, pp.533-544.
[v] Charles Corn, The Scents of Eden: A History of the Spice Trade, (New York: Kodansha, 1999), p.xxiv
[vi] Richard Humble, The Explorers, (New York: Time-Life, 1978), p.104. I have searched vainly for a more authoritative source and would welcome any suggestions on where that might be found.
[vii] Peter Spufford, Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe, (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002), pp. 380-381. Spufford says that at the end of the 14th century – 100 years before Magellan – the Venetians imported 500 tons of pepper annually and the Genoese and Catalans a further 200 tons each.
[viii] See the clearest explanation of this in Charles McKew Parr, Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator: His Life and Explorations, 2nd ed., (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1964), p. 157.
[ix] “Spices such as clove[s], cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and numerous drugs such as rhubarb, cassia, agaric, dragon’s blood, mummy, senna-leaf, colocynth, scammony, tutty, mithridate, and treacle.” See Ludovico Guicciardini, “Antwerp, The Great Market” in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.185-201, especially p. 196.
[x] See, for example, the string of translated documents online relating to Charles V’s constant borrowings from King Henry VIII in 1517 here: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=93638 'Spain: 1517', Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 2: 1509-1525 (1866), pp. 286-289. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=93638 Date accessed: 31 October 2009.
[xi] The Fugger family website: http://www.fugger.de/en/1_geschichte.htm
[xii] Albrecht Durer, the famous painter, wrote in 1520, a year after Magellan’s departure: “I have been into Fugger’s house in Antwerp. He has newly built it in very costly fashion, with a noteworthy tower, broad and high, and with a beautiful garden. I also saw his fine horses.” From Durer’s “Travel Diary,” in W.M. Conway, Literary Remains of Albrecht Durer, (Cambridge: University Press, 1889), quoted in “A Painter’s Travels” in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), p. 230.
[xiii] William Maltby, The Reign of Charles V, (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p.72.
[xiv] For a fascinating glimpse into this process see the excerpt of a letter from the Emperor Maximilian I to Paul Von Liechtenstein, dated September, 1511, and the ‘collection letter’ from Jakob Fugger to Charles V in 1523, from J.Stieder, Das reiche Augsburg, (Munich, 1938), in Mary Martin McLaughlin (trans), “The Hapsburgs and the Fuggers”, trans. In James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.175-181
[xv] See the excerpt of a letter from the Emperor Maximilian I to Paul Von Liechtenstein, dated September, 1511, and the ‘collection letter’ from Jakob Fugger to Charles V in 1523, from J.Stieder, Das reiche Augsburg, (Munich, 1938), in Mary Martin McLaughlin (trans), “The Hapsburgs and the Fuggers”, trans. In James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.176-177. Maximillian pawned both the crown jewels (p.176) as well as “the four best chests of treasure, including our robes of investiture” (p.177).
[xvi] William Maltby, The Reign of Charles V, (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p.68.
[xvii] William Maltby, The Reign of Charles V, (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p.68. Interest rates that Charles V was charged on these loans could be as low as 12% per annum and as high as 100% per annum – such as immediately following his defeat at the Battle of Metz in 1552!
[xviii] The captain of the ship for the equivalent of a few hundred dollars in trade goods netted a profit of $4 million. See Charles McKew Parr, Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator: His Life and Explorations, 2nd ed., (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1964), p. 166.
[xix] Charles McKew Parr, Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator: His Life and Explorations, 2nd ed., (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1964), p. 167.

Copyright 2009 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without my express, written permission.

The Flemings Around Magellan and the First Circumnavigation of the World - Part I: Charles V - First World Ruler

Columbus had made his pitch to Ferdinand and Isabella based on the earth being round. Although Martin Behaim’s 1492 globe

[i] suggested that many intelligent men before 1500 believed the earth could be sailed from east to west, it had not been done by Columbus or anyone else recorded to history before Columbus set sail in 1492 to discover a westward passage to “The Indies”. Thirty years after Columbus’ “discovery” of America (almost to the day) the remnants of an expedition sent out under the command of a Portuguese knight sailing for the Flemish Emperor of Spain, Charles V, accomplished that goal. An achievement that even thirty years later, the English secretary to Queen Elizabeth’s right-hand man, Lord Cecil, would call: “A thing surely most wonderful, and in maner incredible”.[ii]

As regular readers of this blog may suspect, there is more to this story – from a Flemish viewpoint – than the superficial treatment by historians of Magellan’s circumnavigation may suggest. In fact, the first recorded circumnavigation of the globe once again underscores yet another set of examples of Flemings who have contributed to the Discovery and Settlement of the Americas. Just as importantly it underscores the inverse dichotomy of the history of the Flemish Diaspora: Flemings were central to the efforts to expand beyond the European peninsula into the wider world but have been credited – at best – on the periphery.

Schoolchildren in the U.S. are taught, in the superficial gloss of ideology that today represents history, that Ferdinand Magellan first circumnavigated the world. Leaving aside the factual inaccuracies (he died thousands of miles short of his goal in the Philipines, and it was actually his Filipino slave Enrique who is the first man recorded to have circumnavigated the globe), the story as rotely related to millions leaves out the critical role that Flemings played. Flemings sanctioned, approved, financed, fought, guided, advised, and ultimately publicized the first recorded European circumnavigation of the globe. Without Flemish participation not only would Magellan’s trip not have occurred, it would not have been possible to undertake.

To understand the contributions Flemings made to this endeavor we not only need to peel back the veneer subsequent generations ignorant of and perhaps even hostile to Flemish sensitivities, but also understand the part that each Fleming played in the unfolding drama. Magellan's opportunity began with the accession of a Flemish world-emperor, the first the world has known. It is right and fitting that this story start with him.

Gent (Ghent) as it appeared to a contemporary Flemish artist at about the time of Charles V's birth

Flemish-born Charles Quint – The First Global Ruler
Long before the British Empire claimed global dominion in the 19th century, Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, made that statement true. The Gentenaar, Charles V, became the first ruler, as an Englishman later wrote, over “a command so wide, that out of his Dominions the Sunne can neither rise nor set.”

[iii]


At his abdication in 1555 he ruled more than 50 million people on six continents, more than 20% of the world’s population[iv]. His armies and navies were the best in the world. His mines produced more gold and silver than any kingdom on earth and the world’s financial center, at Antwerp, was under his control. Although Charles used French with diplomats, Italian with his mistresses, and struggled through Spanish when in Spain, his first language (and the language he spoke to his closest companion, his horse) was Flemish.[v]



The Flemish-born and Mechelen-raised world ruler as he may have appeared to Magellan


Charles V, while the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, had been born at Eeklo, enroute to the Prinszenhof in the city of Gent. Erasmus, who thrived and prospered at this time, “asserted that there was no town in all of Christendom to be compared to it [Gent] for size, power, political constitution, or the culture of its inhabitants.”[vi] Charles grew up in a Flemish household, tutored by the only native Dutch-speaking pope: Adriaan Florisz Boeyens (known as Pope Adrian/Hadrian VI or as Adriaan Dedel).[vii]



The Leuven-educated but linguistically-challenged Adrian in effect raised Charles from the time he was a small child. Charle’s parents, Philip the Handsome and Joanna the Mad, had left for Spain to assert their rights to the throne of Castille when Charles was only five years old.[viii] It was Adrian who was sent to Spain on the death of Charles’ maternal grandfather, Ferdinand, in 1516, as his ambassador and representative. Later Adrian became defacto regent of Spain, Cardinal of Toledo, and finally (1521) elected Pope. For most of his tenure, though, the upright Adrian was simply known by the place he was most closely associated with: the “Dean of Leuven”.[ix]
While French was the language of diplomacy, Dutch was the language of Charles’ environment.[x]


Pope Hadrian VI, aka, Adriaan Dedel, former Dean of Leuven and Charles V's confidant




The courtiers in Charles V’s entourage were overwhelmingly Flemish. When Charles landed in Spain in October, 1517 to claim his inheritance to the Spanish empire, this alienated him from many proud Spanish dons. The frustration of the Spanish aristocracy at Charles’ inaccessibility – rather through the written word or through direct access – manifested itself physically. Senior courtiers literally came to blows over disagreements in appointments.[xi] It did not help that one of the first Flemish-Spanish interactions the teenage Charles devised, in November, 1517, just weeks after his arrival, was a jousting tournament. Charles participated actively – on the Flemish side, breaking three lances in the process.[xii] Nor did it help that the Flemish, rather than leisurely socializing over meals, preferred to conduct business while eating, to the Spaniards’ distaste.[xiii]




Charles V, gout-ridden, in his 50s near the peak of his global empire's successful expansion over the Americas



On Charles’ side, the fisticuffs and the fighting further served to reinforce Charles’ belief in the efficiency and ‘can-do’ attitude of his Flemish companions. While this would moderate over time, Charles came to believe that if he wanted to see something done, it might take non-Spaniards to make things happen. Thus, before the year (1517) was out, Charles granted Cozumel – today a resort for vacationing North Americans – to Adolf of Burgundy, Lord of Wakken.[xiv] In February, 1518, Charles granted Gaurent de Lorevond the additional right to colonize the Yucatan.[xv] Unfortunately, that distrust would later erupt, after Ferdinand Magellan’s departure, in the Great Revolt of Castile; aka, the “Comunero Movement’ of 1520-1521.[xvi]



Charles V's map of Magellan's circumnavigation (faint line), created about 1545.



In short, Charles V, first ruler of a world-empire on 5 continents, was Flemish-born and raised. Educated under a Flemish regime and surrounded by the Flemish elite. Flemings can take a point of pride in this fact. Flemish-Americans can rightly point to Charles and claim affinity. More importantly, as we shall see in a subsequent post, this Flemish emperor was only the first of many Flemings to contribute to Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe.

Subsequent posts on this thread will discuss the Flemish financing of Magellan, the Flemish sailors in the fleet, the Flemish tools Magellan used to circumnavigate, the Flemish involvement in publicizing Magellan's circumnavigation, and the legacies of Flemish involvement in this circumnavigation.

Endnotes
[i] Material for a future posting is captured in this phrase. Behaim was educated and worked in Antwerp and then married the daughter of a Flemish manorial lord who controlled a fief in the “Flemish Islands” – as the Azores were then known. Behaim’s Flemish father-in-law received permission from the Portuguese king and may have indeed embarked upon voyages of discovery to America in 1486 – 6 years before Columbus. Behaim’s globe references those voyages and credits his father-in-law for the knowledge captured in his 1492 globe. Some historians (Ravensteen and Morrison, among others) believe that Columbus and Behaim knew each other. It is certainly possible. Columbus’ two biographers – his son Ferdinand and the noted Spanish prelate Las Casas, who knew Columbus and Magellan too – both repeat the story that Columbus first learned of the New World from a sailor in the Azores. E.G. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe (London, 1908), pp. 47-50, discusses the intermarriage of Flemish and Portuguese in the Azores. The details about the Flemish expeditions from the Azores to North America can be found in Charles Verlinden, “Aspecten van de Diaspora van Vlaamse Zee- en Handelslui in de 15de eeuw (Azoren, Madeira)” in Vlamingen Overzee, C. Koninckx, ed., (Brussels: Wetenschappelijk Comite voor Maritieme Geschiednis, 1995), pp.7-25. Incidentally, in later years, Columbus came to believe that the world was pear-shaped. See Bjorn Landstrom, Columbus: The Story of Don Cristobal Colon, Admiral of the Ocean and His Four Voyages Westward to the Indies According to Contemporary Sources, (New York: MacMillan, 1967), p.146.
[ii] Richard Eden, A treatyse of the Newe India, (London, 1553), p.4 quoted in “Early Modern Empiricism and the Discourse of the Senses” found online here: http://www.usyd.edu.au/empiricism/Conference_2009/Embodied_Empiricism_09_Papers/Salter_Early_modern_empiricism_and_the_Discourse_of_the_Senses.pdf . Note that my unelectronic version, found in Edward Arber, The First Three English Books on America, (Birmingham, 1885; BiblioLife reprint, no date), has a slightly different reference point and judging from the Google book version the quote should be cited as either page 3 of the 1553 original or page 9 of Arber’s reprint. See http://books.google.com/books?id=ZrsTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR26&lpg=PR26&dq=the+first+three+english+books+on+america&source=bl&ots=IPv6T4MpdR&sig=vqjkfH8i7ge-9NWpSepMfLBy60M&hl=en&ei=al3jSpaKN4z-MfKG9b8B&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=certayne%20by%20experience&f=false .
[iii] Owen Fletham, A Brief Character of the Low-Countries, (London, 1652), pp. 84-85, quoted in Geoffrey Parker, Philip II, 1st edition, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1978), p.159.
[iv] Geoffrey Parker, Philip II, 1st edition, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1978), p.4
[v] I have paraphrased a famous maxim. The actual quote attributed to Charles V was, “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.” However, for German he used the term ‘nederduits’ or ‘Low German’ which was a common expression for ‘nederlands’ or what moderns might call Dutch. For a secondary source on Charles' Flemish language preference, please see Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), p.25
[vi] John Lothrop Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, A History, (Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1898), vol. 1, p.52.
[vii] See the Wikipedia bio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Adrian_VI ) which is the most comprehensive I have been able to find even though it is based on the somewhat flawed but essentially accurate bio in the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia here: http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Adrian_VI . Incidentally, some obscure references suggest that Adrian was the grandson of a Flemish migrant.
[viii] William Maltby, The Reign of Charles V, (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p.7. Charles’ parents never returned. His father died in Spain and his mother slipped into insanity. Charles’ upbringing, primarily in Mechelen, assured that his world-view was colored by his Brabantine surroundings. Even in official correspondence as Pope Hadrian VI, the affection he felt for his adoptive son Charles came through in letters addressed "To our most beloved son Charles, King of the Romans and of Spain, Emperor elect." See From: 'Spain: March 1523', Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 2: 1509-1525 (1866), pp. 531-537. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=93677 Date accessed: 31 October 2009.
[ix] Henry Latimer Seaver, The Great Revolt in Castile: A Study of the Comunero Movement of 1520-1521, (New York: Octagon, 1966), p.36, n1.
[x] Linguists would rightly correct me. Since the collection of Brabantine and Flemish dialects spoken south of the Rijn was better called “Netherlandic”. For a broader review, please see Peter Burke, Towards A Social History of Early Modern Dutch, (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005).
[xi] Henry Latimer Seaver, The Great Revolt in Castile: A Study of the Comunero Movement of 1520-1521, (New York: Octagon, 1966), p.29
[xii] Henry Latimer Seaver, The Great Revolt in Castile: A Study of the Comunero Movement of 1520-1521, (New York: Octagon, 1966), pp.37-38. Charles apparently engaged in no-holds-barred physical contests with his Flemish friends.
[xiii] Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, (London: Phoenix, 2004), p.454.
[xiv] “In 1517 Dutch [sic] admiral Adolf of Burgundy escorted Charles V from the Netherlands to Spain, where he was to be crowned king of Aragon and Castilia [sic]. For his services Adolf was awarded the island of Cozumel off Yucatan. It took him a couple of years to organize an expedition to his newly acquired property, but when his ships finally set sail from the Netherlands in 1527 they never got further than the ports of Spain.” Jaap Jacobs, New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America, (Leiden: Brill, 2005), p.1. A bio in Dutch can be found online here: http://dutchrevolt.leidenuniv.nl/nederlands/personen/w/wakken.htm .The only article I am aware of is L.M. Kooperberg, "Adolf van Bourgondie", in Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, deel VIII, Leiden, 1930 in 8, pp. 189-194.
[xv] Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, (London: Phoenix, 2004), p.451. Heavy opposition from Spanish grandees to that grant – which was envisioned to be comprised of sturdy Flemish colonists – compelled Charles to rescind this grant and instead temper that financial loss with a monopoly for supplying slaves to the Spanish possessions in the New World. See Hugh Thomas, The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440-1870, (New York: Touchstone, 1997), pp.98-99.
[xvi] The standard work on this subject is, of course, Henry Latimer Seaver, The Great Revolt in Castile: A Study of the Comunero Movement of 1520-1521, (New York: Octagon, 1966). That said, Seaver and other writers have painted the courtiers around Charles as exclusively Flemish (some were in fact Walloons) and caricatured them as rapacious. Seaver claims (p.48, n1) that “1,400,000 ducats in cash went out of the realm as Flemish plunder.”

Post Endnote addendum: My gracious thanks to the ever-diligent and encyclopedic Professor Matthias Storme for pointing out that recent research demonstrates that Charles V was actually born at Eeklo enroute to Gent. See Romano Tndat, Keizer Karel Geboren te Eeklo, (Eeklo: Stadsbestuur, 2000).

Copyright 2009 by David Baeckelandt. No reproduction of this posting in any format is permitted without my express written permission.

Flemish Fathers of America - Judocus Hondius

Vermeer's "De Geograaf" may have shown the actual condition of cartographers in Judocus Hondius' time

Although known as an engraver and copper worker, Hondius’ lingering fame is as an innovative cartographer. But his appearance in our pantheon of Flemish Fathers of America is in part because of his role in promoting understanding of America through that medium. But more specifically it is his direct contribution to Henry Hudson’s voyage of discovery 400 years ago that we honor him today.

Judocus Hondius, as depicted in this posthumous engraving published by his sons in 1619

Joost de Hondt was born October 14, 1563 in a small East Flemish village outside of Gent called Wakken. This was shortly after the death of another native of Wakken[i], the Lord of Wakken, Adolf of Burgundy. It may not be an accident that both men were involved in sending Flemings to the New World.[ii] However, history knows this man simply as Hondius (his Latinized name, as was common among international men of letters at that time).

Like others before him, Hondius was a Flemish Protestant who, as the Spanish armies closed in on Gent, viewed London as the natural refuge. It is believed that he fled to London with his wife Coleta van den Keere, her parents, and his brother-in-law Pieter van den Keere (better known today as the cartographer Petrus Kaerius). It is likely at this time that Hondius came to the attention of Anglo-Flemish leaders such as Emanuel Van Meteren, since they attended the Flemish- established and Flemish-run “Dutch” Church at Austin Friars in London.

In London Hondius’ skills with copper, compass, and ink quickly became apparent. In 1587 he created the earliest copper engraved map of the world made in England.[iii] This was a significant development for cartography and especially because it focused on the polar regions. This mattered because for Dutch, English and French explorers seeking alternate paths to the riches of the Indies, the only unclaimed possibilities were either a “Northeast Passage” (over the Arctic coast of modern-day Russia) or a “Northwest Passage” (somewhere through the Canadian Arctic seaway). It is likely no accident that many of Hondius’ English friends – such as Sir Francis Drake and Richard Hackluyt – were aggressively pursuing just such a route to the Indies.

A modern representation of the Northwest passage today, 400 years after Hudson searched for it

Like many other expatriate Flemings before and afterwards in England, Hondius mastered the language sufficiently well to develop solid, professional relationships. In 1589, Hondius engraved and printed a map of “New Albion”, where Sir Francis Drake established the first English settlement in California in 1579.[iv] Hondius used Drake’s own journals as well as relying on other eyewitness interviews. Later, Hondius painted portraits of Drake and other English explorers.[v]

The Wright-Molyneaux map, whose gores and globe - the first in England - were created by Hondius







These ties may have opened up other doors for Hondius. He was asked to create the gores of the first English globe in 1592: the Wright-Molyneaux.[vi] The map of this globe, reprinted in Richard Hackluyt’s[vii] “Principall Navigations”[viii] established a new cartographic style (leaving unexplored portions blank). As basic as this may sound, this method enabled seafarers to better chart the areas for which cartographers had imperfect or ambiguous information. It was Hondius' globe that guided first Queen Elizabeth and later King James in their global sea plans against Spain. Reference to this globe also aided and assisted countless other English expeditions to the New World.





A posthumous publication detailing the actual globe that Hondius created in England




Hondius’ engraving and cartographic talents – especially his ability to incorporate a variety of sources from multiple languages – led to deeper friendships with the foremost English explorers. He became a friend of William Davis[ix] – whose discovery of the channel between Canada and Greenland is now called the Davis Strait. Davis' effort was but one of many attempts by Englishmen utilizing Flemish maps to seek out a “Northwest Passage” to Asia. Davis, for example, was inspired by John Dee (educated at Leuven and best friends with Mercator) who in turn depended greatly on the Flemish cartographic friends and rivals Gerard Mercator and Abraham Ortellius. Much of this cartographic information about the New World for the English came through the extensive network of Protestant Anglo-Flemings, such as Ortelius’ first cousin, Emanuel Van Meteren.

Hondius’ successful contributions to English cartography brought him full circle back to the Low Countries, the locus of European excellence in cartography. In the post 1585 world of the Fall of Antwerp to the Spanish, this meant Amsterdam. Amsterdam at this time (in the early 1600s), was so beset with Flemings that it literally changed the pronunciation of the local dialect.[x] Moreover, it was the center of a great deal of fervent activity by Flemish Protestants seeking to not only promote global trade but also continue the fight of the Eighty Years’ War against Spain.

By 1604 Hondius was in Leiden, where he purchased the engraved plates for Gerard Mercator’s many maps at a bookseller-hosted auction from Mercator’s grandson and namesake.[xi] Hondius, a man with a keen sense of marketplace interests, added text and maps to cover regions that Mercator had neglected to come out with what many of the time believed to be a dramatic improvement when it rolled off the press in 1606. Hondius also titled a pocket edition of his Mercator-Hondius version as the Atlas Minor.[xii] Nearly every year afterwards and until 1630, first Hondius then his sons came out with additional editions that added color, detail and languages to his Atlas. In all, the family printed 29 versions over the following quarter-century. Including pirated editions that were reproduced as far away as the Ottoman Empire, approximately 50 editions of Hondius’ Mercator-based Atlas were printed in the 17th century.

An example of the world map Hondius created in 1607 - and likely referenced when planning with Henry Hudson

Although an international man and one who by now was well known and regarded Hondius did not forget his roots. He was a self-styled 'graveur' whose logo said 'de wackere Hond' and 'Canis Vigilans' (puns on his surname and birthplace). Hondius often reminisced about his birthplace near Gent.

Since his shop was in the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam neither the waterfront bustle nor the tumultuous English Separatist congregations were far away. In fact, Hondius’ shop was also not very far from his fellow Fleming (and co-navigator for the Hudson expedition), the theologian-cartographer Petrus Plancius, whose son-in-law was the Englishman Matthew Slade.[xiii] All of these individuals soon met and welcomed a band of 100 English sectarians that landed in Amsterdam in 1608 and stayed for a year: the congregation we know today as that of the Pilgrim Fathers.

It was there, at Hondius’ shop on Kalverstraat, in Amsterdam, that much of the planning and discussion for Henry Hudson’s April 1609 departure to find the Northwest Passage to Asia likely occurred. Of course, the reason why Hondius was hosting Hudson in the first place was because of his church ties to Emanuel Van Meteren (from his stay in London) and the reputation Hondius had gained there as a cartographer (which had endeared him to Van Meteren’s cousin Abraham Ortelius as well as Petrus Plancius, the supplier of maps to the VOC). Hondius’ recently rediscovered 1603 massive wall map of the world, was likely one of the key planning tools that Henry Hudson and his Flemish backers used when planning the famous 1609 trip whose quadricentennial is currently being celebrated.[xiv]

Hondius in fact acted as the simultaneous interpreter for Henry Hudson in all discussions. Their agreement – to seek out the long-sought after Northwest Passage - was signed by only four individuals: Henry Hudson, Judocus Hondius (as witness), J. Poppe (whose details are unknown, but nevertheless a member of the VOC) and Dirck Van Os. Van Os, of whom we shall hear more in a later posting, was not only a founder and the managing member of the VOC (he ran it out of his home with his brother Hendrik), but also a Flemish refugee from Antwerp.[xv] The majority of the contractual parties of Henry Hudson’s voyage to America then were Flemings. Later, Hondius translated the text of the agreement between Henry Hudson and the “Dutch” East India Company for his signature.[xvi] As one can see, to call Hudson's endeavor anything but a Flemish-led, Flemish-conceived, and Flemish-financed exploration is a misrepresentation of the fact.

Although in the early days merchants like Dirck Van Os made decisions for the VOC, ultimately it was governed by a group of seventeen - de Heeren XVII - depicted above.

The master ‘graveur’ of Wakken continued to have close ties with the English even after Hudson’s voyage. John Speed, credited with producing the first English language world atlas, actually outsourced the printing (and perhaps even many cartographic details) to Hondius between 1605 and 1610. Speed’s Atlas became the guide for a whole new generation of English seafarers.[xvii] Modern English chronicler's of Speed's contribution to English cartography (he is often viewed as the 'father' of it) readily admit Speed's wholesale plagiarism of what they call "Dutch" maps. The maps Speed copied were those of Hondius, Ortelius and Mercator: all Flemings.

Hondius died on February 12, 1612. Hondius’ offspring for several generations continued to prosper as printers/cartographers/ booksellers well into the 18th century.[xviii] Jodocus Hondius’ sister Jacomina Hondius had worked as a calligrapher at the court of Queen Elisabeth of England. She married the Gentenaar Pieter van den Berghe, who is better known to posterity as Petrus Montanus (1560-1628). Judocus Hondius’ brother-in-law, Peter van den Keere – better known as Petrus Kaerius (1571-1646) – published the first folio atlas of the Netherlands[xix]. Henricus Hondius (1597-1651), Judocus’ son, succeeded his father as a cartographer too. Elisabeth Hondius, a sister of Henricus, married the famous mapmaker, Jan Janssonius (1588-1664), who later purchased some of the family plates. Judocus Hondius the Younger (1601-1650) married an Antwerpenaar by the name of Anna Stafmaeker. Today their descendants include Americans who consider themselves “Dutch-Americans”.[xx]

The Hondius-Mercator world map, this one printed by Hondius' son Henricus just one year before the Pilgrims left Amsterdam for the New World.

Endnotes
[i] Now part of the municipality of Dentergem: http://www.dentergemonline.com . Unfortunately the modern municipality does not seem to recognize any connection with its famous sons (there is no reference to Hondius that I could find on the municipality’s official website).
[ii] “In 1517 Dutch [sic] admiral Adolf of Burgundy escorted Charles V from the Netherlands to Spain, where he was to be crowned king of Aragon and Castilia [sic]. For his services Adolf was awarded the island of Cozumel off Yucatan. It took him a couple of years to organize an expedition to his newly acquired property, but when his ships finally set sail from the Netherlands in 1527 they never got further than the ports of Spain.” Jaap Jacobs, New Netherland: A Dutch Colony in Seventeenth-Century America, (Leiden: Brill, 2005), p.1
[iii] See a recently offered example at auction here: http://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/19055/A_mapp_of_the_north_part_of_the_equinoctial/Hondius-Rogers.html
[iv] See the Wikipedia reference here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Albion
[v] http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?LinkID=mp07123&role=art for the portraits by Hondius of Sir Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish.
[vi] Donald S. Johnson, Charting the Sea of Darkness: The Four Voyages of Henry Hudson, (New York: Kodansha, 1995), p. 207. An interesting reference to the globe can be found in this recent online auction catalogue: http://www.forumrarebooks.com/Hues-Tractatus-de-globis-coelesti-et.html .
[vii] Notice the interlocking relationships between all of these key Flemish Protestant elites – Hondius, Van Meteren, Mercator, Ortellius, Marnix, etc. – and the English elites – Walsingham, Davis, Drake, Sidney, Hackluyt, etc. http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/hakluyt.html
[viii] Which can be downloaded here gratis: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7182 .
[ix] The Wikipedia reference ignores the Flemish contributions but is otherwise a reasonable sketch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Davis_(English_explorer)
[x] The most noticeable manifestation of this for native Dutch speakers being whether the ‘g’ was hard (northern Netherlands) or soft (Flanders). “Zo betreden we een stadsgedechte waar zeer veel ‘Vlamingen’ verblijf hielden en de zachte g niet van de lucht was.” Gustaaf Asaert, 1585: De val van Antwerpen en de uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lannoo, 2004), p.141. For a discussion of the soft g issue, please see, (in Dutch with an abstract in English), Pieter vanReenen and Nanette Huijs, “De harde en de zachte g”, online here: http://www.meertens.knaw.nl/taalentongval/artikelen/Reenen_Huijs.pdf
[xi] Note that every bookseller in Leiden at this time was also a printer. And, with the exception of the Englishman Thomas Basson, these ‘boekdrukkers’ were all Flemish expatriates. And even Basson owed his existence in the trade to his Flemish rivals. See J. A. Van Dorsten, Thomas Basson, 1555-1613: English Printer at Leiden, (Leiden: University Press of Leiden, 1961), pp. 1-3
[xii] See a nicely page-by-page scan online here: http://digital.fides.org.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=19&dirids=1
[xiii] Slade’s role as a conduit to the English Ambassador in the Netherlands as a spy on the activities of the Pilgrims there is nicely covered in Willem Nijenhuis, ed., Matthew Slade, 1569-1628: Letters to the English Ambassador, (Leiden: E.J. Brill/Leiden University Press, 1986). Please note, that Slade, who was married to the Antwerp born step-daughter of Petrus Plancius, seemed to play many sides of an argument at the same time. He may have been the go-between for the Dutch merchants’ discussions with the Pilgrim Fathers to settle in New Netherland. I will treat this subject in more detail in a future posting.
[xiv] See the article here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1026/is_1_155/ai_53590439/ for the significance of this map to cartographic history.
[xv] Henry C. Murphy, Henry Hudson in Holland: An Inquiry into the Origin and Objects of the Voyage Which Led to the Discovery of the Hudson River, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909), p.34.
[xvi] For an English translation of the contract between the VOC and Henry Hudson please see: Henry C. Murphy, Henry Hudson in Holland: An Inquiry into the Origin and Objects of the Voyage Which Led to the Discovery of the Hudson River, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1909), pp.32-34.
[xvii] As usual, Hondius is usually listed as a “Dutch” cartographer even though he was clearly Flemish born and raised. Speed was a tailor who likely absorbed some of his cartographic curiousity from the Flemish weavers in his midst. See http://www.antiquemaps.com/uk/info/jspeed.htm . For examples of Speed’s maps, also see http://www.philaprintshop.com/speed.html#Countries .
[xviii] See Gustaf Asaert, 1585: De val van Antwerpen en de uittocht van Vlamingen en Brabanders, (Tielt: Lanoo, 2004) pp.229-230
[xix] These maps now command from collectors prices as high as 60,000 STG. See http://www.shapero.com/images/Image/PDF/CartographyII.pdf for a recent auction catalogue.
[xx] http://varletfamily.pbworks.com/Chapter-10:-The-Staffmaecker-Family


Copyright 2009 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved and no use permitted without my express, written permission