Flemish Inspiration and The Travels of Sir John Mandeville

A popular quip says that success is the product of 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. That formula may be appropriate for the everyday tasks we face in our 21^st century lives. However, it may not reflect the optimal mix for explorers and discoverers, seafarers and mariners during the Age of Discovery (ca 1450-1800).

One book in particular, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, appears to have had an exceptional hold on the fearless yet educated European elite that sought to map and colonize the farthest corners of the earth. Virtually every transatlantic European explorer I have studied at some point in their saga admitted to being inspired by the mythical travelogue featuring a 14^th century English knight. And, as with other posts on this blog, the thin thread of a connection to Flanders – when firmly tugged – yields yet another example of a modest Fleming, working in near obscurity, who has made an outsized and significant contribution to the Discovery and Settlement of America.

Marco & Mandeville

It is undisputed that the [European] Age of Discovery began with the Portuguese in the 1400s. Under the tutelage of Henry the Navigator, small caravels sailed out of Lisbon and south around the West coast of Africa and west across the southern and northern mid-Atlantic. In the first decades of that age they discovered Atlantic islands (Azores, Canaries, Madeiras) and African kingdoms. But these were merely accidental and interim discoveries: the ultimate goal of all these adventurers was to reach the spices and wealth of the Indies in Asia.

Impassioned by their crusading Christian faith, hungry for the riches of the East, and guided by relentless advances in mathematics, geography and cartography, the Portuguese court attracted like-minded men from across Europe. Some were Italians – such as Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Giobanni Caboto (John Cabot). Others were Luso-Flemings – like Gaspar Corte-Reale and Ferdinand D’Ulmo (Hendrik Van Olmen) – or Germans – like Henricus Martellus and Martin Behaim. Regardless of origin all sought the same thing: wealth and glory.

What bonded these men was a common mindset.[i] While ethnically diverse they shared similar nautical sources.[ii] Besides cartographic references, all these men appear to have heavily relied upon two travelogues. The first, by Marco Polo, has a solid Flemish connection to Columbus: his copy was printed at either Leuven or Antwerp in 1485[iii]. The second is less well-known today: “The Travels of Sir John Mandeville”.[iv] Both books were written within seventy (or less) years of each other.[v] These two books then were, in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, according to a modern authority, “the two most famous European books on Asia.”

Who Was Sir John Mandeville?

The name Marco Polo needs little explanation to most educated readers, even today. He is remembered as the Italian traveler of the 13^th century who claimed to have traveled to, lived in, and returned from China.[vi] Whether Marco Polo’s tale is accepted as fact or fiction, his name is a byword for early east-west intercourse and the promise of exploratory travel. For men at the time of Columbus, et.al., Mandeville was an equally compelling source. Yet few people today (outside of limited scholarly circles) are aware of the name Sir John Mandeville. Who was he?

Sir John Mandeville “was once the most famous writer in medieval Europe,”[vii] as one popular authority phrased it. “He [Mandeville] had set off from St. Albans [Abbey] on St. Michael’s Day [February 21^st] in 1322 with the intention of making a pilgrimage to the churches and shrines of Jerusalem. But 34 years later he arrived back in England claiming to have visited not only the Holy Land, but India, China, Java and Sumatra as well. And what stories he had gathered in the years he had been away! Kings and priests studied The Travels to satisfy their thirst for knowledge of far-away lands. Geographers used his new-found information to redraw their maps. Monastic scribes translated his book from language to language until it had spread [in pre-printing press Europe] throughout the monasteries of Europe….The sheer number of surviving manuscripts is testament to Mandeville’s popularity: more than 300 handwritten copies of The Travels still exist in Europe’s great libraries – four times the number of Marco Polo’s book.”[viii]

Printed books of course did not take off until well into the 16^th century. This meant that until printing presses became widespread (in the late 1400s/early 1500s) each book was painstakingly copied by hand – usually by scribes in monasteries. And while not the focus of this particular post, Flemish domination of the printing industry in the 15^th thru 17^th centuries is unquestioned.[ix] The important point here is that ‘casual’ reading as we know it today was a real luxury. Those with access to books read with a purpose and intensity – often memorizing the passages after frequent re-reads. Any book that could offer an escape from their seemingly mundance surroundings and at the same time seamlessly supply the key to riches was sure to be a hit.

Mandeville’s tale offered that and more. “Early readers were intrigued by Mandeville and captivated by his outrageous tales and humorous mishaps.”[x] Sir John Mandeville somehow meets men with one large foot (used for shading themselves during siestas!); headless humanoids whose faces are part of their chests; Amazons and their male counterparts; and even dog-faced humans, Cyclops, and sexually liberated natives. Mandeville somehow does this while satisfying religious obligations (a pilgrimage to Jerusalem) and charting a course to the riches of Cathay (China). In other words, Mandeville’s Travels offers enough to titillate even the most serene monk.

But this is not the reason medieval explorers were drawn to the book. Rather, their interest was more practical. Columbus, Vespucci and others were piqued by the 175 lines in the book where Mandeville explains why he believes it is possible to circumnavigate the world.[xi]

“The importance of The Travels lay[s] in a single yet startling passage which set the book apart from all other medieval travelogues. Mandeville claimed that his voyage proved for the first time that it was possible to set sail around the world in one direction and return home from the other.”[xii]

The author has Mandeville declare: “‘I have often thought of a story I have heard, when I was young, of a worthy man of our country who went once upon a time to see the world. He passed India and many isles beyond India, where there are more than five thousand isles, and travelled so far by land and sea, girdling the globe, that he found an isle where he heard his own language being spoken…He marveled greatly, for he did not understand how this could be. But I conjecture that he had travelled so far over land and sea, circumnavigating the earth, that he had come to his own borders; if he had gone a bit further, he would have come to his own district….”[xiii]

This simple yet forthright anecdote had a profound effect on Christopher Columbus.[xiv] Not only did it convince the future “Admiral of the Ocean Seas” of the validity of his hunches, but it was his trump card when in debate with his detractors. Giles Milton (the author I have heavily quoted here) asserts that it was Columbus’ copy of The Travels that convinced the Spanish court to pay for his voyage.[xv] Curiously, this was not a ploy or stunt: Columbus was a true believer. Far away from the critics at court, Columbus literally relied on The Travels as a guide for his transatlantic journeys.

Nor do we need to rely solely on Columbus himself for confirmation of this. The contemporary Spanish clergyman and historian Andres Bernaldez chronicled the voyage. In one telling excerpt, after going into painful detail on how the riches of the east can be reached by sailing west, the good father gave as his validation, “‘Anyone who wishes to know the truth of this may read it in Mandeville’s book.’”[xvi]

Of course neither Bernaldez nor Columbus were simply parroting the iffy claims of a medieval novelist. First and foremost this is because Mandeville’s claims were no secret. Anyone who could locate a copy could read those same 175 lines on circumnavigation. Columbus’ skill was in marshalling an overwhelming combination of written texts, modern navigational charts, sailors’ yarns, and ancient cartographic clues into a mosaic compelling to even cash-strapped sovereigns (such as Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain).

Still, once discovered, the fact that dog-headed humans were not immediately found did not lessen Mandeville’s appeal to explorers. Part of Mandeville’s residual impact was the fact that Columbus’s discoveries appeared to validate the ancient text – as Bernaldez appears to under-score. Other contemporaries – men unconnected to the Spanish court – also made this connection between Columbus’ discoveries and Mandeville’s claims. Columbus acknowledged this debt – and bolstered his claims – by repeated references to Mandeville. “The earliest Italian letter about Columbus to be preserved intact was written by a Barcelona merchant named Hannibal Zenaro os Januarius to his brother at Milan on April 9, 1493…[included] a slight exaggeration of Columbus’s hearsay report that Sir John Mandeville’s tailed men grew in the Province of Havana… Zenaro’s information was derived from Columbus’s Letter on the First Voyage.”[xvii]

Proof in Mandeville’s insights appear to be found literally in the sky. Perhaps the connection between Mandeville’s guidance on the use of stars, and what could be found on the other side of the Atlantic were the only frame of reference available to these late medieval explorers. For even on his Second Voyage [1493-1494] Columbus relied on Mandeville: “The Admiral wished to pass to the southward and leave these islands [off the Cuban coast, on May 14, 1494] to starboard, but, remembering that he had read that all that sea is full of islands and that Sir John Mandeville says that there are more than five thousand islands in the Indies, he decided to go forward.”[xviii]

Heavy reliance on a single tome was not a flaw unique to the environment that Iberian seafarers or men of the late 15^th century were susceptible to. “It was not just Columbus who turned to The Travels. Many other Renaissance geographers and explorers read Mandeville for practical information about remote areas of the world. Sir Walter Raleigh admits in his book Discoverie of Guiana that although initially skeptical about Mandeville, his own journey forced him to conclude that The Travels was true in every respect: ‘[Mandeville’s] reports were holden for fables many yeeres, and yet since the East Indies were discovered, we find his relations true of such things as heretofore were held incredible.’”[xix]

Another contemporary, Sir Martin Frobischer, “also turned to Mandeville for advice when he set out on on his voyage to discover the North-West passage. Not only did his ship’s library contain a copy of Mercator’s world map…but it also contained a copy of The Travel.”[xx] Raleigh, Frobischer, and several generations of Englishmen (and women – Queen Elizabeth I among them) were driven to seek riches and fame on the other side of the Atlantic after reading Richard Hackluyt’s encyclopedia of England’s greatest explorers: The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation. Mandeville’s “Travels” was accorded pride of place and proof of English prominence in exploration.[xxi]

Clearly then, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville impacted different generations and many prominent European explorers. Yet, for all this, the authorship of the book at that time was unclear. No one knew of any “Sir John Mandeville”. Some thought he was an Englishman; others believed that textual analysis suggested a Frenchman or a Walloon in Liege or at least someone who had studied at the University of Paris. However, tools unavailable until today have enabled a group of modern scholars to credibly pin down authorship of the travelogue.

It sometimes takes a fresh pair of eyes on well-worn facts to uncover new insights. The late Professor John Larner was just such a man. A globally recognized expert of Marco Polo and Columbus, Professor Larner concluded that The Travels of Sir John Mandeville was “the work of Jan de Langhe, a Fleming who wrote in Latin under the name Johannes Longus and [wrote] in French as Jean le Long.”[xxii] Larner tells us that Jan de Langhe was born in Ieper (Ypres) early in the 1300s and by 1334 had become a Benedictine monk at the abbey of Saint-Bertin[xxiii] in St. Omer[xxiv] which was about 20 miles from Calais (and the English Channel). After studying law at the University of Paris, de Langhe returned to the abbey. He presumably was a competent administrator and a man who took his vows seriously for he was elected abbot in 1365. De Langhe was a prolific writer and avid collector of travelogues, right up to his death in 1383.[xxv] It was this collection of travelogues – almost unequalled in Europe at that time – that supplied de Langhe with the material for his Mandeville tale. Unfortunately little is known of the man himself besides these broad facts.

While few details of de Langhe’s life remain for us today, his contribution to the discovery of America is clear. The impact of this book, written by a Flemish monk who never traveled, “gave a whole generation of explorers – men like Columbus who really did discover the world – a justification, both theological and practical, for setting out into the unknown….Most important of all, [the book] provided a motive for financial backers to plough huge sums of money into highly risky ventures.”[xxvi]

Contrary to expectations, it may very well be that de Langhe’s objective in writing The Travels was different than Columbus and others assumed. Ironically, Mandeville’s core message had little to do with exploration and everything to do with Christian concepts of humanism. “His message of tolerance, central to the book’s meaning, was either misunderstood or ignored”[xxvii] by the Age of Discovery explorers.

Today, despite the fact that his travelogue of a fictitious character inspired many to seek a westward, trans-oceanic path to the East, no monument stands to him – east or west. Nor is he cited in textbooks – not even in his native Flanders. Jan de Langhe – or Jan d’Ypres as he is sometimes also known – left little in this world about himself. The abbey that Jan de Langhe presided over (St. Bertin ) is abandoned and in ruins.

Today de Langhe is unrecognized in his home town of Ieper/Ypres. He is unknown in North America and only marginally less obscure in Flanders. That is wrong. It is time the world recognizes the contributions of one Flemish monk who, toiling alone in a quiet monastery in the Flemish countryside, inspired droves of Europeans to strike out across the seas and discover, for Christian Europe, a New World.

Endnotes

[i] Curiously, virtually all of these individuals knew each other personally. Behaim knew Columbus possibly in the Azores and certainly was one of those who rejected Columbus’ petition to King John of Portugal in 1484. Van Olmen knew Behaim and Martellus knew him and Columbus in Lisbon thru Bartholomew Columbus. Vespucci helped outfit Columbus and later stayed in his home. Diaz – who rounded the Cape of Good Hope – was the first to meet Columbus on his famous return from the New World. Columbus, Vespucci, and Cabot were all born in the year 1450 – as was Queen Isabella of Spain. Cabot and Colombus were both Genoese. Thus the lives of famous men (and women) seem to be inexplicably entwined.

[ii] Arthur Davies, “Behaim, Martellus and Columbus”, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 143, No. 3 (Nov., 1977), pp. 451-459. Published by: Royal Geographical Society. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/634713 Accessed May 28, 2011. Davies believes that that source was Bartholomew Columbus, the discoverer’s brother.

[iii] Arthur Davies, “Behaim, Martellus and Columbus”, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 143, No. 3 (Nov., 1977), pp. 451-459. Published by: Royal Geographical Society. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/634713 Accessed May 28, 2011. Davies claims it was printed at Leuven (“Louvain”) between 1485 and 1490 [p.453].

[iv] And not only Columbus. Behaim’s citations on his globe were in 1492. Ponce de Leon in searching for the fountain of youth in 1512 was referencing Mandeville. So to was the English explorer Martin Frobischer on Baffin Island in 1575, Hackluyt in 1589, and even William Shakespeare in “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Othello” in the early seventeenth century. See John Larner, “Plucking Hairs from the Great Cham’s Beard: Marco Polo, Jan de Langhe, and Sir John Mandeville,” pp.133-155, in Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West, ed., Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Amilcare Iannucci, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), pp. 146-147.

[v] John Larner, “Plucking Hairs from the Great Cham’s Beard: Marco Polo, Jan de Langhe, and Sir John Mandeville,” pp.133-155, in Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West, ed., Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Amilcare Iannucci, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), p.133.

[vi] As someone married to a Chinese woman, I personally have my doubts about Marco Polo’s actual life in China. He never mentions basic curiosities such as the use of chopsticks. Nor has there ever been found any Chinese official document naming Marco Polo as an official of the Great Khan (as he claimed). Readers interested in delving into this aspect might want to check Frances Wood, Did Marco Polo Go to China?, (London: Seckler & Warbug, 1995). For a counterargument, see http://rspas.anu.edu.au/eah/Marcopolo.html

[vii] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 3.

[viii] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 3.

[ix] Some may view my claim as hyperbole but I have sufficient material collected on this subject for a future post. Suffice it to say, that Flemings were at the forefront of the spread of printing not only in the Low Countries but in Spain, Italy and possibly even France. Stay tuned!

[x] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 3.

[xi] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), pp. 271-272.

[xii] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 3.

[xiii] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), pp. 273.

[xiv] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), pp. 275.

[xv] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), pp. 276.

[xvi] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), pp. 276.

[xvii] Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1942), pp. 376-377.

[xviii] Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1942), pp. 454.

[xix] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 277.

[xx] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 277.

[xxi] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), pp. 277-278.

[xxii] John Larner, “Plucking Hairs from the Great Cham’s Beard: Marco Polo, Jan de Langhe, and Sir John Mandeville,” pp.133-155, in Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West, ed., Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Amilcare Iannucci, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), p.133.

[xxiii] Abbey of Saint Bertin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Saint_Bertin - The Dutch language version is much more thorough: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdij_van_Sint-Bertinus

[xxiv] Saint Omer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Omer. Until the late 19th century St. Omer (or Sint Omaar) was a Flemish language region. Among its other famous sons is Godfrey of St. Omer founder of Knights Templar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_of_Saint-Omer

[xxv] John Larner, “Plucking Hairs from the Great Cham’s Beard: Marco Polo, Jan de Langhe, and Sir John Mandeville,” pp.133-155, in Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West, ed., Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Amilcare Iannucci, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), p.137.

[xxvi] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 278.

[xxvii] Giles Milton, The Riddle and The Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001), p. 278.

Copyright 2011 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without my express, written consent.

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.