An exhibition “Discovering Asia” will feature at the Royal Geographical Society
of South Australia http://www.rgssa.org.au/
in May 2015. It will have a wide scope, featuring works of exploration and
travel about many of the countries of southeast and eastern Asia, including Indonesia,
Japan, and China.
In the blog I’ll be looking at some of the
books which recount the early voyages of discovery from Europe to the East. Because
the RGSSA’s collection was founded on the purchase of S. William Silver’s York
Gate Library from London, compiled during the 19th century, it’s very
Anglocentric. But as well as early English translations and the great 16th-century
English compilations of travel narratives it does include some interesting and
significant works in Latin and the European languages.
The Spice Rush
The European push into Asia from the time
of Columbus was all about spices. When he got to the West Indies Columbus was
positive he'd reached Asia—which explains why the hot chillis his men found
there got called “peppers”, even though they are capsicums (Capsicum frutescens spp.), native to
Central and South America, and are not botanically related to the genus Piper, which includes the black pepper
we still use today.
In its time, Columbus’s voyage was a bit
of flop, because he hadn't found the quick way to the lands of spices:
“In respect of spices, which is to say in respect of one of the
primary reasons why it was discovered, the New World was something of a
disappointment.”
(Jack Turner. Spice:
the history of a temptation. Vintage Books, 2005)
In the blog I’ll look at how the frantic
scramble for spices opened up Asia to the West. It’s fair to say that the
Portuguese and the Dutch in particular ran mad over them—but the Spanish,
English and French weren’t very far behind. My friends at the Art Gallery of SA
library suggested, when I was telling them about the Dutchman who gave his
countrymen the secret Portuguese maps,
that maybe the mad Dutch frenzy for spices was due to something in the Dutch
psyche, like the later tulip bubble. Fair enough—but most of the world ran mad
over gold in the 19th century. I’d say it's something in the human psyche,
common to all of us. Mad fads on the one hand (like, your cell phone or tablet,
indispensable to life, can you breathe without one?) and the lust for wealth on
the other. With, in the case of the men who actually sailed to Asia under tremendously
dangerous conditions, a true spirit of adventure. The sea captains went East
not just for the riches that cargoes of spices would bring them, but because it
was there.
DISCOVERING THE EAST INDIES
The Quest For Spices
Imagine a world in which pepper was so
valuable it had to be bought with gold. This is what Europeans had to pay—and
gladly paid—when they finally managed to sail to the “East Indies,” that is, to
India at the end of the 15th century, and then points further east during the
16th century.
Spices have been used since time
immemorial, and traded all over the world at least from the time of the
Egyptian pharaohs—it is a documented fact that one pharaoh’s mummy had
peppercorns, used as a preservative, in his nose and body cavity. Cloves dating
back to 1721 BC have been found in Syria, and they were known as breath
fresheners to the Chinese Han Dynasty in the third century BC. In Europe during
the Middle Ages spices were important for flavouring food, in medicines, as
preservatives, and for perfuming, but they were hugely expensive. The spice
trade monopoly was held by the Arabs during the Middle Ages, and Ibn Batuta
(1304-1377) mentions the clove trade in his Tuhfat
al-nuzzar (“Travels”). Their spice trade with Europe was largely through
Venice.
Ibn Batuta,
1304-1377.
The
travels of Ibn Battuta, A.D. 1325-1354, translated with
revisions and notes from the Arabic text edited by C. Defrémery and B. R.
Sanguinetti by H.A.R. Gibb. Cambridge [England], Published for the Hakluyt
Society at the University Press, 1958-2000. 5 vols. (Works issued by the
Hakluyt Society ; 2nd ser., no. 110, 117, 141, 178, 190)
If we read about the cookery books of the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance we tend to get the wrong idea: spices abound in
these recipes.
“A stew of chicken summered
with cloves, cinnamon, black pepper, saffron, and a little vinegar and
thickened with ground almonds was standard Portuguese fare during the sixteenth
century.”
(Lizzie Collingham. Curry:
a tale of cooks and conquerors.
Oxford, University Press, 2006, p. 59)
This was a dish from Portugal itself, not
from Portuguese India. And here is a combination of meat with ginger, cloves, and
mace that we wouldn’t be surprised to find today in Indian cuisine, but that
was common in English cuisine until well after Shakespeare’s time.
With modern spelling, the recipe reads:
Coney in Gravy
Take
blanched almonds, grind them with wine And good broth of beef and mutton, and draw it
through a strainer, and cast it into a pot, and let boil; and cast thereto powder
of ginger, cloves, mace, and sugar. And then take a coney, and seethe him enough
in good fresh broth, and chop him. And take off the skin cleanly, and pick him
clean. And cast it [in]to the syrup, And let boil once. And serve forth.
(From Harleian MS 4016)
(See http://www.godecookery.com/nboke/nboke51.htm
This website also provides a modern version, using either rabbit or chicken.)
Wonders of the East:
“Spetierie, Droghe, Gioie, & Perle”
But the very early cookery books (and most
of those who write about them) give us the wrong idea. By the early Renaissance
printing had only just been invented and books themselves were luxury items.
Ordinary people didn’t read and they certainly did not have access to cookery
books! The cookery books were written for the very rich, who could afford
spices: the great households often kept a “spicer,” a person whose sole rôle was
to mix and prepare spices for foods and medicines. Spices were a luxury item. Contemporary
accounts such as Ramusio’s, quoted above, list spices along with fabulous gems,
pearls, gold and silks as wondrous treasures of the East, the stuff that dreams
were made of.
During the Middle Ages pepper was
enormously expensive in Europe. By the end of the Middle Ages, when supplies
had become more regular, it was still very dear, but not as outrageously so as
it had been earlier, when only the rich could afford it. It was extremely
important in cuisine but, as supplies increased, it had become less
fashionable. The other spices, in particular the aromatics such as cinnamon,
cloves, nutmegs and mace, were still only affordable to the comfortably off.
The expanding middle classes could afford reasonable amounts of pepper but only
small amounts of the other spices, perhaps for special dishes and special
occasions. Spices were still, as they had been throughout the previous
centuries, a status symbol.
Pepper is native to South Asia and
Southeast Asia, and the main early trading centres were on the Malabar Coast on
India’s western coast. The spice is the dried fruit of the pepper vine (Piper negrum). Cinnamon is the inner
bark of the cinnamon tree (Cinnamomum
verum, and other species), dried and rolled into small quills. It is native
to Sri Lanka (Ceylon), the Malabar Coast of India, Bangladesh, and Burma. Its
source was unknown to Europeans for centuries. The exact source of cloves,
nutmegs and mace, which occur naturally only in the small islands of the
Moluccas (modern Malaku, in Indonesia), remained unknown even longer.
Cloves
are the dried buds of the clove tree (Syzygium
aromaticum), found naturally only on a few islands within the Moluccas.
Nutmegs and mace both come from the nutmeg tree (Myristica fragrans). Nutmeg is the inner nut and mace is the dried
membrane which surrounds it, within the outer shell. Nutmeg trees grew only in
the tiny Banda Islands within the Moluccas, in particular on little Run Island
or Pulau Run (“Poolaroone” in early English texts). From these small scattered
groups of islands, cloves, nutmeg and mace were traded all over the world
centuries before Europeans reached the East Indies.
Opening Up The East: The First Portuguese
Ventures
In 1498 Vasco da Gama (1469-1524) became
the first European to reach India by sailing around Africa. His goal was the
thriving sea port and trading centre of Calicut, on the western coast of
southern India, in the area known as the Malabar Coast. It is now in the modern
state of Kerala. “Calicut” is still the name generally used today, though its
official name is Kozhikode. The major trading point for eastern spices, it was
known during the Middle Ages and even earlier as the “City of Spices”. Arab
merchants were trading there as early as the 7th century. Asked by Spanish- and
Italian-speaking Arabs there why Da Gama’s ships had come, the Portuguese
replied that they “came in search of Christians and spices” (Ravenstein (ed.). A Journal of the first voyage... p.48).
Discovering the spice route brought the
Portuguese immense wealth. Their ships brought back pepper and cinnamon, both
native to the Malabar Coast and grown there to this day. Pepper alone was worth
a great fortune. For several decades after Da Gama the Portuguese had a
monopoly on the pepper trade.
“IN SEARCH
OF CHRISTIANS AND SPICES”: VASCO DA GAMA
Vasco da Gama’s discovery of the sea route
to India paved the way for the Portuguese to establish a long-lasting colonial
empire in Asia. His success had been preceded by many disastrous shipwrecks,
but Da Gama’s route meant that the Portuguese could make the whole voyage by
sea, avoiding the highly disputed Mediterranean waters and the dangerous land
trek over the Arabian Peninsula. Counting the outward and return trips, this
was “the longest ocean voyage ever made until then, far longer than a full
voyage around the world by way of the Equator.” (“Vasco da Gama”, Wikipedia) Da
Gama was given the newly created County of Vidigueira in 1519 and the title
that went with it, and made Governor of India in 1524, with the title of
Viceroy.
Da Gama: Early Texts
The RGSSA holds many rare volumes of
collected early voyages and travels from the York Gate Library of S. William
Silver. The following collections by Ramusio and Purchas are identified in the Catalogue of the York Gate Library (2nd
ed., 1886) as including sections on Vasco da Gama:
1613
“Navigatione dal Capo Buona Speranza, fino
in Calicut, 1497. Discorso,” page 119 (Narrative of Thome Lopes, 1502): In:
RAMUSIO, Giovanni Battista, 1485-1557
Delle
navigationi et viaggi :
raccolte da M. Gio. Battista Ramvsio, in tree volvmi divise : Nelle quali con
relatione fedelissima si descriuono tutti quei paesi, che da già 300. anni
sin’hora sono stati scoperti, cosi di verso Leuante, & Ponente, come di
verso Mezzo di, & Tramontana; Et si hà notitia del Regno del Prete Gianni,
& dell’Africa fino a Calicut, & ll’Isole Molucche. Et si tratta
dell’Isola Giappan, delle due Sarmatie, della Tartariam Scitia, Circasia, &
circonstante Prouincie : della Tana, & dell’Indie tanto Occidentali, quanto
Orientali, & della Nauigatione d’intorno il Mondo. ... Et nel fine con
aggiunta nella presente quinta impressione del viaggio di M. Cesare de’
Federici, nell’India Orientale, nel quale si descriue le Spetierie, Droghe,
Gioie, & Perle, che in dette Paesi si trouano. ... Volume Primo. In
Venetia, appresso I Givnti, 1613.
Ramusio’s three-volume “Navigationi et viaggi” has been adjudged
the most highly valued collection of voyages of the sixteenth century. The set
comprises accounts of voyages which had already been published, translated from
the French, Spanish and Latin, together with manuscript accounts appearing in
print for the first time. The choice of published narratives has been praised
by later writers, as has his scholarship. Ramusio’s collection was very
successful in the 16th and early 17th centuries, each volume appearing in
several editions, some containing more narratives than others, and with small
differences in the maps. Experts consider that the collection began a new area
in the literary history of voyages and navigation. The work contains early maps
of great significance, including those of Brazil, Canada, New England, Africa,
Asia and Japan. The RGSSA holds the three-volume set of Ramusio (YG 2027, 2028,
2029). As with most sets known to collectors, the three are from different
editions published at different times (1613, 1583, 1606). The illustration
shows the engraved title page to the first volume.
1625
“Gama’s Acts at Calicut and his Return,
1499”, page 28 (YG 2072, Vol. I Part II): In:
PURCHAS, Samuel, 1577?-1626.
Haklvytvs
posthumus, or, Pvrchas his Pilgrimes: contayning a history of the world, in sea voyages,
& lande-trauells by Englishmen and others, wherein Gods wonders in nature
& prouidence, the actes, arts, varieties & vanities of men, w[i]th a
world of the worlds rarities are by a world of eyewitnesse-authors related to
the world, some left written by Mr. Hakluyt at his death, more since added, his
also perused, & perfected, all examined, abreuiated, illustrated w[i]th
notes, enlarged w[i]th discourses, adorned w[i]th pictures, and expressed in
mapps, in fower parts, each containing fiue bookes; by Samvel Pvrchas, B.D.
Imprinted at London for Henry Fetherston at ye signe of the rose in Pauls
Churchyard, 1625. 4 vols.
The title is from the
engraved title page. Each of the 4 parts also has a special title page with
title: Pvrchas his Pilgrimes; and with imprint: London, Printed by William
Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone ... 1625.
“a world of travellers to
their domestic entertainment”
 |
| 1625 Edition. Title page of the first volume |
Samuel Purchas (1577?-1626), one of the
great early compilers of travel narratives, published his Hakluytus posthumus, or Purchas
his pilgrimes, in 1625. His earlier works had concentrated rather on the
history of religion than on voyages and travel: he took a divinity degree at
Cambridge. His compilation is called Hakluytus
posthumus because Purchas saw it as the successor to the already famous
works of Richard Hakluyt (1552?-1616). He wrote that he had assisted Hakluyt:
“I was therein a labourer also,” and that he helped him to arrange papers which
were unpublished when he died.
 |
| 1625 edition: Engraved title page |
In an age where few people could travel beyond
their native shores, Purchas’s compilation offered: “a world of travellers to
their domestic entertainment, easy to be spared from their smoke, cup, or
butterfly vanities and superfluities, and fit mutually to entertaine them in a
better school to better purposes.” It is generally agreed that although Purchas
was not the equal of Hakluyt in either scholarship or accuracy, his work is an
extremely important source, often the only one, of information on important
questions relating to geographical history and early exploration.
Da Gama: Translations,
Reprints & Facsimiles of Early Texts
1497-1499
Velho, Alvaro
Ravenstein, E. G. (Ernest George),
1834-1913 (editor)
[Roteiro da viagem de Vasco da Gama. English]
A journal of the first voyage of Vasco da
Gama, 1497-1499, translated and edited, with notes, an introduction and
appendices by E.G. Ravenstein. London, Printed by the Hakluyt Society, 1898.
(Works issued by the Hakluyt Society; no. 99)
This account of the navigator’s historic
first voyage round the Cape of Good Hope to India’s Malabar Coast is now
generally attributed by scholars and bibliographers to Alvaro Velho (cf.
Library of Congress, LCCN 2009016532). Ravenstein, the editor of this first
English translation, concludes that there is insufficient evidence to make an
attribution, but favours João de Sa. The journal, or “Roteiro,” is an anonymous account written by a member of Da Gama’s
fleet. It has become an important documentary source for accounts of the
voyage. For several hundred years it existed only in manuscript form, several
copies being in existence but incomplete. The first Portuguese edition was only
published in 1838.
The volume includes letters of King Manuel
and Girolamo Sernigi, 1499, and early seventeenth-century Portuguese accounts
of Da Gama’s first voyage.
The journal itself is detailed and very colourful:
here is the description (p.49-50) of the people of Calicut on the Malabar
Coast:
“They are of a tawny complexion. Some of
them have big beards and long hair, whilst others clip their hair short or
shave the head, merely allowing a tuft to remain on the crown as a sign that
they are Christians [sic: a common mistake of the time]. They also wear moustaches.
They pierce the ears and wear much gold in them. They go naked down to the
waist, covering their lower extremities with very fine cotton stuffs. But it is
only the most respectable who do this, for the others manage as best they are
able.
“The women of this country, as a rule, are
ugly and of small stature. They wear many jewels of gold round the neck,
numerous bracelets on their arms, and rings set with precious stones on their
toes. All these people are well-disposed and apparently of mild temper. At first
sight they seem covetous and ignorant.”
1504
Berjeau, J. Ph. (Jean Philibert), 1809-1891
(translator)
Calcoen: a Dutch narrative of the second
voyage of Vasco da Gama to Calicut, printed at Antwerp circa 1504, with introduction
and translation by J. Ph. Berjeau. London, Pickering, 1874.
“Calcoen” means Calicut. The volume
reprints the Flemish original in facsimile and adds a map of Africa “taken from
‘Ptolemæi C. Tabula noua totius orbis’, Lugduni 1541.” (Introd. p.[9]).
Berjeau supplies a most readable
introduction to this text, deciphering the place names used and simultaneously
tracing the route. He writes that “the name of Vasco da Gama is not even
mentioned in the ... narrative, but there is no doubt it applies to the second
voyage of the great navigator to India.” The unknown narrator, he explains,
must have been a “Dutch officer or sailor” on the voyage, for it is clearly not
a translation of any other known work and it adds details not available
elsewhere. Berjeau highlights the understandable errors of interpretation made
by the author, such as thinking that the local Hindus and Buddhists who showed
reverence for statues of the Virgin Mary were Christians. In fact these
worshippers mistook the figures for representations of an Indian goddess.
Points which struck the narrator, as they did other early European travellers
to the East, were the chewing of betel and the use of musk: Berjeau writes:
“The civet cat is so clearly described that it was impossible not to translate
by musc the word iubot, although it is not to be found in any modern Flemish or
Dutch dictionary.”
R: Page of the facsimile of the Flemish
original.
As Berjeau points out, Vasco da Gama’s
known cruelty and barbarism is well supported by the text. Here is the
translation of the arrival in Calicut:
“On the 27th day of October
we ... arrived in a kingdom called Calcoen, ... and we mustered our forces
before the town, and we fought with them during three days, and we took a great
number of people, and we hanged them to the yards of the ships, and taking them
down, we cut off their hands, feet and heads; and we took one of their ships
and threw into it the hands, feet and heads, and we wrote a letter, which we
put on a stick, and we left that ship to go a-drift towards the land. We took
there a ship which we put on fire and burnt there many of the subjects of the
king.”
Circa
1531-1583
Corrêa, Gaspar, 16th cent.
The three voyages of Vasco da Gama and his
viceroyalty: from the Lendas da India
of Gaspar Correa. ... Translated from the Portuguese, with notes and an
introduction by Henry E.J. Stanley. London, Printed for the Hakluyt Society,
1869. (Works issued by the Hakluyt Society ; 42)
Gaspar Corrêa’s account of Vasco da Gama’s
voyages to India in his Lendas da India
existed only in manuscript form until about 1860. In his introduction to the
first English edition of the part dealing with Vasco da Gama, Henry E.J.
Stanley writes: “Correa’s work ... enters into much more detail than the other
chroniclers, frequently differs from them, and has not been made use of by the
great majority of the historians who wrote subsequently to him.” Corrêa himself
went to India when he was very young, “sixteen years after India was
discovered—that would be in 1514.” It is not known exactly when he wrote his
history but it was certainly from 1561 to some time before 1583, when he died.
While serving as secretary to Alfonso d'Albuquerque, then Viceroy of Portuguese
India, he came across a diary written by Joam Figueira, a priest who
accompanied Vasco da Gama, which inspired him to write his history. His full
narrative covers fifty-three years of the Portuguese exploits in India, up to
the government of Jorge Cabral. The account of Vasco da Gama’s exploits
translated for this Hakluyt Society volume is extensive and detailed.
Just imagine the excitement when Da Gama
arrived back in Portugal. Not only had he found the sea route to the wealth of
the East Indies, he had brought home a big cargo of pepper. He had bought it
for 3 ducats per hundredweight in Calicut. In Portugal it was selling for 22
ducats:* more than seven times what he’d had to pay!
“Within three years, the
Portuguese were back in India. In 1505, Lopo Soares’s fleet of nine vessels
departed from the Malabar Coast with a cargoi that included 1,074,003 kilograms
of pepper, 28,476 kilograms of ginger, 8,789 kilograms of cinnamon, and 206
kilograms of cardamom.” *
* (Collingham, Op.cit., p. 51)
Portugal’s fortune was made for the next
hundred years.
That very dear commodity, pepper, was used
in Europe in Da Gama’s time, and for several hundred years afterwards, not only
with meat and savoury dishes, but with fruit as well. Let’s end this blog entry
with a 15th-century English recipe that you might like to try. (I speak as one
who likes freshly ground pepper on sliced raw apple and adores it on fresh
pear, like an Indian chaat, but don’t
let that influence you!)
Fifteenth-Century Apple Fritters:
“Fretoure owt of Lente”
6 large eating apples; sugar; 1 liqueur glass brandy
Batter: 125 g flour; 2 eggs; 1
tablespoon oil or clarified butter;
up to 300 ml. milk; pinch saffron; freshly ground black
pepper
oil for frying
Peel, core & slice
apples about 1 cm (1/4 to 1/2 in.) thick. Put into a bowl, sprinkle with sugar,
& pour on the brandy. Leave for several hours or overnight, turning
occasionally. Drain well.
Batter: Pour 2 tblsps of almost boiling water over the saffron &
leave to steep until “a good crocus yellow.” Mix flour, 1 whole egg, the 2nd
egg yolk, & the oil. Beat in about 150 ml. of milk. Stir in the saffron water.
Add more milk if batter is too thick. Add 2 or 3 grinds of pepper & stir
in. Whisk the 2nd egg white until stiff & fold into the batter.
Dip the drained apple slices
into the batter & fry in oil until golden brown. Serve sprinkled with
sugar. Enjoy!
(Based
on: Jane Grigson. English Food.
Penguin, 1977, p. 207)
--
This post was researched and created by Kathy Boyes
No comments:
Post a Comment