Surprises Awaiting the Visitors to Simancas Archive

Following our previous post “Father Fernão de Oliveira: a globalization agent of Iberian maritime knowledge”, we could not fail to report our recent excitement when finding sixteenth-century originals mentioning the famous Portuguese nautical expert. The Archivo General de Simancas (in Valladolid, Spain) is one of the main Spanish archives, filled with important documents (not just for Spanish history but for European and World History in general) that still need to be fully researched by scholars. When digging into Simancas’s several funds, you are up for unpredictable surprises.

One of the surprises I had when checking the collection Secretarias de Estado, Estado Portugal was a 1567 letter by D. Fernando Carrillo de Mendonza (the Spanish ambassador in Portugal between 1567 and 1569) to King Philip II (r. 1556-1598), mentioning his conversation with father Fernão de Oliveira. This conversation took place, as mentioned in the previous post, after a French attempt to hire and convince father Oliveira to come to France to serve the Valois in 1566. Carrillo stepped in to prevent Oliveira from departing Portugal to serve France, and instead, he tried to enlist Oliveira for Spanish service.

A letter by D. Juan de Austria, very similar to the documents I was studying.

Carrillo valued so much Oliveira’s knowledge that upon previous order from Philip II, he had spoken directly with the highest Portuguese political authorities (at the time Cardinal Henry and Queen-mother Catherine of Austria) concerning Oliveira’s possible exit from Portugal. Although the Cardinal and the Queen declared that they had spoken with father Oliveira previously, they did not appreciate enough the value of his person, work, and knowledge. But Carrillo was writing to Philip II to inform him that after all that had passed, father Oliveira would not leave for Spain, although he had been to prepared to do so. The letter I found proves that Carrillo knew that his news would disappoint Philip II, as they did. The time for the author of the 1555 Arte da Guerra do Mar (The Art of Sea Warfare) had not yet come to serve in Spain.

This famous excerpt has already been published by scholars Léon Bourdon and Avelino Teixeira da Mota. Aside from the wonderful opportunity to work in an ancient castle and meeting incredible people to assist your research, you will get also a good memory for life. Like when you go hunting or to fish and you never know what you will get, this is what happens when you come to Simancas: at any corner, you might find yourself face to face with a documental surprise relevant to Iberian and European maritime and scientific history during the Renaissance. [Nuno Vila-Santa]

From the “leap day before the calends of March” to the 29th of February – I

The traditional Roman calendar consisted of twelve lunar months divided into blocks of Calends (first day of the month), Nones and Ides, with an annual average value of 355 days, and an additional lunar month added according to certain rules. The new year began on the calends of March.

More than 2050 years ago, Julius Caesar decided to reform the Roman calendar to follow more closely the cycle of the seasons; the basis was the best value of the known tropical solar year —365 days and 6 hours— as confirmed by the greek astronomer Sosigenes from Alexandria, then in Rome.

The new Roman annual calendar was about ten days longer than the previous one. The months kept their traditional names, but the number of days in each month was changed, and the beginning of the year moved to the calends of January, the date on which the two consuls elected annually took office. To maintain the average value of the solar year, the new calendar was left with 365 whole days; the six hours missing each year were to be added every four years, forming a whole day. It was also decided that this extra day would be added after the ‘23rd of February’, the 7th day before the calends of March, in the same place where an intercalary lunar month had been traditionally added, before the end of month and year.

Thus, in a leap year, instead of a day ‘24 of February, the 6th day before the calends of March, there were now two ‘24th’ days, or two sixth days, and the additional day was identified by the name ‘second 6th day before the calends of March’ or ante diem bis sextum Kalendas Martias (bis sextum means literally ‘the twice sixth’).

This new calendar, with a cycle of four years and 1461 days (= 365 x 3 + 366 x 1) remained the Roman Empire calendar, was confirmed by Emperor Augustus, and continued in use throughout Europe even after the fall of the Roman Empire.

About 1500 years after Julius Caesar’s reform, Christian calendars followed the same established rules. Note the detail of a calendar in the Ordinary of the Divine Office of the Cistercian Order (BNP, alc. 62, fol. 4v), a 1475 manuscript, with the Christian liturgy inserted in the Julian calendar:

BNP, alc 62 (1475), fol. 4v, detail

The day added every four years (fifth row) had neither a golden number (1st column) nor a Sunday letter (2nd column), nor a row of its own. Graphically, it was just a red note on the side saying: the sixth [before the Calends of March] is inserted twice here (hic bis sextus inseritur). [José Madruga]

The Living Light (O lume vivo)

“I saw and clearly saw, the living Light, / Which sailor-people hold their Patron-saint, / In times of trouble and the winds’ rude fight, / And sable orcan when man’s heart is faint” (“Vi, claramente visto, o lume vivo / Que a marítima gente tem por santo / Em tempo de tormenta e vento esquivo, / De tempestade escura e triste pranto.”) [English translation by Richard Francis Burton, London 1880]

With these four verses Luís de Camões (Os Lusíadas, 1572) mentioned a curious weather phenomenon which took place during a tempest on his ship while sailing to the East. Such an episode was also described several decades later by William Shakespeare in The Tempest, in connection with the character of Ariel, a spirit with special skills capable of causing storms. Our current explanation is that a bright luminous plasma was generated by an electric discharge in an atmospheric electric field. The intensity of the effect, a blue or violet glow around the object, often accompanied by an audible discharge, was proportional to the strength of the electric field and therefore noticeable primarily during storms or volcanic eruptions. This impressive phenomenon gave rise to a wide variety of explanations, and it was discussed also in more technical maritime literature, like the Arte de navegar published by Simão de Oliveira in 1606.

Oliveira devoted an entire chapter to the “light that appears on certain areas of the ships, after great storms” (Chapter 52). He started by naming this light in many ways, such as S. Frei Pedro Gonçalves, Santelmo, or Corpo Santo. The first of these names referred to Pedro Gonçalves Telmo (hence English “St Elmo’s fire”), the patron saint of sailors, a Spanish catholic priest, born in 1190, to whom various miracles were attributed. The most spectacular was that of Baiona’s big storm, when Saint Telmo asked the winds to stop blowing. Oliveira then went on to explain that this strange event also happened to the ancient sailors, even before the saint was born. The ancients called it Castor and Pollux, when two lights appeared, and Helena when it manifested itself in the form of only one light. Helena was a bad sign, but Castor and Pollux meant happiness.

Finally, Oliveira concluded the chapter by stating that these fires were no sign of a saint, or of a miracle, but were the result of antiperistasis, which was a term used to explain various events, where one quality heightened the force of another opposing, quality. He linked the phenomenon to the ship’s rocking. The ship “sent” —as he put it— “viscous excitements”, that generated the light. Although the author emphasized that such a phenomenon could happen in many other places, like prisons, churches, over sweaty horses or even on the head of strangled prisoners, the textual tradition linked it mostly to maritime contexts. Oliveira’s explanation of the phenomenon had its origins in sailors’ experiences and accounts (oral and written, especially rutters, like D. João de Castro’s texts) of long-distance voyages, where “the living lights” were frequent signals for sailors. [Leonor Pedro & Luana Giurgevich]