Trading Nautical Knowledge and Fidelities: Thomas Stukley, Traitor or a Broker?

Thomas Stukley (1525–1578) was one of the most commented English military and naval commanders of his time in Europe. Throughout his career, this English Catholic served the Kings of England (Kings Henry VII, Edward VI and Queens Mary I and Elizabeth I), France (King Henry II), Spain (King Philip II), the Papacy (Pope Gregory XIII), and Portugal (he died serving King Sebastian at the Battle of Alcazar-Quibir). Mostly mentioned as a traitor (as in the cover design below), Stukley was also a character who played a role in the processes of nautical knowledge transfer within Europe.

In late 1562, French captain Jean Ribault returned to France from his voyage of exploration to Florida. Arriving at a Dieppe under revolt against King Charles IX, the Huguenot French captain fled to England. There he met Thomas Stukley, who proposed Ribault organizing an Anglo-French expedition to Florida, profiting from French geographical knowledge accumulated during the expedition. When Ribault was jailed in the Tower of London for attempting to flee to France with his knowledge, to return to Admiral Gaspard de Coligny’s service, Stukley took his chance. He hired some of Ribault’s pilots for the expedition, and likely their French nautical rutters and cartography of Florida, and proposed personally to Queen Elizabeth I an English expedition to Florida in 1563. The Queen supported Stukley’s plan but was not aware that, in the meantime, Stukley was also negotiating with the Spanish ambassador in England to enter the service of King Philip II.

In the end, Stukley’s fleet and pilots were employed neither for an English expedition to Florida, nor to join King Philip II’s forces. As he would do several times during his career, Stukley deceived personally Queen Elizabeth I and King Philip II by not entering their service, dedicating himself to privateering. However, Stukley’s renown allowed him to obtain French geographical knowledge. His aborted voyage to Florida in 1563 also influenced all English later plans for voyages and expeditions to the area (for instance it is well-known that William Cecil ordered John Hawkins to visit Florida in his 1564 voyage).

Despite being another polemical moment in his controversial career, Stukley’s aborted English expedition to Florida in 1563 influenced English overseas plans more than it is usually assumed. More than a simple traitor, Stukley was a complex personality and one, among several others in his days, that truly recognized the value of foreign geographical knowledge to plan overseas expeditions. Like other greater explorers such as Hawkins, Drake, Ribault, and Laudonniere, Stukley knew well that he needed to accumulate all the nautical and geographical knowledge before planning his voyage. Thus, in his constant trading of fidelities, Stukley is another example of 16th-century globalization: a key-character brokering nautical knowledge between maritime players. [Nuno Vila-Santa]

Ask the Duchess! “Scientific Secrets” among Seventeenth-Century Spanish Nobility

Fray Ignacio Muñoz (ca.1608/1612-1686) was a seventeenth century Dominican friar who, in the service of the Spanish crown, produced a remarkable body of scientific work that is only recently beginning to be explored. Throughout his life he was based in the Philippines, Portuguese India, Mexico and finally Madrid. In his later years Muñoz, in addition to serving his sovereign, also placed himself in the service of Manuel López de Zúñiga y Sarmiento de Silva, tenth Duke of Béjar and Plasencia (1657-1686). In the service of this noble house Muñoz must have learned to get by in the courtly environment of his new patrons, convincing them of the benefits of his scientific talents. Interestingly, Muñoz seems to have developed a certain complicity with Teresa de Sarmiento, Duchess of Béjar and mother of his patron, since a note in the margin of his magnus opus - Observationes Diversarum Artium (ca.1660-1686) - records how they exchanged “scientific secrets”:

To cut the glass. A twine is placed on the part to be cut, sticking it subtly with wax. Once glued, the twine is powdered with ash of twigs. Then this ash is set alight with a wax candle, and as it burns the glass is cut. I saw it already cut in the possession of the Most Excellent Duchess of Béjar, D. Teresa Sarmiento, who told me this secret in May, in the year 1677 [Observationes Diversarum Artium, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Mss. 7111, Fol. 153]. [Fig.1.]

Fig. 1.

This is just one example of the scientific dynamism that could be found around the nobiliary courts of the Spanish empire in the seventeenth century, a subject that, like Muñoz’s work, still needs to be further explored. And remember, if you have any scientific doubts, just ask the Duchess! [José María Moreno Madrid]

Technical Literature in the Vernacular – 16th Century Nautical Treatises

In 1535 was published in Seville the Tratado del esphera y del arte del marear by Francisco Faleiro, a Portuguese cosmographer in the service of the Casa de la Contratación. This work, based on the Portuguese tradition of the Nautical Guides of Munich and Évora, was important for several reasons. Besides the technical innovations that it presents, such as being the first printed work to address the issue of magnetic declination, this treatise played a key role in the genesis and definition of the new genre of technical literature that emerged in the early sixteenth century in the Iberian Peninsula - the nautical treatises. This type of texts emerged as a consequence of advances in oceanic navigation and of the need for pilots and sailors who knew how to perform it. Thus, these texts are an attempt to compile and organize all the knowledge one needed to the practice of oceanic navigation.

Nautical treatises had the peculiarity of being aimed at a very specific audience - pilots and sailors, who were usually people with low levels of education. It was then necessary to find a simple way to make accessible to this group of people the knowledge needed for astronomical navigation, which included the basics of cosmography and the regiments of navigation.

One of the innovations we see in these type of texts is the language in which they are written. Although they dealt with topics belonging to the intellectual and university sphere (such as cosmography), these works, instead of being written in Latin, were written in the vernacular, as they were intended for uneducated people.

At the beginning of his work, Francisco Faleiro explains his choice for the vernacular:

And, because the wise do not want to descend to write the secrets that they reach in this among them so despised way of speaking, those who do not reach Latinity lack the secrets that are written in it. And since I am not able to eat at the table of the wise and would be content with the part that the Canaanite chose as good, I wanted to write with my rude pen and humble thought, submitting myself to the emendation and correction of better wit, this simple treatise in our Castilian language in this crude style, so that those who, like me, do not reach the polished Latinity, do not for this lack fail to know something by natural reason of the admirable works and marvels of God.

Writing in Latin allowed the works to overcome the physical barriers of their country and to be read by a larger number of people. It might seem, then, that writing in the vernacular would restrict works to their country of origin, not allowing them to circulate. However, this was not the case with the treatises of navigation. Faleiro’s Tratado influenced works such as Pedro de Medina’s Arte de Navegar, or Martín Cortés’ Breve compendio de la sphera y de la arte de navegar, which had numerous editions and translations into other European languages, becoming the models of manuals for other nations that were beginning to navigate the high seas.[Carmo Lacerda]