Colin Heywood

Wittek and the Austrian Tradition

If I were to offer one specific reason for our meeting today, beyond a general and justifiable intention to commemorate the contribution made to early Ottoman historical studies by the late Professor Paul Wittek, it would not be that the year 1987 marks any of the usual anniversaries in the life of our subject. Wittek, a Fellow of this Society, was the first occupant of the Chair of Turkish in the University of London, from 1948 to 1961. It is still seven years short of one hundred since he was born, on 11 January 1894, in Baden, to the south of Vienna, the son of a Gymnasium headmaster; and it is less than a decade since The Times recorded the death, at the age of eighty-four, in an outer suburb of London, of this quintessentially Austrian scholar.

Beyond Braudel’s ‘Northern Invasion’? Aspects of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean fish trade in the early seventeenth century

It is not just in recent Spanish maritime historiography that fisheries history and the history of fish have been perceived as ‘the Cinderella of early modern … economic history’. Fernand Braudel, when he was rewriting his Méditerranée more than half a century ago, took as little notice of the dried fish staple in its Mediterranean context of consumption as in its North Atlantic context of production, and he largely passes over its origin in the Newfoundland fisheries, or its share in the coming into the Mediterranean of the ‘Northern Invasion’. The same is true of his specialised study from 60 years ago on the shipping history of Livorno in the second half of the sixteenth and first decade of the seventeenth century, based on the (admittedly incomplete) Livorno port records. Equally, Braudel’s more recent commentators and re-evaluators appear to have failed to notice the connection, preferring, together with their North Atlantic colleagues, to operate ‘within the box’ of their chosen region of specialisation. The ‘big question’, therefore, which I pose in this article, may be expressed thus: ‘What came first—grain or fish?’. In other words, was the need of the Mediterranean (or at least of its north-west, ‘Christian’ quadrant) for dried salt fish more important or significant (or ultimately more long-term) than the need for grain as a trigger for the late-sixteenth century ‘Northern Invasion’? Can a case be made for there having been a serious undervaluing of the fish trade, in terms of commodity volume, the number of vessels and men involved, and its general economic impact, as a component of the complex movement of men, ships and cargoes, which made up the ‘Northern Invasion’? This article provides an analysis of the original problem and draws on a number of unpublished early-seventeenth century archival sources to offer some preliminary observations on how to go about solving it.

‘More than ordinary labour’: Thomas Hyde (1636-1703) and the translation of Turkish documents under the later Stuarts

The present short study examines the problems encountered in the translation in England of Ottoman documents addressed from the Porte or from the North African Regencies to the English Crown in the latter part of the seventeenth century. In particular it studies in some detail the translations undertaken, and the problems faced by, the polymath scholar Thomas Hyde (1636-1702/3), Librarian of the Bodleian Library in the University of Oxford and translator of Oriental documents to the Crown, but reference is also made to translations undertaken by William Seaman (1606/7-1680) and his son, and by the Rev. William Hayley (c.1657-1715).

Book Review: Sguardi mediterranei tra Italia e Levante (XVII-XIX secolo)MafriciMirella and VassalloCarmel (eds.), Sguardi mediterranei tra Italia e Levante (XVII-XIX secolo). Msida: Malta University Press [www.um.edu.mt/mup], 2012. xvii + 145 pp., figures, tables, illustrations, photographs, notes, English abstracts, index. €15, paper; ISBN 978-99909-45-69-0.

databases in historical research. Maritime historians working on historical databases of trade movements will be greatly interested in this book, though the focus on the design of historical databases and the problems encountered in that process will decrease the book’s appeal to a general public. The book and the related database would be suitable for use in university courses on historical database design. In courses on Iberian-American trade or the Iberian empires in the Americas, the database could be a valuable research tool for students.

Book Review: Victory of the West: The Great Christian-Muslim Clash at the Battle of Lepanto

than one might expect in a study of international trade. Finally, treatment of the theories of imperialism, and the literature that supports and debates them, is surprisingly lacking. This is a book rich in historical narrative that sensibly emphasizes the role of geopolitical factors in the growth of world trade. Yet its emphatic assertion of this hypothesis to the exclusion of alternatives may dilute its influence over the constituency it most needs to address the economists who elevate the comparative advantage of trade over the comparative advantage of violence.

Book Review: La caravane maritime: Marins européens et marchands ottomans en Mediterranée (1680–1830)PanzacDaniel, La caravane maritime: marins européens et marchands ottomans en Mediterranée (1680–1830).Paris: CNRS Editions [www.cnrseditions.fr], 2004. 230 pp., tables, maps, figures, photoplates, bibliography. €24, paper; ISBN 2-271-06262-4.

1630s represented a political empowerment of British women that long preceded the betterknown activities of women petitioners during the civil war period. Matar also looks at the experience of the small number of British women who became captives in Barbary and considers how they adapted to a new existence in the Muslim world. Captivity was not solely a matter of Christians falling into Muslim hands and becoming slaves. In his fourth chapter, Mater examines the much-neglected topic of Muslim captives in Christian hands. Although Moorish prisoners did find their way to gaols in the British Isles, most Muslims captured by British warships in the Mediterranean tended to be sold as slaves locally, or, after the British occupation of Tangier, sent there to work on building projects. Matar rather exaggerates the impact on the Barbary states of the increase in British and French naval power after 1650. Although the British and French were certainly better able to curb the activities of the Barbary corsairs by 1700, those activities would remain a considerable nuisance to Christian maritime states for at least another one hundred years. In his fifth chapter Matar considers the British move from maritime war and trade to physical occupation of North African territory. This was the occupation of Tangier from 1662 to 1684. Hopes that this acquisition might be the first step towards establishing a British empire in Barbary soon died. Nor did Tangier become a great trading centre. Indeed its occupation led the ruler of Morocco to take hostile action against British merchants in his country. Given the expenses of occupation and defence, the lack of any long term future finally led the British to give up Tangier. In his conclusion Matar says that the changing power relationship between Britain and Barbary over a period of one hundred years was clearly reflected on the London stage. In plays of the 1590s Moors were powerful, frightening figures; by the 1680s they were weaker characters, almost figures of fun. Yet this is a little too neat. In the 1680s British naval power was certainly beginning to curb the Barbary corsairs, but on land the balance of power was still in favour of the Muslims. The struggle over Tangier was modern Britains first land war with a Muslim power, and by finally withdrawing from that port the British clearly admitted defeat. While ranging more widely than just maritime matters, Matars well-produced book offers valuable insights into the relationship between Britain and Barbary in this period.