Insights from a travel journal: travel knowledge in the late sixteenth-century Mediterranean

Abstract

This article focuses on the travel journal of Joan Seguí, a Menorcan merchant and slave redeemer apprehended by the Inquisition of Mallorca in 1582. Drawing from this overlooked journal, composed by its owner during his travels to Constantinople and preserved within Inquisition records, the article simultaneously explores what kind of knowledge was necessary for Seguí to travel and trade across the Mediterranean and the evolution of his expertise in travel across the years. Exploring the question of language acquisition and mercantile information, it analyses how Seguí built his expertise exploiting the practical knowledge circulating within merchant circles in Marseille and the Menorcan diaspora residing in the Ottoman capital. Finally, this article addresses the question of how Seguí’s writings and familiarity with Ottoman territories were reflected on by various actors: his family; the people of Menorca; the Inquisitors; and Seguí himself.

Keywords:

• travel
• mobility
• knowledge
• Mediterranean
• Balearic Islands
• Ottoman Empire

Acknowledgements

I owe special thanks to Giorgio Riello, Giuseppe Marcocci, and Giancarlo Casale for their thoughtful comments on many earlier drafts. I am also very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers who dedicated their time to reading my work. This research has also been presented within the framework of the PIMo Cost Action 18140 conference in Granada and various graduate seminars at the European University Institute in Florence. The insightful suggestions I received there as well as the help provided by Ela Bozok, Clément Fabre, Daniel Hershenzon, Margot Elmer, and Merfat Mutlak were instrumental to the writing of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Archives nationales de France (AN), K. 1675. Joan Seguí to Philip II, 7 January 1591.

2. Green-Mercado, Visions of Deliverance, 102.

3. AN, K. 1676. Joan Seguí to Philip II, 3 November 1597.

4. Braudel, The Mediterranean, vol. II, 1225; Planas, “Les Majorquins”, 122; Portella Florenci, “Joan Seguí”, 9–26; Portella Florenci, Espies menorquins a Turquia, 79–88.

5. Planas, “Les Majorquins”, 122.

6. Greene, A Shared World.

7. Crewe, “Transpacific Mestizo”, 463–485; Cook, Forbidden Passages.

8. Subrahmanyam, Three Ways to Be Alien; Ghobrial, “The Secret Life of Elias of Babylon”, 51–93.

9. Rothman, Brokering Empire, 6.

10. Ibid., 5; Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers, 4; Do Paço, “Trans-Imperial Familiarity”, 167.

11. Gomez-Géraud, Le crépuscule, 301–466; Noonan, The Road to Jerusalem, 30, 44.

12. Meuvret, “Manuels et traités”, 5–29; Jeannin, “Les manuels”, 36.

13. Stagl, “Un système de littérature”, 39.

14. Stagl, A History of Curiosity, 52.

15. Rubiés, “Instructions for Travellers”, 139–90; Stagl, A History of Curiosity, 50; Williamson, “Fishing after News”, 542–62; Carey, “Advice on the Art of Travel”, 395; Shalev, “Travel”, 820–27.

16. Stagl, A History of Curiosity, 73–74.

17. Archivo Histórico Nacional (AHN), Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19, f. 41v.

18. To the best of my knowledge, the two publications that substantially engage with Seguí’s journal are: Portella Florenci, Espies menorquins a Turquia; Portella Florenci, “Joan Seguí.”

19. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19, f. 1v.

20. Ibid., f. 6v.

21. Ibid.

22. The absence of watermarks or identifiers of any kind makes it uneasy to determine where or when Seguí obtained the paper he used in his journal.

23. Stagl, A History of Curiosity, 50.

24. Soll, “From Note‐Taking”, 355–375.

25. Queller, “The Development of Ambassadorial Relazioni”, 180.

26. Soll, “From Note‐Taking”, 363.

27. Shalev, “The Travel Notebooks”, 77–102; Pugliano, “Accountability, Autobiography and Belonging”, 183–209.

28. On diplomats’ ‘satellite archives’, see: Dover, “Deciphering the Diplomatic Archives”, 310.

29. Planas, “Les Majorquins”, 115.

30. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19, f. 13.

31. Ibid., f. 14v.

32. Bennassar and Bennassar, Les chrétiens d’Allah, 151.

33. Most likely because of the privileged relations the French Monarchy sustained with La Porte, see: Poumarède, Pour en finir.

34. Graf, The Sultan’s Renegades, 164–206.

35. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Seguí’s glossary, located at the end of the Inquisition trial, does not include any page numbers.

36. Ibid., f. 17v.

37. All Ottoman Turkish transliterations cited in this article follow the spelling of the Redhouse Sözlüğü dictionary.

38. Dursteler, “Speaking in Tongues”, 47–77; Sadovski-Kornprobst, “Multilingualism”, 217–236.

39. Kibbee, “Language Instruction”, 330; Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance, 147.

40. Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance, 142.

41. Yerasimos, “Les voyageurs”, 49–65; Henny “On Not forgetting Jerusalem”, 175–200.

42. Dursteler, Venetians in Constantinople, 37; Dursteler, “Speaking in Tongues”, 66.

43. Rothman, The Dragoman Renaissance, 143.

44. Brentjes, “Learning to Write”, 252–271.

45. Buti, Janin-Thivos, and Raveux, Langues et langages, 6.

46. Sood, “Circulation and Exchange”, 148.

47. Contrary to learned travellers, such as John Greaves, whose interest in metrology stemmed from scholarly concerns, Seguí’s was eminently practical. See: Shalev, “Measurer of All Things”, 555–575.

48. Kaiser and Buti, “Moyens, supports et usages”, 4.

49. Ibid., 1.

50. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Note no. 6 in Seguí’s journal.

51. Ibid. Note no. 7 in Seguí’s journal. The word ‘allmina’ probably refers to the almude or celemin in use in the Balearic Islands.

52. For more information on the rotol and the weights and measurements used in Seguí’s account in general, see Doursther, Dictionnaire universel des poids, 467.

53. Despite numerous mentions of Turkish foodstuffs in early modern travel accounts, it was in Marseille that Seguí recorded most information regarding previously unknown foods. On the topic, see Dursteler, “Infidel Foods”, 142–160; Dursteler, “Bad Bread”, 203–228; Dursteler, “The ‘Abominable Pig’”, 214–241.

54. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Note no. 14 in Seguí’s journal.

55. Ibid. Note nos. 57 and 58 in Seguí’s journal.

56. Ibid. Note no. 79 in Seguí’s journal.

57. Stefan Hanß, “Hair, Emotions and Slavery”, 163.

58. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Note nos. 19, 21, 22 in Seguí’s journal. The camelote refers to a fabric of solid pure wool, made from goat or camel hair. The paño pardillo refers to a cheap and resistant fabric of a brownish colour. For more information on the garments and textiles mentioned by Seguí, see Bernis, Indumentaria española; Martínez Meléndez, Los nombres de tejidos; Herrero García, Los tejidos. For a discussion of camelotes in sixteenth-century Marseille and beyond, see Chabaud, Marseille et ses industries, 85; Faroqhi, “Ottoman Textiles”, 231–245.

59. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Note no. 63 in Seguí’s journal; he probably refers here to Chian silk.

60. Phillips, “The Localisation”, 104–123.

61. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Note no. 34 in Seguí’s journal.

62. In a loose folio, Seguí describes the tomb of Habsburg ambassador to Constantinople Albert de Wyss, located in the church of Saint Francis in Galata. On the European population of Galata, see Zarinebaf-Shahr, Mediterranean Encounters, 56.

63. The size of the Balearic enslaved population living in Istanbul is difficult to ascertain from Ottoman records. As Nur Sobers-Khan points out, most western European slaves were designated under the term Ifrinj: Sobers-Khan, Slaves Without Shackles, 93.

64. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Note no. 40 in Seguí’s journal.

65. Salzberg, “Mobility, Cohabitation”, 398–418.

66. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Note no. 70 in Seguí’s journal.

67. Ibid. Note no. 73 in Seguí’s journal.

68. Baer, “Islamic Conversion Narratives”, 425–458; Dursteler, Renegade Women.

69. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Note no. 41 in Seguí’s journal.

70. Seguí’s activity as a slave-redeemer seems to have been successful, since two certificates of manumission (one for a man, the other for a woman) can be found in the papers collected by the Inquisition.

71. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Note nos. 1 and 3 in Seguí’s journal.

72. Ibid. Notes 28, 33, and 54 in Seguí’s journal.

73. Ibid. Note 18 in Seguí’s journal.

74. Collier and Billioud, Histoire du commerce, 255.

75. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Notes 5 and 23 in Seguí’s journal.

76. Ibid. Notes 17 and 24 in Seguí’s journal.

77. Ibid., f. 6v.

78. Bourguet, “A Portable World”, 379.

79. Tinguely, L’écriture du Levant, 11; Ghobrial, The Whispers of Cities, 21.

80. Yerasimos, Les voyageurs; Tinguely, L’écriture du Levant; Borromeo, voyageurs occidentaux.

81. Arrighi, Écritures de l’ambassade.

82. Ghobrial, The Whispers of Cities, 14.

83. Boumediene, La colonisation du savoir, 29.

84. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19, f. 5. Familiars served as assistants to the Inquisitors, in charge of denouncing or apprehending the accused. On the link between garments and conversion to Islam, see Bennassar and Bennassar, Les chrétiens d’Allah, 389–390.

85. See for instance the testimony of Clemente Jordan defending his father in AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1822, Exp. 23.

86. Planas, “Les Majorquins”, 125.

87. For both testimonies, see. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19, ff. 2–4. On love magic in urban settings, see: Tausiet, Urban Magic, 58–99.

88. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19, ff. 7–9.

89. Crewe, “Transpacific Mestizo”, 465.

90. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19, f. 17.

91. See for instance, Ibid., Leg. 100, Exp. 12; Leg. 1821, Exp. 11; Leg. 1706, Exp. 8; Exp. 1711, Exp. 3; Leg. 84, Exp. 10 and Leg. 1706, Exp. 3.

92. Gilbert, In Good Faith, 172.

93. AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1712, Exp. 19. Letter dated 22 August 1584.

94. Ibid. Letter dated 27 August 1584.

95. Williamson, “‘Fishing after News’”.

96. Archivo General de Simancas, CCA, Lib, 362, f. 40.

97. García-Arenal and Wiegers, A Man of Three Worlds.

Additional information

Funding

This article has received financial support from the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research.

Notes on contributors

Ana Struillou

Ana Struillou is a fourth-year PhD researcher at the European University Institute’s Department of History and Civilisation under the supervision of Giorgio Riello, Guillaume Calafat and Giancarlo Casale. Her doctorate explores the material culture of cross-regional travel across the early modern western Mediterranean. In this project, she explores the ways in which individuals adapted their practices while on the move and how religious identity may have affected these processes. Her previous research, at Exeter College (Oxford) focused on the material culture of Morisco diplomacy across early modern France and Spain. Her research interests include, amongst others, material culture, mobility and cross-religious relations in the early modern Mediterranean.