(Dis)connected Empires

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Biedermann
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Portuguese Empire ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of

(Dis)connected Empires takes the reader on a global journey to explore the triangle formed during the sixteenth century between the Portuguese empire, the empire of Kōtte in Sri Lanka, and the Catholic Monarchy of the Spanish Habsburgs. It explores nine decades of connections, cross-cultural diplomacy, and dialogue to answer one troubling question: why, in the end, did one side decide to conquer the other? To find the answers, this book explores the imperial ideas that shaped the politics of Renaissance Iberia and sixteenth-century Sri Lanka. It argues that, whilst some of these ideas and the political idioms built around them were perceived as commensurate by the various parties involved, differences also emerged early on. This prepared the ground for a new kind of conquest politics, which changed the inter-imperial game at the end of the sixteenth century. The transition from suzerainty-driven to sovereignty-fixated empire building changed the face of Lankan and Iberian politics forever, and is of relevance to global historians at large. Through its scrutiny of diplomacy, political letter-writing, translation practices, warfare, and art, (Dis)connected Empires paints a troubling panorama of connections breeding divergence and leading to communicational collapse. It explores a key chapter in the pre-history of British imperialism in Asia, highlighting how diplomacy and mutual understandings can, under certain conditions, produce conquest. It also connects the histories of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. This is a timely intervention in the current debate on the future of Global History.

The Catholic Recusancy of the Yorkshire Fairfaxes. Part I.

1956 ◽  
Vol 3 (02) ◽  
pp. 68-114
Author(s):  
Hugh Aveling
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Personal Choice ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Landed Gentry

In the middle ages the Fairfaxes ranked amongst the minor landed gentry of Yorkshire. They seem to have risen to this status in the thirteenth century, partly by buying land out of the profits of trade in York, partly by successful marriages. But they remained of little importance until the later fifteenth century. They had, by then, produced no more than a series of bailiffs of York, a treasurer of York Minster and one knight of the shire. The head of the family was not normally a knight. The family property consisted of the two manors of Walton and Acaster Malbis and house property in York. But in the later fifteenth century and onwards the fortunes of the family were in the ascendant and they began a process of quite conscious social climbing. At the same time they began to increase considerably in numbers. The three main branches, with al1 their cadet lines, were fixed by the middle of the sixteenth century – the senior branch, Fairfax of Walton and Gilling, the second branch, Fairfax of Denton, Nunappleton, Bilhorough and Newton Kyme, the third branch, Fairfax of Steeton. It is very important for any attempt to assess the strength and nature of Catholicism in Yorkshire to try to understand the strong family – almost clan – unity of these pushing, rising families. While adherence to Catholicism could be primarily a personal choice in the face of family ties and property interests, the history of the Faith in Yorkshire was conditioned greatly at every point by the strength of those ties and interests. The minute genealogy and economic history of the gentry has therefore a very direct bearing on recusant history.

scholarly journals Dynamics and Stability in the Encounters between Asian Buddhists and European Christians

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Berkwitz
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Cultural Encounters ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
The Face ◽  
Patterns Of Interaction

The aim of this paper is to theorize broadly about how cultural encounters between Asian Buddhists and European Christians spurred various efforts to demarcate, systematize, and stabilize religious traditions. It focuses on the dynamics seen in Buddhist responses to contact situations from the sixteenth century onwards in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Japan in order to map out some patterns of interaction among these communities. Theories of cultural imitation and independence do not suffice to theorize interreligious encounters in these cases. Using select examples, this paper will contend that Asian Buddhists often responded to various kinds of European interventions by redefining and reimagining the Buddhist tradition in new ways in order to argue for its continued validity and to secure its stability in the face of external encounters and pressures.

Muslim Missions to Early Modern France, c.1610-c.1780: Notes for a Social History of Cross-Cultural Diplomacy

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 223-244
Author(s):  
Mathieu Grenet
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Early Modern France ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Modern France ◽  
Royal Courts ◽  
History Of

This essay challenges traditional views on cross-cultural diplomacy by making the case for a social history of “Muslim” missions to early modern France. Calling for both a deeper understanding of the historical phenomenon and a broad reassessment of the research strategies at stake, it points to some hitherto unexplored issues, such as the lengthy duration of these missions, the many social interactions between Muslim envoys and French people, and the rather unspectacular nature of the “Oriental” presence even in inland regions of Europe distant from royal courts and capital cities. The essay stresses the necessity of taking a longer view of the presence and reception of foreign envoys, while also arguing against traditional court-centric perspectives in order to challenge the monolithic picture of cross-cultural exchanges as happening between two discrete cultural entities. Finally, advocating for a more fluid approach to these contacts and relations, it calls for a better understanding of the role of French royal interpreters in articulating figures and motifs of otherness.

scholarly journals From Anatolia to Aceh

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-117
Author(s):  
Philipp Bruckmayr
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Funded Research Project ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Scholars of Islam in Southeast Asia and the history of the Malay-Indonesianworld have long been aware of periods of intense contacts between the OttomanEmpire and the region. Most widely known in this context are the politicalexchanges between the Sultanate of Aceh and the Ottoman Empire ofthe sixteenth century in the face of Portuguese maritime domination in SoutheastAsia. Regional calls for Ottoman aid against the expanding Europeanpowers by Muslim rulers were voiced in the nineteenth century. Despite thislapse in documented political contacts, however, connections between the tworegions were also sustained and developed further throughout the interveningcenturies on a variety of levels, most prominently in the economic, religious,and intellectual spheres.Despite the pioneering work of scholars such as Anthony Reid since the1960s, these connections, including inter alia the holy cities and Yemen’sHadhramaut region, both important centers of Islamic learning for SoutheastAsian Muslims and the source of strong migrant communities settling in theMalay-Indonesian world, have received scant scholarly attention. It is againstthis background that the British Academy-funded research project “Islam,Trade, and Politics across the Indian Ocean” and the volume at hand, whichrepresents one of its major fruits, brings together new innovative research onall of the various aspects of this particular relationship. Hereby it must benoted that its scope extends at times well beyond the Ottoman era also intothe Republican era, and that, importantly, much of the documentary evidencerelied upon derives from newly discovered archival sources.The volume is divided into three thematic parts, preceded by two introductorychapters by the editors and Anthony Reid, respectively, which set thestage for the remainder of the book by reviewing the relationship’s general ...

The Keyboard Recital in Oriental Diplomacy, 1520–1620

1990 ◽  
Vol 115 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Woodfield
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
Good Effect ◽  
Mechanical Device ◽  
European Organization ◽  
Similar Treatment ◽  
Portuguese Empire ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Old Portuguese ◽  
Fierce Competition

The giving of gifts or ‘bribes’ in return for official favours was an immutable fact of life in oriental society that Europeans who travelled to the East in the service of religious or commercial interests had no choice but to accept. Permission to open a trading station or a mission would rarely be granted unless the request were accompanied by a present of some substance. The initial gift, moreover, would inevitably inspire many demands for similar treatment by subordinate officials in whose hands lay considerable power to disrupt the ordered patterns of daily life. The choice of suitable objects for presentation was thus an abiding concern of every European organization with interests in the East. There was general agreement that cheap trinkets which might be used to good effect to buy off an African chief would be regarded as an insult in any of the great oriental courts. To appear before the Sultan or the Great Mughal with a feeble or even a mildly inadequate offering was to put at risk the very interests in which the gifts were given. Failure to please could be doubly damaging if a rival European organization were able to make good the disappointment. A balance had therefore to be struck between the need for goods that displayed the best aspects of European artistry, craftsmanship and mechanical ingenuity and the need to keep costs to a reasonable level. The musical gift which most closely matched these requirements was a keyboard instrument of some kind: a harpsichord, for instance, could be painted attractively and displayed as an objet d'art; with its method of sound reproduction, it could also be presented as a mechanical device; it was certain to be regarded as a novelty; and, most important of all, the costs of its manufacture and transportation and the wages of the single musician hired to accompany it would not be prohibitive. For all these reasons, organs, harpsichords and virginals occupy a very significant place in the history of Renaissance oriental diplomacy, especially during the period from c. 1575 to c. 1625 when the old Portuguese empire began its decline in the face of fierce competition from the commercial interests of the Dutch and English nations.

A Dissenting Voice: The Clash of Trade and Warfare in Giovanni da Empoli's Account of His Second Voyage to Portuguese Asia

Itinerario ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Matteo Salonia
Keyword(s):  
Indian Ocean ◽  
South Asia ◽  
International Markets ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Portuguese Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Early Phases

Abstract Giovanni da Empoli's second voyage to Asia (1510–1514) was eventful and violent, characterised by the emergence of conflicting agendas among different groups of Portuguese. The Florentine merchant's long letter about the voyage is an extraordinary document, and provides insights in three important areas. First, it allows us to fill some of the gaps in the history of the early phases of Portuguese empire building, questioning the extent to which the Crown was pursuing a clear and coherent strategy that included the conquest of Malacca. Second, it problematises further our conception of “the Portuguese” by reporting episodes of Portuguese-on-Portuguese violence and opposing views on the objectives of Portuguese fleets in the Indian Ocean. Finally, Giovanni unequivocally expresses admiration for the international markets of Eastern city-ports and openly criticises the militarist attitude and lawless tactics of the Portuguese viceroy, Alfonso de Albuquerque, thereby inviting us to reconsider the chronology of a “cosmopolitan reaction” among Italian writers visiting South Asia.

Fellowship and Freedom

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Leng
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Worlds ◽  
Trading Company ◽  
Northwest Europe ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of

This is the first modern study of the Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers—sixteenth-century England’s premier trading company—in its final century of existence as a privileged organization. Over this period the company’s main trade, the export of cloth to northwest Europe, was overshadowed by rising traffic with the wider world, whilst its privileges were continually criticized in an era of political revolution. But the company and its membership were not passive victims of these changes; rather, they were active participants in the commercial and political dramas of the century. Using thousands of neglected private merchant papers, the book views the company from the perspective of its members, in the process bringing to life the complex social worlds of early modern merchants. It addresses the challenge of maintaining corporate unity in the face of internal disagreements and external attacks. It restores the centrality of the Merchant Adventurers within three important historical narratives: England’s transition from the margins to the centre of the European, and later global, economy; the rise and fall of the merchant corporation as a major form of commercial government in premodern Europe; and the political history of the corporation in an era of state formation and revolution.

Theoretical Approaches to Sri Lankan History and the Early Portuguese Period

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 190-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Strathern
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Sri Lankan ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Thinking ◽  
A Site

In the past twenty years or so the history of Sri Lanka has become a site of vibrant controversy, largely because the current ethnic conflict has loaded any kind of reflection on the historical boundaries of political, ethnic or religious identity with an immediate emotional charge. The intellectual reverberations of post-colonialism and the vigorous contributions of anthropologists have added rich strata of theoretical thinking. However, despite one or two calls to the contrary, the periods of Portuguese (1505-1658) and Dutch influence (1658-1796) in the island have tended to moulder on the periphery of these debates. The purpose of this article is to bring some of this thinking to bear on the evidence from the sixteenth century in order to stimulate fresh perspectives on both the events of that time and the models themselves. With the arrival of the Portuguese and their increasing involvement in the affairs of the island during the long reign of Bhuvanekabahu VII (1521-51), the darkness of the Kotte period is suddenly illuminated by wonderfully detailed flashes of events. The flurry of letters written by contemporary Portuguese settlers, officials and missionaries, and the attentions of Portuguese chroniclers such as João de Barros, Diogo do Couto, Gaspar Correia and Fernão de Queirós bring quite new forms of evidence into the historian's purview.

Introduction

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hingley
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Roman History ◽  
British History ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
Empire Building ◽  
Physical Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

This book examines the impact of the discovery of physical evidence for Roman Britain between the late sixteenth and the early twentieth centuries. My earlier work, Roman Officers and English Gentlemen, explored how the Roman past of Britain was articulated as an aspect of ‘imperial discourse’ in British late Victorian and Edwardian society, how the Roman history and monuments of Britain were used to construct an imperial ancestry for contemporary Britain. The Roman empire, and Roman Britain in particular, were drawn upon to provide powerful contrasts and comparisons between the superpowers of their respective ages, drawing out morals and lessons for the contemporary imperial age. This book seeks to address the value of ideas derived from Roman Britain in the construction of British nationhood and in the context of empire-building, but with a far longer chronological perspective. Before the later sixteenth century, people in Britain had thought and written about the Roman past, but conventional wisdom suggests that it is only from this time that a self-critical and conscious appreciation of the classical writings that addressed Britain emerged. It is also from this time that the value of past objects and sites started to be recognized. In studying the ways that objects and remains from the pre-Roman and Roman past were received, we shall see that the increasing comprehension of the significance of ancient objects was itself a result of the gradual acceptance of the authority of the classical texts that referred to pre-Roman and Roman Britain. Knowledge of the culture and history of ancient Britain prior to this time was communicated through a series of mythical tales that presented a heroic picture of the ancient past. For the English, this ‘old British history’ presented what Philip Schwyzer has called a ‘grand and sprawling narrative’, derived mainly from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain, c.1136). These powerful ideas related the initial peopling of these islands to Brutus and his followers who had fled the sack of Troy. During medieval times, various associated stories had been elaborated around mythical and semi-mythical ancient rulers of Britain, including Cymbeline and Lear.

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