Touring in 1600. Bates Ernest Stuart
and to pass the time they tried to talk Latin so that all could understand each one; but they soon abandoned the plan, as the pronunciations varied too greatly.
Nevertheless, the passing of Latin out of European conversation is to be attributed rather to the growth of Italian, and later of French, as international tongues. Gaspar Ens, who wrote a series of guides to nearly every part of Europe, says in his preface to the volume on France, "At this day their language is so much used in almost every part of the world that whosoever is unskilled therein is deemed a yokel." This was in 1609, at which date, or soon after, it was as true as a general statement can be expected to be; just as much so as the assertion in the preface to an English book in 1578: "Once every one knew Latin … now the Italian is as widely spread."19
It was only in the north that French came to rival Italian during this period, for the "lingua franca," also known as "franco piccolo," the hybrid tongue in which commerce was conducted along the shores of the Mediterranean, was so largely Italian that to the average Britisher, from whom Hakluyt drew his narratives, the two were indistinguishable; but an Italian would notice, as Della Valle did, that no form of a verb but the infinitive was used. If any one was met who knew more than two languages, he would oftenest be a Jew, who usually knew Spanish and Portuguese; the latter because the tribe of Judah, from which their deliverer was to come, was supposed to be domiciled in Portugal.
Another hybrid language, as well established in its own area as the "lingua franca," was Scot-French, so constantly in use as to have an existence as a literary dialect as well as in French burlesque. These mixed languages have no place in the ordinary book-guide to languages, but were left to personal tuition; yet in the lists of the most common phrases which Andrew Boorde appends to each of his descriptions of countries may be noted a curious instance from this borderland of philology. In both the Italian and the Spanish lists he renders "How do you fare?" by "Quo modo stat cum vostro corps?"
While we are on this subject we may stop to sympathise with awkward misunderstandings like that of the Jesuit Possevino at Moscow, when invited to (Orthodox) Mass ("obednia") with intent to compromise him; he went, thinking it was dinner ("obed") to which he had been asked. Then there are those, too, whose efforts were hopelessly below even this standard, such as Alonzo de Guzman, who suffered hunger in Germany because he only knew Spanish, and was put on the road to Bologna when he wanted to get to Cologne; or the Englishman who was trying to find that same road and went along staggering the peasantry with the question, "Her ist das der raight stroze auf balnea?" the peasantry replying by signs that he interpreted as directions, but the road led him further than ever from Baden. To which class belonged a certain friend of Josias Bodley, younger brother of the founder of the Bodleian library and author of by far the liveliest account of a tour at this period,20 will never be known, but that is no reason why the tale should not be re-told. "Not long ago I was in company with some boon companions who were drinking healths in usquebagh, when one was present who wished to appear more abstemious than the rest and would not drink with them, to whom one of them, who could not speak Latin as well as I do, said these words, 'Si tu es plus sapientis quam nos sumus, tu es plus beholden to God Almighty quam nos sumus.'" And finally there are those who find themselves reduced to sign-language, such as the Roman Catholics who found a sumptuous dinner awaiting them at a Protestant inn on a fast-day, when, to add to the trial of refusing it, was the apparent impossibility of making their wants understood, until one of their number, a priest, by the way, imitated a hen's cackle and "laid" a piece of white paper the shape and size of an egg!
While conversation-dictionaries existed which claimed to be useful their claim has no other basis than that of their own prefaces; the tourists do not own to indebtedness to them. But taking it for granted that primary needs must be served by persons, not books, for further acquirements Moryson recommends the romance of "Amadis de Gaule" which was being read by every one in his own tongue. Probably the conversation-books are of more use now than at the time of their publication, from the light they occasionally throw on customs, and, through their phoneticism, on pronunciation. Yet the tourists' own evidence as to this is more valuable, as being more authentic, when an Englishman writes "Landtaye" for "Landtage" and "Bawre" for "Bauer." As for sixteenth-century maps, they seem meant for gifts rather to an enemy than to a friend. In every department, then, the tourist had recourse to persons.
The qualifications for a first-rate guide, then and now, differ in one respect only, – that a "religious test" should be applied was taken for granted on both sides. In fact, in Scotland in 1609 an edict was issued forbidding young noblemen to leave the country without a Protestant tutor: the reason being that the great danger of a tour abroad lay in a possible change in the youngster's religion, or inclinations towards tolerance developing, with the result that his political career on his return might be dangerous to his country and himself through his being more than the just one step ahead of his fellow-countrymen which is necessary to political salvation.
The prevailing state of mind may be illustrated by one or two anecdotes. The following one Lauder tells of himself is characteristic of his kind. He had entered a church where all were on their knees: "a woman observing that I neither had gone to the font for holy water, neither kneeled, in a great heat of zeal she told me 'ne venez icy pour prophaner ce sainct lieu.' I suddenly replied: 'Vous estez bien devotieuse, madame, mais peut estre vostre ignorance prophane ce sainct lieu d'avantage que ma présence.'" William Lithgow is proud to say he quarrelled with companions simply because they were Papists, and had often seized opportunities to tear in pieces the rich garments on images rather than "with indifferent forbearance wink at the wickedness of idolaters." And an Englishman of good education and breeding and character, says that being at Malaga cathedral during High Mass "so long as we were bare-headed and behaved ourselves civilly and gravely, we might walk up and down and see everything without the least molestation." One extreme was naturally accompanied by another extreme. Sometimes the tourist's return never took place. This was the more likely when the Papacy was in a militant mood, at which times the Inquisition developed a taste for tutors; whose arrest served a double purpose, a hot antagonist was secured, unimportant enough to create no serious trouble, and the young nobleman was left undefended on his sectarian side, probably a vulnerable one. One case of many is that of John Mole,21 who died in the prison of the Inquisition at Rome in 1638 at the age of eighty, after thirty years' imprisonment; his ward, Lord Roos, having been credited with no particular desire to get him out.
A visit to Rome, however, and to other places, such as St. Omer, where "seminaries" existed for English Roman Catholics, was usually forbidden in the licence to go abroad which every Englishman had to obtain unless he was a merchant, and which was not granted without good reason shown. This contained ordinarily a time limit also, one year's leave, or three; and prohibition of communication with disloyal countrymen or entry into a State at war with England: supervision of a kind which was exercised by practically every European ruler. A Roman Catholic, for instance, incurred excommunication if he passed into a country at war with the Pope.
The precautions of Protestant sovereigns were against Roman Catholicism inasmuch as there lay political dangers, but so far as religion was concerned, as much precaution might reasonably have been taken against Mohammedanism. In no European country did ability bring a man to the top so readily as in Turkey, and being a foreigner was in a man's favour; not even at Venice was there such a mixture of nations as at Constantinople; the majority of the Grand Signor's eminent subjects were renegade foreigners. Dallam might refuse the invitation; many accepted it; and a Turk considered it only humane to give an unbeliever at least one definite invitation to salvation. An occasion which many would make use of to turn Turk was during the fortnight preceding the circumcision of the Sultan's heir. One traveller saw two hundred circumcised at such a time, many of them adult, one said to be as old as fifty-three. As a particular instance of an English "Turk" there is the case of the English Consul at Cairo in 1601. He was "taking care" of much belonging to English merchants at the time, in the possession of which the Turks no doubt confirmed him. At the same time there was an exactly similar case of a Venetian, for the same purpose. But besides the causes of the chance to rise in the world, or the attractions of others' property, there was another reason for apostacy, the chief one – mitigating the sufferings of captivity.
But the
Quoted by Einstein, p. 101.
Printed by Falkiner. See Bibliography.
See Cal. S. P. Ven., vol. ii (under "Mole," in the index).