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‘More than ordinary labour’: Thomas Hyde (1636-1703) and the translation of Turkish documents under the later Stuarts1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2016

COLIN HEYWOOD
COLIN HEYWOOD*
Affiliation:
University of Hull, Maritime Historical Studies [email protected]
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Abstract

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).

Type
Part IV: Beyond the Empire
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 26 , Issue 1-2 , January 2016 , pp. 309 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2016 

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Footnotes

1

Earlier versions of this paper were delivered at a Symposium on the theme of “Diplomats and Scholars”, held at SOAS on 26 November 1982, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first British embassy to Turkey; in the Near Eastern Seminar at Leiden University on 14 April 1983; and at a Colloquium on “Istanbul et les langues orientales”, held at the Institut Français des Études Anatoliennes, Istanbul, 29–31 May 1995.

References

2 Great Britain. The National Archives (henceforth: TNA), Public Record Office (Kew/London; henceforth: PRO), State Papers (henceforth: SP) 71/25, f. 37.

3 Morgan, David, “Persian and non-Persian historical writing in the Mongol Empire”, in Hillenbrand, R., Peacock, A. and Abdullaeva, F. (eds.), Ferdowsi, the Mongols and the History of Iran (London, 2013), p. 120 Google Scholar.

4 Steiner, George, “The Retreat from the Word [1961]”, reprinted in George Steiner, Language and Silence (London, 1967), pp. 30–54 (at p. 33)Google Scholar.

5 Cf. Pirenne, Henri, Mahomet et Charlemagne (Paris and Bruxelles, 1937)Google Scholar. Lack of space inhibits further discourse on the Pirenne ‘thesis’ and the vast historiography that now surrounds it.

6 See, for the early nineteenth century, de Groot, Alexander H., “Dragomans’ careers: The change of status in some Families connected with the British and Dutch Embassies at Istanbul, 1785–1829”, in: Hamilton, Alastair, de Groot, Alexander H. and van den Boogert, Maurits H. (eds.), Friends and Rivals in the East: Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Levant from the Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century (Leiden, 2000), pp. 223–246 Google Scholar. For the final apotheosis and extinction of the Levantine dragomanate in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century, see Sir Ryan, Andrew, The Last of the Dragomans (London, 1951)Google Scholar.

7 Journey into Greece, by George Wheler Esq; In Company of Dr Spon of Lyons (London, 1682), p. 199. Cf., on Wheler, N.G. Wilson, “Wheler, Sir George”, ODNB (online edition, 2004-14).

8 Wheler, Journey into Greece, p. 199.

9 TNA (olim PRO), SP 102 (‘Royal Letters’), box 62, when last consulted, contained the majority of such documents from the later seventeenth century; a recent reorganisation, however, would appear to have partially dispersed them. At the time of writing I was unable to verify this.

10 See Çetin, Atillā, Başbakanlık Arşivi kılavuzu (Istanbul, 1979), pp. 57–58 Google Scholar.

11 British Library (BL) MS. Add. 7857: Rieu, Charles, Catalogue of the Turkish Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1888), pp. 87–90 Google Scholar. See further Heywood, Colin, “All for Love?: Luca della Rocca and the betrayal of Grabusa (1691): Documents from the British Library Nâme-i Hümâyûn defteri ”, in Schmidt, J. (ed.), Essays in Honour of Barbara Flemming (Cambridge, MA, 2002 = Journal of Turkish Studies, 26/1), pp. 353–372 Google Scholar, reprint in Heywood, The Ottoman World, the Mediterranean and North Africa (Farnham, 2013), art. II (with identical pagination).

12 University of Göttingen, Library, MSS. Turc. 29 and 30; cf. Köppel, Martin, Untersuchungen über zwei türkische Urkundenhandschriften in Göttingen (Bremen, 1920)Google Scholar; also Heywood, “All for Love”, pp. 355, n. 14, and 359, for their connections with the NHD series in Istanbul.

13 ‘Sir William Trumbull's Turkish Letter-Book’ (1687-91), TNA SP 110/88. A small number of original Turkish documents have survived among Trumbull's papers, now in the British Library: see “Appendix. The Turkish and Arabic documents in the Trumbull Papers”, published in the reprint, Writing Ottoman History: Documents and Interpretations (Farnham, 2002), art. XIV, pp. 1-23 (with separate pagination), of my “A letter from Cerrâh Mustafa Pasha, Vâlî of Tunis, to Sir William Trumbull (A.H. 1099/A.D.1688)”, The British Library Journal 19 (London, 1993), pp. 218–229.

14 For the earliest period of Anglo-Ottoman diplomatic relations, see Wittek, Paul, “The Turkish documents in Hakluyt's ‘Voyages’”, Bulletin of the Insitute of Historical Research 19 (no. 57, 1942; 1944 published), pp. 121–139 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Skilliter, S. A., William Harborne and the Trade with Turkey, 1578–1582 (Oxford, 1977)Google Scholar.

15 For certain aspects of Turkish documents from North Africa in the context of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century relations between the Regencies and the English crown, see my “The Turkish chanceries of the North African Regencies in the later seventeenth century (Notes on some Turkish documents from the National Archives)”, The Maghreb Review 40/1 (2015), pp. 51–70.

16 This would usually be done in response to an ‛arzuhāl, i.e., a petition or request from the ambassador to the Sultan, setting forth the reasons for the request.

17 For the stages in the production of an Ottoman firmān, see Heyd, Uriel, Ottoman Documents on Palestine, 1552—1615: A Study of the Firman according to the Mühimme Defteri (Oxford, 1960), pp. 13 Google Scholar ff.

18 On the Ottoman ulaklık, see inter alia my various articles on the subject (extensive bibliographic details in EI 2, VIII, pp. 800–801, s.v. “Ulak”).

19 The texts of the Turkish original and its Italian translation were copied on facing pages: cf. my “Ottoman territoriality versus maritime usage: the Ottoman Islands and English privateering in the wars with France, 1689–1714”, in N. Vatin and G. Veinstein (eds.), Insularités ottomanes (Paris, 2004), pp. 161-171.

20 On the transmission of documents between England (or Flanders) and the Porte, see C. J. Heywood, “English diplomacy between Austria and the Ottoman Empire. . ., 1689-1699” (University of London PhD thesis, 1970), pp. 32-47 and 57-60 (= Tables A/1-3 and B).

21 A series of valuable insights into the ‘English’ dragomanate at Istanbul is now to be found in Ghobrial, John-Paul, The Whispers of Cities: Information Flows in Istanbul, London & Paris in the Age of William Trumbull (Oxford, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially pp. 102 ff.

22 See Ghobrial, Whispers of Cities, pp. 102 ff.; further, Heywood, Colin, “A Buyuruldu of A.H.1100/A.D.1689 for the Dragomans of the English Embassy at Istanbul”, in Balım-Harding, Ç. and Imber, Colin (eds.), The Balance of Truth: Essays in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Lewis (Istanbul, 2000), pp. 125–144 Google Scholar, reprint in my The Ottoman World, the Mediterranean and North Africa, art. III (with identical pagination).

23 Cf. Pearson, John Batteridge, A Biographical Sketch of the Chaplains to the Levant Company, Maintained at Constantinople, Aleppo and Smyrna, 1611-1706 (Cambridge, 1883)Google Scholar.

24 On William Seaman (1606/7-1680), see Alastair Hamilton, “Seaman, William”, ODNB, online edition, 2004, and the references there collected. Seaman translated inter alia the treaty between England and Algiers concluded in 1072/1662: for the document, see TNA SP 108/1 (2). Hamilton mentions that Seaman “may have had a son”. This must be the ‘Mr. Seaman’ who also translated the letter from Mehmed, Dey of Tripoli, to William III, dated I. Rebi’ I, 1101 (3-12 Dec. 1689) (TNA SP 102/3, no. 81), and about whom we appear to know nothing. The younger Seaman's translation is at SP 102/3, unnumbered, preceding no. 79.

25 William Hayley (born c. 1657; d. 1715) was yet another native of Shropshire, a son of William Hayley, of Cleobury Mortimer. He matriculated in Oxford, 20 March 1672/3, aged 15; was chorister, clerk and fellow of All Souls. Hayley graduated B.A.1676, M.A. 1680. Foster, Joseph, Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714, II (Oxford, 1891), p. 681 Google Scholar; see further Ghobrial, Whispers of Cities, p. 45.

26 Amongst the Turkish documents translated by Hayley may be noted the following: (1) Ahmed II to William III, II. Ram. 1103 (17/27 May to 26 May/5 June, 1692. Edirne; TNA SP 102/62 (7); translation at SP 102/61 (1); (2) El-Haj Ali Pasha to William III, n.d. but contemporary with the preceding: SP 102/61 (10) and (16); (3) same to same, but circa III Zi'l-kada 1103/July-Aug. 1692, Belgrade, loc. cit, nos. (15) and (17). I have had in hand for some years a separate article (which may yet appear) on Harbord's uncompleted mission to the Porte and the Turkish documents and the English translations made by William Hayley which are connected with it.

27 Thomas Hyde was born at Billingsley, Shropshire, on 29 June 1636. His father, who held the living, was descended from the Hydes of Norbury in Cheshire. Thomas was thus a kinsman of Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon (cf. Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, III, cols. 1018-20). According to Wood (Ath. Oxon. IV, col. 522) Hyde “from his youth . . . had a natural inclination to the Eastern languages”, and began to study them under his father. In 1652 he entered King's College, Cambridge, where he came under the influence of the pioneer English orientalist Abraham Wheelocke (1593-1654), the first professor of Arabic at Cambridge and, indeed, like Thomas Adams, the founder of the chair, a Shropshire man. The Shropshire connections of Adams and Wheelocke have been pointed out by the late Professor Holt, P. M.: cf. his study “An Oxford Arabist: Edward Pococke (1604-1691)”, in Studies in the History of the Near East (London, 1973), p. 25 Google Scholar, n. 25. Hyde died in 1702/3, at the age of 66 (Wood, IV, cols. 523-4; cf. the long and appreciative article devoted to Hyde in Biographia Britannia, 6 vols in 7 parts, with continuous pagination (London 1747-66), IV, pp. 2712-2721, and the article in ODNB, s.v.; cf. also P. J. Marshall, “Thomas Hyde: Stupor Mundi”, published in the ‘Annual Report and Statement of Accounts for 1982’ of the Hakluyt Society (n.p., n.d.), pp. 1-11, which deals largely with Hyde's activities as a geographer.

28 Cf. Philip, I. G., “[A] letter from Thomas Hyde, Bodley's Librarian, 1665-1701”, Bodleian Library Record 3, no. 29 (Jan. 1950), pp. 40–45 Google Scholar.

29 Hyde also corresponded with Owen Wynne, Under-Secretary under Leoline Jenkins and his successors from April 1680 until the end of James II's reign.

30 TNA SP 102/3, no. 133: Hyde to Thomas Vernon, Oxford, 10 September 1696.

31 Sharpe, Gregory (ed.), Syntagma dissertationum quas olim . . . Thomas Hyde . . . separatim edidit (Oxonii, 1767)Google Scholar, I, p. xxiii.

32 “. . . quinque aut sex Chartulas Persicè, Surattae Indorum scriptas . . .”

33 These form the second item in Sharpe's list: “epistolas quasdam Regis Persarum de Vectigali à mercaturâ Hormuzi conservando ad Regem Carolum Persicè scriptas”. Cf. Hyde to Williamson, Oxford, 14 Sept. 1675: Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1675-6, pp. 294-296, amended on the basis of a transcript in the Bodleian (MS. Top. Oxon., f. 48, published verbatim by Philip, I. G. in the Bodleian Library Review 3 (1950), pp. 43–45 Google Scholar; cf. supra), returning Williamson's letter of a fortnight previously together with “a black Box & ye Persian things therein”, and sending a “verball Translation [of the Persian Royal Letters] as near as I can”, and complaining that he had been kept in the dark on what he terms “the state of our controversy with the Persians, viz., about the ordering of the Customes of Ormûz and the other Ports in Persia and . . . the Abuses complained of in the Overseers of the Customs and other businesses, and what hath been transacted therein between them & us of late years”.

Hyde added to his letter some terse remarks in response to Williamson's suggestion that he should undertake a catalogue of the Bodleian manuscripts, observing that his time might be better employed in oriental scholarship: “there are plenty enough of other men who can make Catalogues”, and lamenting his lack of a noble patron, “for otherwise, if a man is forced to work meerly for his bread, he cannot study what he himself would, but rather what other People please; and he is thereby constrained to spend his time in doing that which perhaps is very different or altogether contrary to the business wherein his Talent chiefly lyeth”.

34 Hyde also seems to have been the first English scholar to have had at least an acquaintance with Malay (which also at that time employed the Arabic script). See Hyde's Latin translation of Abraham Peritsol (Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol), Igeret orhot ‘olam [in Hebrew], id est, itinera mundi . . . auctore Abrahamo Peritsol (Oxonii, 1691), p. 193 (= p. 189, n. 2, continued), on the titulature of Malay and East Indian rulers, and, further, van Ronkel, Ph. S., “Zeventiende-eeuwsche beofening van het Maleisch in Engeland”, in Feestbundel . . . uitgegeven door het Koniklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, II (Weltevreden, 1929), pp. 309–315 Google Scholar (I owe this reference to my onetime SOAS colleague, Professor Merle Ricklefs).

35 Respectively, no. 6, ‘Epistolam à Principe, Deyio, Tuneti linguâ Turcicâ scriptam’, and no. 7, ‘Epistolam in eodem linguâ, & à viro ejusdem regni cum imperio, quem AGA vocant missam’.

36 This was Hyde's calculation of the ad equivalent; assuming Old Style (Julian) usage on Hyde's part, the correct ad date is 18 May 1682.

37 TNA SP 102/3, unnumbered documents.

38 Cf. Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers in the Bodleian Library, (ed.) F. J. Routledge, 5 vols (Oxford, 1869-1970), V (1660-1725), p. 235: the Dutch ambassador in Paris reports in a despatch to the States General, 2/12 July 1662, that “the English have been cheated in Lawson's treaty with Algiers and Tunis through ignorance of Turkish”. Lawson was reported to have returned to Algiers to demand reparation.

39 See § IV, below, for examples.

40 No. 17 in Sharpe's list.

41 TNA SP 102/3, no. 81.

42 Cf. Hyde's irritation in another context with careless transliteration from Ottoman: “sed maxime me movet” he complains, “in Anglicis Traductionibus videre scriptum P a c h i, & P a c h a, & P a s s a. Qui enim ejusmodi voces ex Gallico in Anglicum transcribit, debuerat rescripisse [in Arabic] B a s h i, & [in Arabic] B a s h a, cum Gallorum ch plane sonet ut Angl. sh . . . ”: “Monitium Auctoris ad Lectorem”, prefixed to his “Epistola de mensibus et ponderibus Serum seu Sinensium”, in Sharpe (ed.), Syntagma, II, pp. 409-432 (at p. 414).

43 TNA SP 102/3, no. 133: Hyde to James Vernon, Oxford, 10 September 1696.

44 TNA SP 71/25, f. 35: Hyde to Sir Leoline Jenkins, Oxford, 16 December 1682.

45 TNA SP 71/25, f. 37: Hyde to Dr Owen Wynne, Oxford, 16 December 1682.

46 TNA SP 102/3, no. 125: Hyde to James Vernon, Oxford, 5 Sept. 1696.

47 For lack of space, the specificities of Hyde's work (and that of his contemporaries) as a translator of Turkish documents cannot be entered into here. I hope to return to this subject in more detail in a future communication.