The Flanders Galleys, 1485: Part One

An earlier entry told about Bartolomeo Minio's disastrous voyage to Flanders with the trade muda, fleet, for 1485.  This entry and the next print Minio's commissione from Doge Giovanni Mocenigo of 12 April 1485, with the details of his appointment as captain.

* * * * * *

Salary for the voyage 600 golden ducats, with which, besides servants, he is to keep a clerk, priest, notary, an admiral -- for which board, and not his pay, he is alone responsible -- and two physicians. The salaries of the captain, musicians,¹ physicians and others to be paid as usual by the masters. For the present year, each galley to have (at the cost of the galleys) 30 good arbalast men² from 20 to 50 years of age, with a monthly salary of 19 livres -- each livre containing for light "solidi" -- and galley rations as usual, like the oarsmen; with the understanding moreover, that amongst the said arbalast men there be included four noble youths for each galley, and no more; the which noblemen to he boarded by the masters of the galleys, who are also to pay them their full salaries going and returning, according to the act passed in this matter. Amongst the aforesaid stipendiaries, the masters to take with them one competent adviser for each galley, with a monthly salary of 10 ducats in money, to be paid by the masters who are to board them; the said adviser to be in lieu of one of the arbalast men appointed to each galley,

On the day of his arrival at Sluys the captain to engage a courier for Venice, and inform all the merchants that they may write if they please, dispatching him on the morrow at the farthest, with news of the date of his entry into port; to send a second courier in like manner after a fortnight's interval. 

On the homeward voyage each galley to bring 120,000 weight of light goods, under penalty, &c.; and the masters in Flanders or England to obtain from the merchants 80,000 weight of copper and tin for each galley and no more. The merchant shippers of the said tin and copper to be paid four ducats for each 1,000 weight avoirdupois. 

With the first freight, money received by the captain, he is to pur­chase "in the west" four pieces of ordnance for each galley; to be given to the arsenal on the return.

The masters to be at liberty to remain one month and half more than usual between Bruges and London, and to touch on the out­ward voyage at Palermo and Messina.

On his departure from Flanders and return to England, the cap­tain to remain either at Sandwich or Southampton for 90 days. To be at liberty to touch at Alicant or not; and on the homeward voyage he has also the option of touching at Pisa and Talamone, and of sending thither one or more galleys.

The masters, before being confirmed by the Senate, to deposit at the Accountant's Office one half of the money required for the usual presents made in the Signory's name to the King of England³ and the Duke of Burgundy⁴; the other half to be disbursed on their return, under penalty.
 

Should the galleys be detained at Sluys by the ice beyond the term assigned them, the extra days to be deducted from those appointed for the stay in Hampton, provided always that the mer­chandise be disposed of. within the said term. 
 

On the voyage toward Venice, the galleys to touch at the usual ports; and on the way, both out and home, should the masters deem it advantageous, they are allowed to go to Malaga and Almeria; though should the country be at all in a disturbed state, the captain alone to decide thereon: if they go, they may remain three days in each of those places. When in the waters of Almeria, the captain to dismiss the galley which is to return by the Barbary ports, touching at One, Oran, Tunis, and the other places for which it may have goods, remaining but three days at each; shipping all goods along the coast, either from port to port, or for Venice, exacting the same freight money as the Barbary galleys, and receiv­mg it at the same date. 
 

The master of the aforesaid galley forbidden to take from any Venetian subject more than 25 ducats freight money for each thou­sand weight of cloth. The goods of Venetians to be shipped before those of foreigners ; and first of all the galley to load for Barbary. If unable to obtain a full cargo for that district, she may then take the entire surplus freight of the other galleys bound for Venice; and after touching at the Barbary ports she is then to go to Syracuse. 

 

Term of payment for the freights of cloths and wools, 16 months from the day of the arrival of the galleys at Venice; for tin and wrought pewter, 8 months; for all goods loaded in Malaga, Majorca, and Sicily, 6 months.

On making the island of England, the captain to dismiss the two galleys bound to London; and should there be more spices for Sluys than contained in the two galleys destined for that port, in that case one of the two London galleys, namely, the one which does not carry the [vice ]captain, to go to Sluys, and after lauding the spices return to. London as customary of late years. The galleys, on going to any place in England, not to load or unload any thing soever under penalty of 500 ducats,&c.; and under the like penalty the captain.is bound to go to Sluys, for the avoidance of such peril as incurred by the galleys of late years. 

 

The London galleys being dismissed, the captain is then to go with the others to Sluys, there to remain. for 60 days, those of arrival and departure not included; and on their expiration, he is to proceed either to Sandwich or Hampton, as shall seem best to him; and in the port thus selected he is to remain and load for 60 (sic) days, and then return to Venice. Ten days before departure from England, the masters to unship the windlasses; and no longer load anything," under penalty of 500 ducats; and in like manner the sailing masters and "comiti," and all the other stipendiaries [of the Sluys·~ galleys] are prohibited from going to London; with the exception of: the admiral when directed by the captain for matters concerning] the galleys, under penalty; &c. 

 

Of the two London galleys, one to be chosen either by agreement or lot, to return by the coast of Barbary; shipping first of. all in England fine cloths and merchandise, save that neither copper nor tin, nor vessels of those metals, are to be imported into Barbary; under penalty of 500 ducats, &c. 

 

The masters both in Flanders and England, and also at all intermediate ports, on their return, to load all such goods as shall be brought them for Venice, until the very last hour of their depar­ture (sic) ; which goods, if left behind for the sake of taking others for the intermediate ports, or on any other account, they to make good the loss incurred by such rejection, and pay the arsenal the freight which will be deducted from their "bounty.' The consuls both in, London and Bruges to keep account of all merchandise presented for Venice; and on the homeward voyage, the captain, in Flanders, England, and all ether places; is to keep account, with the "writer's assistant" and his chaplain, of all goods preeented for Venice, whether, shipped or not; and this note he is to consign to the Signory on his arrival. 

(to be continued)

1Musicians: probably the trumpeters by whom movements and orders were signalled.

2Arbalast men: crossbowmen.

3Richard III.

4Philip the Handsome.

Text taken from Rawdon Brown, Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts (London, 1864) , Vol. 1: #492. The translation and editing within the text is his. Rawdon Brown owned the original commission, but it is not now listed in the Rawdon Brown papers in the British Library.

The Greek Charts of Piri Re'is

Athens.
All images are taken from

Piri Reis and His Charts

by Mine Esiner Özen (1998).

The most down-loaded images in several years on Surprised by Time are two I used here from Piri Re'is -- Crete and the Argolid , so I am offering today a collection of his images of Greek ports, from a Kitab-ı Bahriye edition of 1521. Note that whatever the orientation of the map, a heavy arrow usually points North. Perhaps a reader will be able to explain the variations.

 Agia Mavra

 Agion Oros

Chios

Lesbos

Naxos

  Samos

  Rhodes

 Rhodes-Marmaris

 

 Nauplion, green coastline, Argos lower left, extant river of Lerna
at bottom. Chesepritri just above red circle.

When your father is the Emperor

  The Palaiologos family, 1408.  

[Note: I have obtained new information which has changed my mind somewhat about Manuel as a father. I no longer agree with what I have written here.]

I have lately been writing a chapter on the brothers Palaiologos, one that has made me quite sad.  It is clear that John, Theodoros, Andronikos, Constantine, Demetrios, and Thomas have to be examined both in parallel -- they are always written about in isolation -- and they have to be considered within the atmosphere created by their father, Manuel II. Manuel was fundamentally a good man.  He had remarkable endurance and courage. He was an outstanding emperor. He loved his sons -- and in the addresses to John (below) he calls him φίλτατε, dearest, but he often demonstrated it in ways that must have often been imperceptible to them. I could write another chapter analyzing aspects of Manuel's life and how it might have affected his attitudes towards his sons, but that does not belong in this book.

Sphrantzes' account of his own relationship with Manuel, one he considered generous and loving, and one of which he was intensely proud, is instructive.  If, perhaps, not taken completely as gospel, it still reflects a teenager's perspective. He wrote, "When I became a personal minister to [the Emperor], [Constantine] was able to obtain through me many favors he needed from his father." Manuel could be indulgent to his young attendant where he could not be indulgent directly to his son. 

An example of Manuel's attitude as a father comes from his commentary he wrote to his compilation of dream interpretation. In a completely gratuitous comment he says, "The affection [for a small child] will be short because (as I have observed) Greek children are especially prone to lose their charm after two or three years of age."

This is the age, as parents will recognize, when children discover the use of the word, "No"; the age when they sometimes strive fiercely for the independence they are not yet capable of using. They tend to fall a lot, have tantrums, be more difficult to manage than a month or so ago when they were perfectly loveable.  This is the age when they leave babyhood and begin to become human beings.This is clearly not the first time Manuel has expressed this view, as he says, and although there is no hint as to the date of the composition of this book, or of the manuscript, the totally extraneous nature of the comment in its location supports the idea that this was in fact his view of small children.

 In his recent dissertation, Florin Leonte has made abundantly clear Manuel's style of fatherhood, although Leonte's  primary concern is with the rhetorical devices and genre to be found in Manuel's various orations and philosophical treatises. I am basing these next comments on my understanding of Leonte.

About the time the family portrait above was painted -- John would have been 16 or so and had been made co-ruler, as you can tell by his dress which is just like his father's, Manuel addressed to him a long essay, Ὑποθῆκαι βασιλικῆς ἀγωγῆς, or Foundations of Imperial Conduct. In this he referred to John as a μειράκιον, a boy, who spent more time hunting and playing than he did studying. It is striking to learn that John, whom we can see as nearly obsessive about hunting in 1438 and 1439, had already become so attached to this physical and emotional outlet.  (I should add that by 16, John had already mastered the byways of extremely complex and formal Byzantine Greek, however much playing he had been doing.) Or that his father thought him so attached.  But then, Manuel mentions that he has given John a horse and an eagle -- wonderful presents for any boy -- and that now he is giving him more formal training. 

 

Then by 1410 when John was 18 and thus of age, Manuel followed the Foundations with seven Orations. Leonte thinks these orations were delivered in public, before an audience focused on John. In the sixth Manuel criticized John for mistakes, in the seventh for rudeness and being critical, never complimenting John or pointing out any strengths. (This from a man commonly known to have a violent temper.) However much John needed correction, it is painful to think of what must have been the effect of hearing himself publicly lectured and criticized by his father. There is evidence from later in his life that criticism, and conflict, would intensify an already chronic illness, while the pattern of humiliation set so early accompanied John even after death. Consider the incidents of his forced marriage to a woman extremely unattractive to him, his having to take jewels to pawn in Venice, his having to be carried in to the first session of the Council of Union, his rejection by the clergy and people of Constantinople after his return from the Council, his long illness, and the church’s refusal of Christian burial to his body -- all of them public demonstrations of inadequacy. 

 

Speaking both as father and as emperor, Manuel addressed the Orations to ethical concerns -- pleasure in the fifth, courtesy to courtiers in the seventh, and there is much internal evidence that these are statements about previous conversations between father and son. Manuel used Plato, Aristotle, and the Bible as his authorities, arguing that true happiness could only be found by right action and education, and humility was the highest virtue a person could attain. Despair (ἀπόγνοσις) and judgment of others’ conduct led the list of sins. There is much that is interesting in these Orations, but my concern here is the unconscious cruelty in the humiliation of a bright and sensitive boy, young man, any boy or young man, in public.

It is difficult to think that these texts, or similar letters, would not have been urged on the younger sons for study in their roles as rulers -- the second says, "it is necessary for us to say what we think about this issue for your pleasure and equally for the benefit of those who would come across this work" -- and that Manuel, when visiting Theodoros and Andronikos in their despotates, would not have spent considerable time repeating many of the points he had directed to John.

Constantine well-internalized his father's remarks on duty, not from these Orations but from the Dialogue on Marriage: "But a ruler’s and an emperor's duty is to accept any risk in order to save his people, and to regard dying a light burden, whenever freedom is at stake and whenever the risk concerns . . . Faith." Typically, John Barker in his biography of Manuel gives great attention to the manuscript provenances of these Orations but says nothing about their contents, and certainly nothing about Manuel as a father, even while criticizing John as "mediocre."

We know nothing of the attitude of Helena towards the children at any age -- she bore ten, and saw seven of them die, five of them as children. The only clue of her feelings towards any of them comes when John returned to Constantinople, emotionally ravaged and physically ill from the Council of Union, the dangerous winter voyage, and the death of his wife -- his mother refused to pray for him as emperor because of his support of Union. Constantine has always been considered particularly close to their mother -- he was named for her father, the second child to be so named, and he seemed to have used the Dragaś name -- but she also refused to pray for him in turn as emperor because of his support of Union. 

This family isolated its children, even from each other. The boys appear to have had their own households, tutors, and staffs, at about the age of seven.  Andronikos was sent off to Thessaloniki as Despot at the age of 8, Theodoros to Mistra at the age of 8 or 10.

It is not enough to say that such treatment was typical of the upper-class late Byzantine family, or normal within the Palaiologos family.  It still created lonely children.

Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure

 Odysseus on Kalypso's shore

Book Five of the Odyssey begins with the bare mention of Tithonos, beloved of rosy-fingered Dawn. That is all, but it is enough to create horror, because Tithonos, given immortality by the goddess, could not die.  He lay in a corner of an unused room  like the dried husk of a grashopper, begging to be allowed to die. When we finally see Odysseus, it is from the back -- a grieving man on the shore, seven years now with the death goddess.  That image of Tithonos-Odysseus was with me in recent years whenever I read yet another article by some male visitor about Patrick Leigh Fermor -- still alive, still drinking down in Mani, and it was my understanding of the remark Maggie Rainey-Smith reported hearing him make, "We may just forget to die!"

I have been reading Artemis Cooper's new, "official" biography of Fermor, Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure, and it has left me deeply saddened.  At the outset, I should say that there is no introduction, no statement by Cooper as to what she intends, and what she will  or will not be covering.  The reader is free to make interpretations based on the evidence she presents, and that I have done here.  I could make others.  Cooper gives little analysis and has little depth, although there are on occasion a few sentences of explanation for a situation.  She and her family have been life-time friends of PLF* and Joan Eyres Monsell, and if she has deeper understandings of situations and problems than she reveals, she has chosen reticence. 

So what we have in this book is a great deal more in the way of incidents of evidence for the mythology of charm, brilliance, heroism, physical daring, and incomparable companionship to be found in the T. E. Lawrence-Lord Byron of my lifetime -- and another problem with Cooper's evidence is that it only concerns the beautiful and famous: she says nothing about PLF's many-year relationship with my friend, Jon van Leuven, who cataloged his library (although she misspells his name), nothing as to whether PLF memorized, or even knew, for example, the great Greek poet Nikos Gatsos.   And the multiplication of incidents contribute less to the charm than they chip away.

Perhaps that is Cooper's subtlety, her way of avoiding direct confrontation with the great darkness so well-concealed from the world by the flashes of brilliance perpetually recycled.  Perhaps it is simply unavoidable.  Rather than charm, we see the frantic burden of being PL, a man desperate for love and acceptance, a man who desired women less because of lust than because of a craving for sweetness and the comfort of being held. But this makes for a great problem with the mythology and Cooper is reasonably candid in showing how Joan gave him money for his amours, and their early cessation of sexual relations while remaining the closest of companions for fifty more years.  Cooper offers no real insight into this matter which seems to me of profound importance, but when I read of Joan's violent miscarriages -- one of them with PLF's child at a point when she was painfully eager for him to marry her -- and then the sexual withdrawal on her side, I begin to wonder about matters such as chronic pelvic inflammatory disease.  Especially after reading about his personal hygiene.

True, this is extremely intimate and Joan's sense of privacy would not have allowed her to mention such a thing.  But as a city person, deeply committed to clean sheets and frequent hot baths, the issue of PLF's concern for cleanliness was always a problem for me in reading his books.  Cooper's casual remarks about his casualness at sharing sexually-transmitted infections builds an impression of almost criminal negligence.  Both here and with the frequent reports of massive amounts of alcohol, Cooper neglects responsibility as a biographer.  Surely she could have given us some sense as to whether his sexual and drinking behavior was fairly typical of his milieu -- there is an astounding amount of alcohol in books by his contemporaries and books about the period, or whether they were more particularly exclusive to his character.

The many reports by visitors of his astounding ability to recall poetry takes on another cast, when you read Cooper's accounts of people walking out on interminable recitations, and insults given by hyper-competition. The drinking -- which I discussed briefly in my entry when he died -- has taken a new light in my mind.

I have never been fond of PLF's obsessivelyadjectival, intensely emotional style of writing, while loving the incidents and the characters. But the mounding of language, the obsessive quoting, and the drinking, the hyper-activity, the pushing of physical borders, have come together in my mind in another construct. Suppose PLF was -- not hyperlexic: that word has been taken -- suppose he was the far extreme of dyslexic? Suppose the rush of words and images was so intense, so noisy, that the recitations were a way of releasing the pressure, and the drinking atemporary means of muting the noise and slowing down the rush?

Cooper shows him constantly going off for two weeks or a month to a cottage in England or a windowless tower in Italy, or a shack on a beach to try to get some writing done -- usually with some bright and lovely woman, and what lovely women they were!  Most of us have been aware of the non-appearance of the third volume of the walk to Constantinople.  But suppose that, unlike most of us who have to coax words out one step at a time in thin threads, PLF was trying to prevent himself from being trampled by the hordes that would not stop rushing at him? Andersen's "Red Shoes" about the girl who could not stop dancing haunted my childhood, and I am wondering if this is much of the PLF story.

I wanted to know a good bit more about Joan Eyres Monsell than Cooper has chosen to tell.& Cooper gives biographical information, but precious little insight.  Essentially she says about Joan what one of his male drinking visitors wrote me: "Joan was extremely reticent and really didn't want to be written about--that was part of it. She was shy of being photographed--at least when I knew her."  Really, there is no point in biography if the subject dictates the content. The visitor also wrote: "As I say in my own book, Joan was an old soul, wiser than Paddy."

PLF knew this, treasured it, and was grateful.  Joan died in June 2003.  Cooper writes: "Paddy . . . would spend hours lying on her bed, gazing at the white arch that framed the window and the olive tree beyond, and it took a long time to get used to the loneliness. 'I constantly find myself say, "I must write -- or tell -- that to Joan"; then suddenly remember that one can't and nothing seems to have any point.  Then I remember all those happy years and what undeserved luck one had had, and the tears shift a bit . . ' "  (That juxtaposition of olive tree and marriage and bed . . .)

 
There is much more in the biography than I have addressed here. I grieve for the erosion of the myth: I grieve more for the private persons.

* I use PLF because in the milieu from which I came, "Paddy" -- which apparently everyone called him -- was an extremely derogatory term for an Irishman, and I have never felt right with it.  


The Patrick Leigh Fermor Archives.

Cretan Defenses, 1502

Crete, by Piri Re'is

 From July 1500 through August 1502, Bartolomeo Minio was Venetian captain of Crete, which meant that he had primary responsibility for the defense of the island, and was second in command after the Captain General of the Fleet for the defense of the stato da mar.  In June 1502 he was finally able to make a tour of the defenses of Crete, unable to go sooner because of the pressure of the Ottoman war.  This is what has survived of his account of the fortifications, from a draft translation of the book I have coming out with John Melville Jones: The Greek Correspondence of Bartolomeo Minio: Volume 2: Dispacci from Crete, 1500-1502.

* * * * * *

14 July 1502

. . . I left here on the 19th of June to investigate various parts of this island and among other places, I was at Milopotamo¹, a fortification on the shore which is in very bad condition in every respect that can be mentioned, where a number of good people live, but I am ashamed to speak of their condition. Then I went to Rethimno where I stayed two days. I looked over that place carefully and found it to be very weak, both in its walls and its ditches, and in my opinion a small enemy fleet would cause it great fear, and harm because of its weak fortifications. Then it has a large borgo, unwalled, not protected by any ditch nor anything else, one could jump into the terra over it anywhere without getting wet feet.

I left that place and went to Bicorna², which is a fortification outside the mouth of Suda Bay on the left side. A very good fortress in bad condition, but to some extent better than Milopotamo; in truth one could without much expense have an angaria of villani³ in this area to put it in such a condition that it would not be captured by an attack from the sea, and would also be strong enough to withstand a number of shots from bombards. On the right bank of this fortress, not far away, are two streams of most abundant water, and anyone who wants to take water from these streams can be attacked from the castle. 

Then I went to Suda Bay and made the whole circuit and went to the rock of S. Nicolò which is at the mouth, guarded now and then. This island is 300 passa long and about a mile around. This island is about 275 passa from the land of the right side, 850 passa and more from the land on the left side. ⁴ On this island, in the middle, is a church with some other dwellings, and it is flat and open to all, and it is a steep place where many people could stay, I say a large number. If one wanted to block the entrance to Suda with the island, it is necessary to build two fortresses on it, one at the right bank and the other on the left, and build them low facing the sea . . . and nevertheless it would defend from the sea where one would have to put the bombards, because the sirocco and levanta⁵ batter from the sea against all. Then the middle area of the island is a spacious area, like the terraferma. . Behind Suda there is not enough drinking water for a large fleet. 

 

Then I traveled from the end of the bay of Suda to Chania by land, which is a completely flat area and really beautiful territory, about 3 miles, where I stayed two full days. I wanted to see the whole area of Chania and all the borgo, which is completely walled and seems as if it were a strong site, I found the place badly fortified, both the wall of the terra and the borgo, as well as the trenches, as all who have seen the place can well testify. I found Chania, both the terra and the borgo, very well populated and to be land well situated to be able to fortify both the terra and the borgo, . . . it is a place having value for many reasons that they can tell you. 

 

In Chania I found a man who seems to me to have great ability and great authority, by the name of Conte Franzon, who from what I have learned is a provisionato of Your Sublimity, who went everywhere with me both at Suda and the island, then we toured all of Chania, and I also took him to Bicorna. Speaking a good deal together, he seems to have a concern for its good condition and apparently has sent Your Signoria a modello of Chania.⁶ He has been most useful.

Then I went to Chisamo, a fortification very near Cape Spada⁷, a place in worse condition than the others and in a place more dangerous that, by the true God, Most Serene Prince, besides such a place could enter into the hand of the enemy to cause real harm to Your Sublimity's state. It seems to me, speaking always with my customary respect and submission toward you, that seeing this island of so great importance to your state, seeing these places in such a condition, seems to me a great shame. I inform you that I have learned from him [Franzon] that last year at Chania there was the captain of His Majesty, the King of France, at Suda, incognito, and he wanted to see the whole thing and learned such details, saying with his own mouth, “The Signoria of Venice has little care for this great island to have these places so desolate and in such bad condition, which all need to be completely fortified.” I do not enlarge beyond what was said to me. 

 

Because the Most Serene Signoria commands me in your letter that I should look well into the whole matter of Suda and also tell them my feelings and thoughts, I think I have said reasonably discreetly what I think, nor do I want to say anything else about this, but I will send in another letter a detailed account of what I think are the needs, and I will do also with good and loyal advice, and I will draw a map, so that Your Serenity will be able to make the best decision, both for Suda and for the other places . . . I will not refrainfrom telling Your Most Illustrious Signoria these few other words: the area of Sitia is of great importance because there is a good port and it is at a cape on the eastern end.

 Outside the mouth of Suda is a place most suitable for mounting arms named [- - - -⁸] that has an island in front which forms almost a port and is a spacious place. And on this same route which goes from Suda to Chania⁹ one goes by the place of Marathonisi¹⁰ at Chania, of which I have the opinion that there is no more apt place than Suda to be able to load and unload from this island I think you do not know it, because [ - - - - ¹¹] Spinalonga¹² is a spacious port for landing and so too is Sitia. It is true that the island is mountainous and in several places there are a number of quite narrow mountain passes for going from one place to another, but there is no other way to be able to pass. So as to not diminish the truth some people have the opinion that the villani could stand strong at the passes, but in my judgement they can have the opinion that pleases them, but every day one sees through experience that when they hear the name Turks they take to the mountains. But if there were a good number of people, equipped and practiced in such exercise, they could manage a good number of villani with them. I have not thought it inappropriate to say these few words and Your most illustrious Signoria will make your own most wise judgement.

1    Milopotamo is the present Panormas, between Candia and Rethymno. There is nothing to be seen of the fortification now.

2    Bicorno is a small fortification on Suda Bay.

3    Angaria of villani = required labor from paroichi, serfs.

4    275 passa is about 1512 feet, and 850 passa is about 4674 feet.

5    Sirocco: a wind out of the Sahara desert which can reach hurricane force. It leaves a coating of fine red dust in its wake. Levanta, or levanter, is a strong north-east wind often bringing rain.

6   Modello: a wooden model.

7   Chissamo, a fortified town, is the present Kissamos, at the base of the gulf formed by Capes Spada and Gramvousa, capes west of Chania.

8  The name is left blank in the manuscript, but Minio is probably referring to the small island of Souda    

      Nisida towards the mouth of the bay.

9   Suda and Chania are on opposite sides of the neck of a head-shaped peninsula that bends eastward to form

     Suda Bay.

10 Marathonisi ("fennel island"): now Marathi, a small bay and peninsula at the opening of Suda Bay.

11A short space is left in the manuscript but more than a little is missing, as the text switches abruptly from the western  

      end of Crete to the eastern end.

12 Spinalonga: a long peninsula with many inlets and outlets toward the eastern end of Crete, north of Ag. Nikolaos on Mirabella Bay; not as far east as Sitia.

For more of Bartolomeo Minio:

 Bartolomeo Minio

Columbus, Pirate

Peacemakers

Stratioti Pay

The Dividing Line

Diplomatic Expenses

Mark Twain didn't say that

 

Drake's Drum at Buckland Abbey

"Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder's runnin' low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven,
An' drum them up the Channel as we drumm'd them long ago."

Sir Francis Drake didn't say those words given to him in Henry Newbolt's poem, and no one thinks he did. They are part of a child's view of history, and one of the early surprises by time that lured me into scholarship.  And the whole drum mystique has a wonderful accumulation of stories.

I was thinking about Sir Francis Drake -- pirate, slaver, brute --recently because at a church service  a couple of months back, the reverend talked about a prayer he said was written by Sir Francis.  The Sir-Francis identification -- language and thought -- didn't sound right to me, and I had theological problems with the egocentric content. I asked where he had found it.  Just Google for "Sir Francis Drake's prayer," he said.  I did.  I will not put the prayer here because I find the attribution a great untruth, and it is so far from anything that could be imagined of the 16th century that it makes my head hurt.

More searching seemed to produce evidence that it was so cited, and rewritten into its present form, by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.  In an e-mail, the reverend said he knew someone who could find out about this for me, and perhaps this will happen.  The reverend also said about Sir Francis: 

I may judge his actions, but not his faith.  A good thought on that is to point to John Newton who was a slave ship captain that penned the hymn "Amazing Grace" after his conversion of thought about that matter which had been (wrongly) upheld as okay by the church.

A kind and uncritical view of this pirate, brute, and slaver.  So I read three serious biographies of Sir Francis, all of which assured me that he was not bowling when the Spanish Armada was approaching the shores of England: a bit of publicity long after the event.  I am disappointed, but I can live with that.

However, none of the biographers mentioned this prayer, all three had cold views of his religion, all three found him a great moral failure, and I would personally say that Sir Francis hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of having written that web-cherished prayer.  Or of escaping hell, if you believe in that sort of thing.

There is a fine prayer attributed to Drake here, which was, in fact, composed by Eric Milner-White, the Dean of York during WW2 and after, derived from a letter of Drake's which said: There must be a begynnyng of any great matter, but the contenewing unto the emd untyll it be thoroughly ffynyshed yelds the trew glory. If Drake actually used this in the context of a prayer, it was before a massacre or slave-taking.  That was what he did.

 Think about it.

I am getting to Mark Twain now.  The year I was 14, I lived two blocks from his house in Hartford, Connecticut.  I passed it twice a day on my way to and from school.  I visited it so often that the ladies at the door quit charging me admission, and I could go into Mark Twain's library, sit in his chair, and read his books.  At the annual Mark Twain festival, a charming white-haired man with a white suit, and a cigar, was shaking hands on the porch, and it was another 5 years or so in a college literature class before I realized that I had not actually met Mark Twain personally.  My tenderness for this man, for his books, and my reverence for the Mississippi River he gave me is unequalled by my affection for anything else except for my daughters. And Nauplion.

So in this context, imagine my horror when I was sent, and more than once, a cheerful maxim attributed to Mark Twain which recommended various forms of imposing your uninhibited self-expression on an unsuspecting public.  This was making the rounds of the interwebs, and I can only say that I never saw it posted by a person of the male gender. (Thanks, guys!)  With a daughter's help, I tracked it down to another author -- a New Age type,  which was evident from the text -- unfortunately of the male gender. Again, I will not post the quotation here because I have standards.

No one who has actually read Mark Twain, or knows anything about him, or has any respect for him, could attribute something so trite, so mindless to this man who lived enmeshed in depression and and anger, and his experiences of slavery, war, failure, loss, and death. 

If people think Mark Twain's name authoritative, why treat it with such carelessness? Or Socrates' name, or Thucydides', or George Washington's, or the names of any of those people who are used as authorities for private sentiments? 

Winston Churchill did not say, "You make a living by what you get: you make a life by what you give," another quote currently circulating that shows no awareness of his distinctive style of rhetoric.

Albert Einsten did not say, " The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results," a quote that is always turning up on Facebook.

Edmund Burke did not say, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  Nor did Plato or Martin Luther King.

Ingrid Bergman did not say, "Play it again, Sam." 

Sherlock Holmes did not say, "Elementary, my dear Watson." *

If you have the slightest temptation to pass on an attribution -- it happens to all of us -- and you do not know a specific citation, Do Not Attribute It.  You can quote it, no matter how banal, from now till the cows come home,** but don't burden it with a label.  Man-up, woman-up, and claim it as your own.

It is that simple.  And for the people who do believe in hell, let me remind you that giving such twaddle to Sir Francis Drake or Mark Twain, or misquoting anyone (including, especially in the next couple of weeks, President Obama), is a violation of the 8th Commandment (or 9th, depending on your confession): Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Mark Twain was my neighbor. 




* Would you believe P. G. Wodehouse, in Psmith Journalist, 1915?
** I have heard this phrase used all my life by people who have no personal acquaintance with cows.