SHAKESPEARE'S EUROPE REVISITED: THE UNPUBLISHED ITINERARY OF FYNES MORYSON (1566 - 1630) by GRAHAM DAVID KEW A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts of The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Volume I The Shakespeare Institute School of English Faculty of Arts The University of Birmingham July 1995 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Synopsis This thesis consists of a transcript and edition of Fynes Moryson's unpublished Itinerary c.1617 - 1625, with introduction, text, annotations, bibliography and index. Moryson was a gentleman traveller whose accounts of journeys undertaken in the 1590s across much of Europe as far as the Holy Land in the Ottoman Empire provide contemporary evidence of secular and religious institutions, ceremonies, customs, manners, and national characteristics. The first part of Moryson's Itinerary was published in 1617. Some of the second part was transcribed in 1903 by Charles Hughes as Shakespeare's Europe, but this is the first transcript and edition of the whole manuscript. The work has involved investigation of the historical, classical and geographical sources available to Moryson, of Elizabethan secretary hand, and of travel writing as a form of primitive anthropology. Moryson emerges as a subjective observer full of the political and religious preconceptions of the age, capable of acute insight but often unsystematic and unscientific in the assembly and presentation of his information. Word-Count: Text, c.366,000; Introduction, c.47,000; Notes, c. 120,000. I would like to dedicate this work to my wife Dilys, my Sons James and newly-born Benjamin, and to the memory of John L. Robertson (1929 - 1975), Head of the Department of English, Seaford College, Petworth, Sussex from 1961. We were advised not to give thanks to "Uncle Tom Cobbley and all". However, this thesis has taken so long, and I have consulted so many people that to thank them here is a minimal courtesy. I would like to acknowledge the ever - present help and encouragement given by my supervisor, Dr Tom Matheson, who has continued to guide me even though he retired as Deputy Director of the Shakespeare Institute over two years ago in 1993. Working on a Doctorate is such a lonely business, that his encouragement and help was much appreciated. When I was on a Diploma Course in Management, it was a maxim that if one's company lacked internal expertise it could and should be "outsourced", bought in from outside. Although some of my letters went unanswered, many more were answered by those happy to share their expertise freely. Those particularly generous with their time and effort were Brian Pullan, Professor of Modern History at the University of Manchester who even took all the Italian material that I sent to him on holiday, and Dr C. D. van Strein who provided me with much of the Dutch material that I would never have found unaided. One of the pleasures in communicating personally or by letter with so many experts is the chance to learn. Some of those contacted also seemed genuinely pleased to have the material that I was able to give them. So I would also like to acknowledge the help of and to thank Dr Rhoads Murphey, the Ottoman expert at the University of Birmingham, Professor Peter Skrine, Head of Department of German Studies, the University of Bristol, Dr Henry Cohn, Chairman of the Department of History, and expert on Early Modern German States at the University of Warwick, Mr Frank Beetham who taught me Latin and tracked down many of the quotations, and the Reverend J. Clifford Culshaw who helped me with classical languages and theology. Those who helped me with specific problems or pointed me in the right direction include Dr John Jowett, Dr Nicholas Hammond, Dr Henry Woudhu3rsen, Dr David Holton, and Dr Richard Cust, and my old history teacher John Hadwin. I would also like to record Chief Librarian Dr Susan Brock's constant good humour and help. A map depicting Moryson's travels would undoubtedly have helped, but difficulties with east European placenames seemed to have discouraged those approached. I apologize to the examiners for the length of this thesis, but the prolixity is more Moryson's than mine. A partial transcription would suffer from the deficiencies of the edition of Charles Hughes. Table of Contents Pre face. 1. The Manuscript. 1 .1. Introductory Material .............................i 1.2. Physical Description of the Manuscript ........... ii 1.3. The Hands ........................................iv 1.4. The Date of the Manuscript .....................xvii 1.5. Why was the remainder of the Itinerary not printed? .......................................xxvi 1.6. The Edition of Charles Hughes ....................lv 2. Fynes Moryson and His Background. 2.1. His Family .....................................lvii 2.2. His Education ................................lxviii 2.3 Younger Sons and the Need for a Patron .........lxxv 2.4. The Man ......................................lxxxvi 3. The Models and the Market. 3.1. Models for the Itinerary ..........................c 3.2. The Market ...................................... 3.3. The Critical Response to Moryson's Itinerary...xcix 4. Sources. 4.1. The Sources .....................................civ 4.2. Running a Reference to Ground ....................cv 4.3.WhichEdition 9 ...............................cviii 4.4. Biblical and Religious Sources .................cxii 4.5. Classical Sources ..............................cxix 4.6. Historical Sources ............................cxxiv 4.7. His Own Experiences .........................cxxviii 4.8. Conclusion.......................................cxxxi Moryson's Status as a Travel Writer.... 5. History and Polemic. 5.1. The English Interest in History .............cxxxiii 5.2. The Uses and Pattern of History ............cxxxviii 5.3. The Means of Popish Subjection ................cxliv 5.4. Polemic .......................................cliii 5.5. The Problem of Providence in History? ..........clxi 5.6.HistoryandPolitics .........................clxiii 6. Antichrist, Infidels and Heretics. 6.1. Italians andTurks ...........................clxxii 6.2. Settling Ireland ...........................clxxxvii 7. "Apparrell" and Ceremonies. 7.1. "Apparrell" ...................................ccvii 7.2. Ceremony and Rituals .........................ccxix 8. Shakespeare's Europe ? 8.1. Historical Restraint .......................ccxxxvii 8.2. Circumstantial Glosses .......................ccxliv 8.2.1. Classicism, Imitation and Innovation..ccxliv 8.2.2. "Apparrell" and Ceremony . ccxlv 8.2.3. European Cities and Borders and NatJons. .ccl 8.2.4. National Characteristics .............cclviii 8.3. Fynes Moryson and the Stage Plaers ..........cclxii 8.4. Moryson as a Model and Source? ...............cclxvi 8.4.1. Hamlet ................................ cclxvi 8.4.2. Moryson as a possible Source of Women Beware Women ............................... cclxix 8 .5. Envoi .......................................cclxxiv 9. Conventions and Abbreviations Adopted in the Transcription. 9.1. Conventions ..................................cclxxv 9.2. Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Individuals and Works ......................................cc1xxi Th e tfext ................................................ 1 Appendix One: Chronology of the Life and Travels of Fynes Moryson (1566 - 1630) .............................. 1743 Appendix Two: Letters sent by Fynes Moryson ......... 1760 Appendix Three: The Wills of Thomas, Richard and Fynes P4orrson .............................................1770 Appendix Four: Three Coins Relevant to Fynes Moryson.1781 Bibliography One ..................................... 1782 Bibliography Two ..................................... 1794 I ndec................................................. 1810 Pre face 1. The Manuscript. 1.1. Introductory material. Fynes Moryson's four part Itinerary is an account of journeys across Europe undertaken between 1591 and 1595, and to the Holy Land between 1595 and 1597, and his observations thereon. Part Two describes Tyrone's rebellion in Ireland until its suppression in 1603. When unemployed, Moryson began to research and write up these journeys between 1606 and 1609 with an abstract of the histories of the countries through which he passed. He seems to have destroyed most of the abstract about 1609, stating that he did not wish to make his "gate bigger than his city". He subsequently wrote the first version of the Itinerary itself, in Latin. Only a part has survived in two manuscripts in the British Library, Harleian MSS, 5133, and Harleian Additional MSS, 36706, the account of the suppression of Tyrone's rebellion. In 1617 a printed version of the first three parts was published in English translated from the Latin. (Part II dealing with Ireland in this published version was reprinted in 1735 in Dublin; the whole publication was reprinted by Glasgow University in 1907 - 1908. ) I have nominated this