Maps for intelligence gathering? Rediscovered seventeenth-century manuscript maps from The Queen's college, Oxford

Imago Mundi

Volumn 63, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 76-87

  Vernier, Veronika ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 78651426990     PISSN: 03085694     EISSN: 14797801     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03085694.2011.521334     Document Type: Article

References (75)

1. The Queen's College Library, Oxford, Coll.Reg. Oxon. Catalogum hunc Librorum (1816), MS 594-595
2. See my 'Seventeenth-century manuscript maps found in the Library', in The Queen's College Record 8:5 (2009): 57-65.
3. During Williamson's lifetime he sponsored the building of the Back Quad, gave numerous gifts, including silver plates and the silver trumpet used to summon the members for dinner, founded an Anglo-Saxon lectureship and helped Thomas Barlow and Thomas Lamplugh, provosts of the College, to receive bishoprics. In his will he left £6,000 and his library to the College.
4. Alan Marshall, 'Sir Joseph Williamson, 1633-1701', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004)
5. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29571 (accessed 18/08/2009).
6. Williamson seems to have owned every important contemporary book on military architecture and fortifications and also histories of every European country, Asia and America. His catalogue included 28 titles of atlases, 37 large maps (sadly none survive), and 35 travel books.
7. Maria Fernanda Alegria et al., 'Portuguese cartography in the Renaissance', in The History of Cartography
8. Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007), 975-1063, at 990, also refer to a group of manuscript charts of the Azores by Luís Teixeira dated 1587 vol. 3
9. In the 1591-1592 edition of the Theatrum, Luís Teixeira is listed as the author of the Azores chart. The inscription in the cartouche of the Azores reads: 'Has insulas perlustravit summaque diligentia accuratissime descripsit et delineavit Ludovicus Teisera Lusitanus Regiae Maiestatis cosmographus. Anno. 1584'. Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Antwerp, Plantin, 1591-1592).
10. Pedro Teixeira Albernaz and João Teixeira Albernaz I, Chart of the Strait of Magellan (1619)
11. See Alegria at al., 'Portuguese cartography in the Renaissance' (note 5), 990
12. As cited by Armando Cortesão and Avelino Teixeira da Mota, Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica [hereafter PMC], 6 vols. (Lisbon, 1960), 4: 141
13. Alegria et al. 'Portuguese carto graphy in the Renaissance' (see note 5), 1059
14. Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (see note 8), 4: 90-91
15. This, the so-called Gulbenkian map, is a large mural map drawn on six parchment sheets (Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Ref. J22/87). It covers the whole country, not just the coastline and has two allusions to landings by Sir Francis Drake in the vicinity of Peniche (1589) and of Cape St Vincent (1587)
16. See Armando Cortesão, 'An early chronographic map of Portugal', Imago Mundi 19 (1965): 111-12.
17. Cortesão, 'An early chronographic map of Portugal' (see note 11), 111-12.
18. Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (see note 8), 4: 141-43.
19. Alegria et al. 'Portuguese cartography in the Renaissance'(see note 5), 1050
20. I am also grateful to João Garcia for drawing my attention to the rediscovery (6 June 2009)
21. The updated list, with six known exemplars of the Descripção dos Portos Maritimos do Reyno de Portugal (Description of the Maritime Ports of the Kingdom of Portugal) dated 1648, is: Lisbon, Sociedade de Geographia (Reservados A-28)
22. Vienna, Nationalbibliothek (Codex 6072 and Codex 6083); London, British Library (Add MS 22830); Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (Codex Palatino, 1044, tav.3)
23. Oxford, The Queen's College Library (MS 440). A later manuscript, dated 1669, is in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (Rés.Ge. FF.16264
24. Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (see note 8), 4: 141-43; pl. 509-510
25. Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (see note 8), 4: 145-46
26. List the other exemplars as one in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Cod. Mon.Icon.162) two in Vienna, Nationalbibliothek (Codex 5958 and Codex 6860) and one in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (Rés.Ge. DD.2013)
27. Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (see note 8), 4: 145-46; pl. 511-512. The Queens College Library exemplar is MS 439.
28. Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (see note 8), 4: 146.
29. A. Teixeira da Mota, 'Some notes on the organization of hydrographical services in Portugal before the beginning of the nineteenth century', Imago Mundi 28 (1976): 54-55
30. 'Ereida made a collection of plans of coastal places in India in 1610, by order of the viceroy, who sent them to Lisbon. Preserved today in Rio de Janeiro, it includes plans of nineteen fortresses, spread from Mozambique to Malacca. it is possible that some plans may have been derived from previous surveys by architects and engineers'.
31. Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (see note 8), 4: 47-48 and pl. 411 B-F.
32. Antonio Bocarro and Pedro Barreto de Resende, Livro das Plantas das Fortalezas, Cidades e Povoações do Estado da India Oriental [Book of the Plans of all the Fortresses, Cities and Towns of the State of Oriental India] (1635), in Evora, Biblioteca Pública (COD. CXV/2-X).
33. Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (see note 8), 5: 61; pl. 587H.
34. Bocarro and Barreto de Resende, Livro das Plantas das Fortalezas (see note 20).
35. See also Antonio Bocarro, Livro das Plantas das Fortalezas, Cidades e Povoações. (1635), in Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional (MS 1190 and R.202), with 52
36. Unsigned drawings by João Teixeira Albernaz I (Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (note 8), 5: 63-64).
37. Bocarro and Resende, Livro das Plantas das Fortalezas. (1646), in London, British Library (MS Sloane 197).
38. João Teixeira Albernaz I,World Atlas with Thirty-One Charts (1630), in Washington
39. Library of Congress (Cortesão and Teixeira da Mota, PMC (see note 8), 4: 111; pl. 462-472).
40. Teixeira's 1630 World Atlas (see note 23)
41. contains a map of the Fortress of Cannanore, but not the separate map of the area of the Muslim bazaar found in Ereida. A map of Ormuz, dating from the 1630s, was made by Teixeira, but the depiction of Ormuz in the 1648 Plantas is closer to Ereida's original than it is to Teixeira's own 1630 map.
42. Bocarro and Resende, Livro das Plantas das Fortalezas. (1646) (see note 22).
43. This information, and the connection with Catherine of Braganza's dowry, was kindly supplied by Peter Barber (British Library).
44. Novum Ac Magnum Theatrum Urbium Belgicae Liberae Ac Foederate (Ad presentis temporis faciem expressum A Joanne Blaeu, Amstelodamensi, 1649)
45. Joan Blaeu's Townbooks of the Netherlands. Of all the Blaeu atlases the townbooks of Netherlands are held in the highest esteem in the Netherlands. It is partly due to the fact that their composition is linked up with the struggle for independence of the Dutch republic from Spain in the 17th century. It contains some 220 maps evenly distributed over two volumes. The first two editions appeared with Latin text only. C. Koeman ed. Atlantes Neerlandici: Bibliography of Terrestrial, Maritime and Celestial Atlases and Pilot Books, Published in the Netherlands up to 1800, 6 vols.
46. (Amsterdam, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Ltd., 1967), 1: 295-97.
47. Michael Pawson and David Buisseret, Port Royal, Jamaica (London, Oxford University Press, 1975)
48. Revised edition, Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, The University of the West Indies Press, 2000): 110-111. My references are to the second edition.
49. I amgrateful to David Buisseret for the confirmation of these details. He wrote (14 July 2010): 'Several plats from the 1660s mention a "King Street" (numbers 247, 284, 243 and 246). Better, an unnumbered plat of January 1679 shows "a street left by the law of this island by some called Kings Street, by others Thames Street". Furthermore, plats from the period 1679-1680 (numbers 424, 427 and 432) exclusively use the term "Thames Street". So it is fairly clear that this eventually became its accepted name'.
50. David Buisseret, (6 Aug 2010).
51. A slightly earlier plan of Fort Charles and Port Royal (1666), showing a similar although less detailed arrangement, is at The National Archives, CO 1382/2, pp. 1-3
52. For a reproduction, see Pawson and Buisseret, Port Royal (see note 27), fig. 8.
53. Pawson and Buisseret, Port Royal (see note 27), 50.
54. The catalogue of Williamson's library includes a copy of this book, which can no longer be traced. A copy exists in the British Library (Wing H1817), and is available on Early English Books Online.
55. th Century Relating to the British Overseas Empire in That Era, Brought Together about 1683 for the Use of the Lords of Trade and Plantations (Providence, RI, Brown University Press, 1970-1975), 187-88
56. I am most grateful to David Buisseret for this information.
57. Edward Long, The history of Jamaica. Or, general survey of the antient and modern state of that island: with reflections on its situation, settlements, inhabitants,. In three volumes. Illustrated with copper plates (London, printed for T. Lowndes, 1774). I amindebted to Peter Barber for drawing my attention to this reference.
58. Alan Marshall, 'John Scott, 1632?-1704', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004). http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24890?docPos=9 (accessed 18/08/2009).
59. An inventory of papers seized from Scott's chamber on 18 May 1682 included a chart that forms part of a letter (2 folios) of 7 June 1673 from John Scott at Bruges to Sir Joseph Williamson. The letter contains information about Dutch preparations against the English. Two sheets (map in centre of first sheet), each 29 _ 43 cm. London, The National Archives, MPF 1/320. Scott's inventory also included: 'a letter of M. de Montemaire to Col. Scott dated Friday, 14 Feb., desiring him to wait on M. de Luxembourg at 8 next morning with his maps of Flanders (French) and a catalogue of plans of towns mostly in France but some in Germany and Spain' (SP 29/419, fol. 28), and '. a catalogue of charts and plans of places in North and South America, a catalogue of charts and plans of the 17 Provinces of the Netherlands.' (SP 29/419, fol. 149). Information from Alan Marshall, to whom I am most grateful.
60. Several maps in the Queen's College atlas bear fold marks indicating that at some stage they had been folded into a very small pocket size, a classic 'spy format'.
61. Archibald Paton Thornton, West-India Policy under the Restoration (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956), 127.
62. The Colonial Office archive has subsequently been transferred to The National Archives in London.
63. John Seller, Novissima et Accuratissima Insulae Jamaicae Descriptio (John Seller, London, c.1674).
64. Moses Pitt, The English Atlas (Oxford, Printed at the Theatre for Moses Pitt at the Angel in St Pauls Church Yard, London, 1680-1682), 4: 244.
65. For example, Views of Dutch Towns (c.1670), MS title (45.D.11)
66. Chevalier de Beulieu, Les plans et profils de toutes les principales villes et lieux considerables du Comte de Flandre, n.d. (Y.b.45)
67. Lieuwe van Aitzema, Saken van staet en Oorlogh: in, ende omtrent de Vereenigde Nederlanden, 6 vols. (1669-72) (21.D.1-6)
68. Martinus Schoockius, Belgium Federatum, sive Distincta descriptio Reip. federati Belgii (Amsterdam, Joannes Janssonius, 1652) (JJ.g.125)
69. Adolf Vanden Boom, Nouvelle description des Pays-Bas (Cologne, 1669) (YY.a.71).
70. Joseph Williamson was an assistant, and a shareholder, of the Royal African Company in 1673 and 1675-1677. The Royal African Company was established in 1672, following the collapse, partly as a result of Dutch aggression, of the Company of Royal Adventurers Trading in Africa in 1667.
71. Mark Govier, 'The Royal Society, slavery and the island of Jamaica, 1600-1700', Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 53:2 (1999), 203-17, esp. 208
72. Nuala Zadieh, 'The merchants of Port Royal, Jamaica, and the Spanish contraband trade, 1655-92'
73. William & Mary Quarterly 3rd ser. 43:4 (1986), 570-93, esp. 589-92
74. Nuala Zadieh, 'Trade, plunder and economic development in early English Jamaica, 1655-89'
75. Economic History Review 39 (1986), 205-22, esp. 218.