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Fragment J. 1625.
SAMUEL PURCHAS'S PROTOTYPE
of Smith's True Travels
[Source: Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes ...
(London, 1625), II, 1361–1370.]
Fragment J versus the True Travels
This account of John Smith's early life evidently grew out of personal contacts
with Samuel Purchas that can conjecturally be assigned to c. 1622–
1623. These years saw the beginnings of Purchas's Pilgrimes
inactivity between the publication of New Englands Trials (1622) and work
on the prospectus for the Generall Historie (1623). Smith seems to have given
Purchas what he had available, partly raw, partly prepared. Only in 1629
did Smith rework this material for his True Travels, with a number of alterations,
both great and small. For convenience' sake, we have called this
prototype of the True Travels "the Purchas version."
The reprinting here of material that has already been presented in
Smith's True Travels is warranted by the historical significance of the Purchas
version on its own merits. But in addition, the editor has seized this opportunity
to deal at greater length with the numerous perplexities linked to
Smith's story. These difficulties will be listed below. For the moment it is
necessary only to state that it is the editor's intention to discuss theories and
hypotheses regarding Smith's career in this introduction and in the notes to
the Purchas version, while reserving the usual factual information for the
notes to the True Travels. The one major exception to this plan is the discussion
of Smith's "Patent," or grant of arms, by Zsigmond Bá thory, which
is taken up in the editor's Introduction to the True Travels because the patent
is no more than mentioned in the Purchas version.
In detail, in addition to many minor alterations, the following significant
sections of the True Travels do not appear in the Purchas version.
1. Chapter 1, in entirety (Purchas or Smith perhaps considered this
material too personal for Purchas's work).
2. Chapter 3; 15 folio lines on Rome, including Smith's meeting with
the Jesuit, Father Parsons.
3. End of Chapter 5 and pp. 9–10 of Chapter 6 (the account in the
True Travels is much expanded from the Purchas version, apparently with
the help of Richard Knolles's Generall Historie).
4. Chapter 7, bottom of p. 11 (where Smith adds questionable information
on Meldritch) and p. 12 (which contains a good deal of new
material).
5. Chapter 8, including the complete description in Latin and English
of the bestowal of Smith's coat of arms. The Purchas version has only the
first two sentences of this chapter (II, 1366).
badly, as shown by the mistaken attribution of the sacking of Varatzo, and
so on, to Meldritch. After the mention of Smith's arms, the True Travels has
the complete details in Latin and in English (pp. 15–18).
6. Chapters 9–11. These pages apparently comprehended the restored
text of Smith's "the Historie at large," to which the Purchas version refers
(II, 1366).
on these pages, which in literary quality ranks with Smith's superb
description in the Accidence and the Sea Grammar of the preparation for a sea
battle. It is improbable that anything other than the events themselves was
Smith's source in such passages.
7. Chapters 14–16. The side information was probably introduced by
Smith to fill out his book and was largely derived from Purchas, Pilgrimes
(see pertinent footnotes in the True Travels).
8. Chapters 18–20. The Purchas version has it that Smith "was animated
by some friends" to look into "the Warres ... in Barbarie" (II,
1370),
"the warres being ended" he tried "some other conclusions at Sea" (ibid.,
39). It might not be unfair to Purchas to suggest that he may have omitted
the Moroccan adventure for fear of being "tedious."
9. Chapters 21–28 do not concern us here, since they are not part of
Smith's "Travels and Adventures."
We have taken up the intractability of chapter 1 of the True Travels in
the Introduction to that work. The Purchas version opens in medias res with
France and Transylvania engraved by Jodocus Hondius, but lacking the
important detail of Smith's visit to Parsons in Rome, as mentioned. More
important was a shift in emphasis in the text of the True Travels whereby
Smith omitted at this point an acknowledgment stressed by Purchas, and
only inconspicuously noted by Smith later (in the marginalia on p. 22). In
the Purchas version, after the clause "this insuing Discourse will declare,"
this acknowledgment reads, "as it is written in a Booke intituled, The Warres
of Transilvania, Wallachi[a], and Moldavia, written by Francisco Ferneza
a Learned Italian, Secretarie to Sigismundus Bathor the Prince" (II, 1363),
to which the True Travels adds, "and translated by Master Purchas."
Furthermore, as if to emphasize Ferneza's authorship, Purchas added
a subtitle to his text: "Extracts of Captaine Smiths Transylvanian Acts, out
of Fr. Fer. his Storie," and printed the extracted text, long as it was, in
italics. Then, at the end, he reverted to roman type with the comment, "as
the Historie at large will plainly shew, the times, place, chiefe Commanders,
with the manner and order of their battels, and fights, to which I referre
you."
Purchas's Pilgrimes is a huge work that has not yet been thoroughly
studied in all respects. Nevertheless, a preliminary scrutiny has not revealed
a single invented name for a quoted author or source (though at least one
mistaken attribution of a source has been noted). Careful scanning of the
entire corpus also reveals that material extracted from other works was customarily
italicized. Subject to further investigation, these two preliminary
conclusions are of considerable pertinence.
The "Ferneza" Book
The name "Ferneza" seems to have been the result of an error in copying
made somewhere along the way. Three possible corrections of the name have
occurred to the editor: (1) the Italian name Farnese; (2) the Latin form,
Ferreus, of the Hungarian name Vas; (3) the Hungarian name Pernezy. As
for Farnese, there were ties between that family and the Gonzagas in Italy,
and both Vincenzo and Ferrante Gonzaga were involved in the history of
Hungary and Transylvania in Smith's day;
branches of the Farneses, no Francisco has been found for the period 1580–
1630, nor has any other Farnese been located who is known to have been in
the war zone where Smith was active. On the other hand, a Ferenc Vas
Báthory. Also, Vas had been educated in Italy, though no book by him
seems to have existed, or at least survived. The name Pernezy is introduced
merely because it could easily have been miscopied "Ferneza," and because
there were marriage ties between at least one Pernezy and Zsigmond
Báthory.
Along with these uncertainties, Edward Arber, the industrious editor of
Smith's works in Queen Victoria's heyday, took up the Ferneza problem
with Don Pascual de Gayangos y Arce, the distinguished Spanish bibliographer
then attached to the British Museum, and reported: Don Pascual
"has seen a printed Spanish translation of this Italian history, rendered into
Spanish by a Montalvo."
failed, and although Gayangos may have erred in some detail in his report
to Arber, that he should have invented a bibliographical "ghost" is close to
being out of the question. As for the way in which the "Ferneza" book
reached Purchas's hands, it can hardly be doubted that Smith himself had
it. Smith returned to Transylvania after his escape from slavery and found
greatly. István Bocskai, Báthory's uncle, was endeavoring to pull the country
together by cooperating with the Ottoman Empire. Though an old-time
adherent of Báthory's might not be welcome, Smith could hardly have been
forgotten — especially with the tales he could tell of the Turks. It thus seems
to be ever so little romancing to suggest that "Francisco Ferneza his Storie"
was put together there by Smith and "Ferneza," not only to take back to
England, but more immediately to have handy when "at last he found the
most gracious Prince Sigismundus, with his Colonell at Lipswick in Misenland."
In summary, then, the editor submits that Purchas did surely have
some manuscript book pertinent to Smith's experiences written by someone
who knew him, but which was "edited" here and there to fit Purchas's, and
Smith's, subject: Smith's travels and adventures.
To turn, then, to the details of the "Ferneza" account. The "losse of
Caniza" (Nagykanizsa) is a recorded fact. It was surrendered to the Turks
on October 22, 1600, about the time of Turkish activity by the akinci (cavalry
raiders) in the direction of Styria (Steiermark).
by north of Nagykanizsa stood the fortified town of Lendava (Smith's
"Olumpagh"; German, Limbach; Latin, Olimacum). Stiff akinci attacks on
"Olumpagh" are recorded in 1600, 1601, and 1603. The raid that Smith
helped to thwart was evidently that of 1601.
Early Historical Background
While the history of eastern Europe lies far beyond our present subject, John
Smith's adventures can hardly be understood without at least a skeleton
résumé. In 1453 Mehmet the Conqueror, as he is called today, put an end
to the Eastern Roman Empire. The last emperor, Constantine XI Palaeologue,
was killed when Constantinople fell and became Istanbul. (Smith's
"Seignior Theadora Polaloga" was a collateral descendant of Constantine.)
Mehmet quickly protected his Black Sea flank by instating Mengli Giray as
vassal khan of Crimea and by marrying his son to Mengli's daughter.
(Mengli's son was an ancestor of Gazi Giray, the "Crym-Tartar" whose
foragers captured Smith.)
Mehmet's great-grandson was Suleiman, called "the Magnificent" in
the West and "the Lawgiver" in Turkey, who ascended the throne in 1520,
the year when Henry VIII of England held parleys with Francis I of France
and Charles V, the young Holy Roman emperor. Suleiman startled Europe
by extending the Asiatic Ottoman Empire almost to the walls of Vienna,
when he suddenly died in 1566. The Ottoman grand vizier secured a treaty
with Charles V's successor, Ferdinand I, "along a defensible line" that included
practically all Suleiman's conquests.
This treaty was maintained, despite frequent petty violations, until
1593, when Suleiman's grandson, Murat III, was drawn into all-out war:
the "Long War" of 1593–1606, in which John Smith would eventually play
a small part. Murat died in January 1595 and was succeeded by his son
Mehmet III (both spellings are modern Turkish). Murat had sustained the
empire at its zenith, what with an area of a million square miles, plus vassal
or tributary states.
(couch-throne) than Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha was defeated by a Christian
coalition led by Zsigmond Báthory, just married to the Holy Roman emperor's
first cousin Maria Christina. Zsigmond's right and left hands were
Mihai Viteazul (Michael the Brave), voivode of Walachia, famed for his
franc-tireurs, and István Bocskai, Zsigmond's uncle, commander of the
Szeklers who comprised the main body of troops. The scene of action was
Giurgiu, on the Danube, south of Bucharest.
Tangential to the main story, but illustrative of the confused actions in
which Smith became involved, it should be noted that Mihai was independent
of spirit — so much so that he is considered one of the forerunners of the
movement that created the modern state of Rumania. His services against
the Turks at Giurgiu were rewarded five years later in August 1601, by his
being murdered at the instigation of Gen. Giorgio Basta, imperial commander
in Transylvania, after Mihai had supported Basta against Zsigmond.
The Background of Smith's Military Adventures
After, and because of, this defeat at Giurgiu, the grand vizier persuaded the
sultan to lead his troops personally to victory, and in the heart of Hungary.
In October 1596 Mehmet, aided by the Crimean khan, roundly trounced
Archduke Maximilian, the emperor's younger brother, and Zsigmond
Báthory. But Mehmet preferred life in Istanbul, and little happened. In 1599
about rumors "of a generall peace" is substantially correct.
By then, however, in far-off France Philippe-Emmanuel de Lorraine,
the duke of Mercoeur and of Brittany, had volunteered to lead the imperial
armies of Rudolph II, Holy Roman emperor, to victory over the imperial
armies of Mehmet III, sultan of Turkey.
Nagykanizsa, mentioned above, Pope Clement VIII issued a call to arms in
Italy. Ferrante Gonzaga, cousin of Vincenzo, duke of Mantua, was already
on the scene. Vincenzo quickly assembled a regiment or two and galloped
to the front. The Gonzagas' historical reports are invaluable, and their
actions certainly won laurels; but their overall effect was negligible. Still,
John Smith seems to have had some contact with an Italian regiment or
company. His works contain half a dozen Italian words seldom found in
print (even in Italian), and he refers to the language as being useful in talking
to Charatza Trabigzanda (see below).
At this point, after taking part in repelling the akinci attack on Lendava,
Smith was sent to Körmend, where he was promoted to captain by his
colonel, one "Meldritch." From there he was transferred with his regiment
to Komarom (Komarno, Czechoslovakia, today), to be incorporated in the
army commanded by the duke of Mercoeur, by then Archduke Matthias's
lieutenant. Mercoeur suddenly planned and executed a "diversion," a surprise
attack on Szekesfehervar (Latin, Alba Regia), the ancient Hungarian
royal city known in Viennese circles as Stuhlweissenburg that had been held
by the Turks for half a century. With an army of 18,000, including Smith,
he marched 50 km. (30-odd mi.) in three days and encamped in the northern
suburbs.
described his small part in the siege, and some historical accounts mention
the weapons he used. Of course, Smith's name is missing in these.
After a secondary engagement nearby, with winter setting in, Mercoeur
left for Vienna and France, planning to recruit more troops, but he died on
the way in February 1602. By then, Meldritch and Smith were detailed to
serve under Giorgio Basta. The choice of Basta for commanding general was
mind was unsuited for operations in a region of unusual political, social, and
religious involvement.
Be that as it may, Meldritch and Smith arrived at Basta's headquarters
in Bistrita (Hungarian, Beszterce) in March 1602. At almost the same
moment, Basta returned to Hungary. Less than 200 km. (125 mi.) away,
Zsigmond Báthory was enjoying a state of typical indecision in Brasov (Hungarian,
Brassó; German, Kronstadt) and was again at odds with Basta. The
upshot of these developments was that Meldritch, according to Smith, wrote
to Zsigmond offering to change sides. His offer was accepted.
Austrian documentary sources indicate that Zsigmond was in AlbaIulia
(Hungarian, Gyulafehérvár; German, Karlsburg, formerly Weissenburg)
on or about April 1, 1602.
south from Bistrita toward "the Land of Zarkain," which seems to correspond
with the ancient county of Zarand, west of Alba-Iulia and broadly
locatable on a modern map by the resort town of Brad, at the east end of the
Zarandului Mountains. The region is rugged and would be a natural hiding
place for the people described in the Purchas version (II, 1365). Somewhere
there, Meldritch and Smith encamped on "the Plaines of Regall." This
name is the absurd result of a mistake based on the text of Smith's grant of
arms, which is not included in the Purchas version (see the True Travels,
15–18). The Latin original of this refers to "ad Urbem Regalem," which
someone mistranslated as "before the towne of Regall," instead of "toward,
or on the way to, the royal city." That was Alba-Iulia, where the Transylvanian
princes had long had their residence. The specific site of the "Plaines"
is unknown, though the troops of 1602 could have followed one of several
routes, all of them leading past settlements or castles (small forts) in the foothills.
In spite of the lack of any historical record of John Smith's own adventures
in Transylvania, his account is historically and geographically substantiated,
including the dueling habits that prompted his own participation.
Thus, the towns Smith mentions exist in modern names: "Varatzo, Solmos,
and Kuprouka" are Vărădia, Şoimuş, and Kăpruţa, along the Mures River
(Hungarian, Maros), downstream from Alba-Iulia. "Esenberge" is merely
a mistake for Weissenburg, mentioned above. Weissenburg (or Alba-Iulia)
was taken by Basta on July 2, 1602, giving us a terminus ante quem for
Smith's reception by Zsigmond.
Within a matter of months after the duels on the road to Alba-Iulia,
John Smith was wounded and captured by Tatars who had straggled up
toward Transylvania. The chief if not the only surviving document bearing
on this battle is a letter dated October 1, 1602, from Count Tommaso
Cavriolo to the Venetian ambassador to the Holy Roman emperor in
Prague.
had been placed in command of a relief force sent to "encourage and help"
Radul Şerban, voivode of Walachia, against whom the Sublime Porte had
set up an anti-voivode. Arriving at Radul's camp "beyond Corona [Brasov]
at one of the passes to Wallachia" on September 20, Cavriolo tried to instill
some order, but Radul's multi-tribal soldiery (Walachians, Hungarians,
Moldavians, and Rascians from Serbia) was unruly. When assaulted on
September 23 by an estimated 40,000 Tatars they disobeyed orders, and
Cavriolo's total of ten cavalry companies plus three late arrivals (1,000 horse
in all) barely prevented a disaster. Radul's soldatesca had been stricken with
terror ten days before Cavriolo's arrival (i.e., c. September 10) when 2,000
Tatars had routed 8,000 of themselves, with 2,000 dead and 800 prisoners.
Nevertheless, Cavriolo restored discipline and with a wily stratagem sent the
Tatars back over the pass on September 24.
That the skirmish of September 23–24 was the battle in which Smith
was wounded has been rightly questioned by various specialists, but he could
well have been caught in the previous clash, or one similar to both elsewhere
in the neighborhood. The Tatars numbered all told "more than 140,000."
Although the number appears highly unlikely, certainly there were enough
to swarm over more than one pass. Cavriolo's report reinforces Smith's
credibility: "I have never seen so much cavalry in action at once, never
heard such shouts, [never seen] such a way of fighting."
Aftermath among the Turks
At the end of the "Extracts" attributed to "Ferneza" Purchas adds that "the
Historie at large will shew" further details. With or without the "Historie,"
however, the subsequent events narrated in the Pilgrimes fit into the general
historical picture. Prisoners who were not held for ransom were often sold
into slavery, and both of these considerations apparently entered into John
Smith's case. As put by Smith, when "the Pillagers [found that] hee was able
to live, and perceiving by his armor and habit, his ransome might be better
wounds were cured, and he was taken to "Axiopolis" on the Danube. This
town appears on many old maps near the site of modern Cernavoda,
Rumania. A more likely place for a slave market, however, would have been
Silistra (Bulgaria), 80 km. (50 mi.) upstream and mentioned by Cavriolo as
the rumored provisional goal of the Tatars. A good road led from there to
Istanbul by way of Adrianople (Edirne). Smith, whose complexion made
him look younger than his twenty-two years, was bought by "Bashaw
Bogall" as a gift to his ladylove in Istanbul, "Charatza Trabigzanda."
"Bogall" was not a pasha but probably called a bashi (head of something,
captain), and he may have been a bakkal (shopkeeper, grocer, etc.); "Charatza
Trabigzanda" evidently was a distortion of a Greek phrase meaning,
"girl whose family came from Trebizond."
Smith Rebels against Recruitment
In practically identical terms both the True Travels and the Purchas version
detail the story of how Charatza Trabigzanda went out of her way to inquire
into Smith's past history, taking "(as it seemed) much compassion on him."
Then, because he was not needed in Istanbul, and she was afraid her mother
might sell him again, she sent him to her brother, "the Tymor Bashaw of
Nalbrits, ... in Tartaria." As Smith put it, "shee told him, he should there
but sojourne to learne the language, and what it was to be a Turke, till time
made her Master of her selfe."
Reading between the lines, it seems probable that Charatza had her
heart set on marrying Smith. But she wanted to make something of him, in
Turkey, where Christian slaves could become somebody. Her brother, whoever
he really was, managed a timar, a fief granted him for some service to
the state. John Smith could be freed by being trained for service, and we may
hazard a guess that Charatza intended for her brother to teach Smith what
he needed to know and do. This, if the editor reads the account correctly, is
precisely what the brother set out to do. In the words of an analogous training
reported by Purchas, "when one ... hathrunne through all the Orders
... he is, without all question, the most mortified and patient man in the
World. For the blowes which they suffer, and the fastings which are commanded
them for every small fault, is a thing of great admiration."
John Smith rebelled. The question of whether he understood what was
going on is as academic in this case as the question of whether he understood
Powhatan's intentions five years later. Seizing the first opportunity, he
murdered Charatza's brother, put on the brother's clothes, and rode off on
the brother's horse. Smith's reference to the beaten track to Astrakhan
("Custragan," in Purchas), coupled with the absence of any encounters with
Turkish guards, lends support to a surmise that Smith was serving time near
the Muscovite frontier, east of the Black Sea. The town of Azov (Turkish,
Azak), where the Don River enters the sea of that name, was held by the
Turks, or the Tatars, but there were Muscovite outposts not far away. (That
Smith's "River Bruago" [or "Bruapo"] was not the Don is shown by his
referring to the Don as another river.)
From this point to the abrupt close of the Purchas version, Smith's route
led through the little-known expanses of what is now the Ukrainian S.S.R.
to Poland and Western Europe. As mentioned in the Introduction to the
True Travels, Purchas did not have (or decided to omit) Smith's account of
his foray into Morocco. After all, it added only Smith's vivid description of
a sea battle in the early 1600s.
1. Purchas says that the printing was started in Aug. 1621 (Pilgrimes, I, xlv [the modern edition
published by James MacLehose and Sons in 20 vols. (Glasgow, 1905–1907) is used here for ease of
reference]). Note, however, that the first outside reference appears to be on Feb. 27, 1622/1623 (see
W. Noel Sainsbury, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series [East Indies, 1622–1624] [London,
1878], 18).
2. Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes ..., 3d ed. (London, 1621 [orig. publ.
1603]). See Philip L. Barbour, The Three Worlds of Captain John Smith (Boston, 1964), 33–36, 407–
408, n. 1.
8. See, inter alia, Maria Bellonci, A Prince of Mantua: The Life and Times of Vincenzo Gonzaga,
trans. Stuart Hood (New York, 1956).
1. Edward Arber, ed., Captain John Smith ...Works, 1608–1631, The English Scholar's Library
Edition, No. 16 (Birmingham, 1884), xxiii.
4. Günther Cerwinka, "Die Eroberung der Festung Kanizsa durch die Türken im Jahre
1600," in Alexander Novotny and Berthold Sutter, eds., Innerösterreich 1564–1619 (Graz, [1968]),
409–511.
5. Krajevni leksikon Dravske banovine ... (Zonal lexicon for the Drava district) (Ljubljana, 1937).
7. W.E.D. Allen, Problems of Turkish Power in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1963), and the
Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., s.v. "Giray."
1. There are many (sometimes conflicting) accounts of these developments, for which two
sources may be consulted: László Makkai, Histoire de Transylvanie (Paris, 1946), and Ştefan Olteanu,
Les Pays roumains á l'époque de Michel le Brave (l'union de 1600) (Bucharest, 1975).
2. Even before the war broke out, the Turks were attempting broadly to keep or make peace.
In addition to Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, see Gustav Bayerle, Ottoman Diplomacy in Hungary:
Letters from the Pashas of Buda, 1590–1593 (Bloomington, Ind., 1972) and Carl Max Kortepeter,
Ottoman Imperialism during the Reformation: Europe and the Caucasus (New York, 1972). Professor
Bayerle personally has offered many a helpful correction or suggestion to the editor regarding the
Turkish side of Smith's adventures, for which formal thanks are here extended.
3. For a short biography of Mercoeur, see Pierre Larousse's Grand dictionnaire universel du
XIXe siècle ... (Paris, 1865–1890).
4. See Bellonci, Prince of Mantua, and Giacomo C. Bascapè, ed., Le relazioni fra l'Italia e la
Transilvania nel secolo XVI (Rome, 1931).
5. E.g., biscione, big snake (military maneuver), Smith's "in a bishion" (True Relation, sig.
B4r); and chiaverina, a kind of javelin, Smith's "a Turks cavarine" (True Travels, 30).
7. See ibid., 42–44, for further details on these confusing events, although the editor has since
revised parts of his interpretation. The date, Apr. 1, 1602, is not confirmed elsewhere, and the exact
source consulted nearly 20 years ago can no longer be located, but forces loyal to Zsigmond were
definitely there before July (Makkai, Histoire, 203).
8. See Laura Polanyi Striker, "Captain John Smith's Hungary and Transylvania," Appendix
I in Bradford Smith, Captain John Smith: His Life and Legend (Philadelphia, 1953), 311–342.
9. See Eudoxiu de Hurmuzaki, comp., Documente privitóre la istoria Românilor (Bucharest, 1887–
1922), VIII.
5. See Purchas, Pilgrimes, II, 1592, which in turn was ultimately derived and translated from
a report in Italian made c. 1600 by the Venetian bailo (legate) in Istanbul, Ottaviano Bon. Bon's
"Description of the Seraglio" is known to have been circulated in manuscript among foreigners in
Istanbul for many years (Ottaviano Bon, "Descrizione del serraglio del gransignore," in Nicolò
Barozzi and Guglielmo Berchet, eds., Relazione degli stati europei lette al senato dagli Ambasciatori Veneti
nel secolo decimosettimo, Ser. V, Turchia [Venice, 1866]).
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