PhD Forum briefing note: Material culture and language

PhD Forum briefing note: Material culture and language

Editorial history

04/12/12: CSG, created page

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Purpose of page

This draft page is a briefing note for the planned PhD Forum online discussionn of material culture and language

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- HCA 13/71 f.XXXX Case: XXXX; Deposition: XXXX; Date: XXXX. Transcribed by XXXX

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Suggested links

PhD Forum

PhD Forum briefing note: Geography and trade; Commerce and law

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Introduction

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Purpose and process of the forum session

The purpose of the forum on material culture and language is for PhD Forum members to explore the potential of HCA materials, as exemplified by HCA 13/71.

Forum members are asked to think how HCA materials might assist them directly in their studies, and more generally how they might assist scholars in exploring issues related to these topics.

The online session, which will take place on XXXX, will be facilitated by Dr Liam Haydon and Laura Seymour. The role of the facilitator is to structure the session, and to pose a series of questions to forum members. All participating members are encouraged to speak, and at the end of the forum the facilitator will ask each member to make some summary remarks.

Notes will be taken of the meeting and posted to the PhD Forum page after the session. Forum members are encouraged to expand and and correct these notes as they see fit.

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The questions: Material culture

How are the material objects perceived in the HCA documents? How are the trade goods described? Are different goods described in different ways? Please give specific examples from the documents.

Do the types of goods ever need to be explained to present day researchers? Would it be helpful to present day researchers using the Marine Lives information to have a description of what a particular product was, and its qualities?

Is the point of origin of the material objects mentioned in the documents important? If so, why?

Are there ideas of surplus value (i.e. more than a simple economic valuation, do some or all of these objects also have cultural capital?). If so, which objects and why? What kind of cultural capital?

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The questions: Language

How do the the HCA documents work as acts of communication in their own right? Consider this with respect to 1) their production, reception, and transmission by early moderns, and 2) the ways in which they can help present day researchers in the Marine Lives database.

How does language function as a moment of cultural interaction in these documents? In particular, consider what languages do people choose, and why? Does this have social/cultural implications? Please refer to specific examples in the HCA documents.

How highly was language valued when assembling a ship's company/making promotions/assigning voyages?

How do we approach the question of non-verbal communication? Is there a privileging of the verbal and the written in these documents?

In the HCA documents, a person's words are being taken down as they say them. However, sometimes deponents report what other people, not present at the moment of the deposition, have said. What do you think about the disjunction between spoken and reported language in the HCA documents? Does this raise interesting questions about, for instance, authority?

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Working definition of material culture and language for this forum discussion

Material culture: the totality of physical objects, human beings, and discourses, and their interactions, at a given time.

Question: Do you feel this is a good definition? If not, please do refine upon it or change it, and explain why you have made these changes.

Language: the different means of communication used in different contexts, including spoken and written language, and nonverbal forms of communication including gesture, unwritten social codes, as well as vocalisations such as muttering, and so on

Question: Do you feel this is a good definition? If not, please do refine upon it or change it, and explain why you have made these changes.

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Additonal question: The Relationship between language and material culture

What about the intersection between language and material cultures? How far do you think that material cultures and language could be seen to be shaping each other, as well as shaping the identity of the merchants and other people who appear in the HCA documents?

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Resources in HCA 13/71 on material culture

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Commodities

Currants and raisins trade
Oranges and lemons trade
Textile trade

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Infrastructure

Materials handling
Thames docks and wharves
Thames lighters

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Physicality of trades

Port trades

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Resources in HCA 13/71 on language

Language skills were highly valued in mid-C17th international commerce. Finding solid evidence of such language skills is somewhat harder. Neverthless, various depositions in HCA 13/71 make reference to the ability of both merchants and mariners to understand specific languages other than English.

Almost all documents in HCA 13/71 are in English. However, boxes of HCA instance papers (HCA 15/, e.g. HCA 15/6 Box One (1654-1657) and HCA 15/6 Box Two (1654-1657) contain a number of documents in Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish. Typically, though not always, an English translation is appended to these documents. Bills of lading usually went untranslated. However, petitions and letters from non_English mariners were translated and written out by notaries public, scriveners or lawyers, and sub,itted to the High Court of Admiralty.

Examples: XXXX

There is considerable difficulty in determining the actual language skills of merchants and mariners.

For example, the English merchant Sir George Oxenden was praised by the English East India company early in his career, when based in Surat, western India, for his skill in Indian langueages. However, it is unspecified as to whether this was Gujarati, Hindustani, or some other Indian language, and there is no corroborating evidence of his verbal or written skills in any of these languages. A document survives at the British Library written in French and signed by Sir George Oxenden, but it is unclear whether he drafted this document, or whether he put his name to a pre-drafted document. Oxenden's nephew, Robert Master, was also praised for his adeptness in Indian languages. Streynsham's father wrote to Sir George Oxenden:

"I heare Robin hath y:e Language well w:ch must helpe some other omissions"

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Language skills of merchants

Dutch

French

Spanish

Portuguese

Turkish

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Language skills of mariners

Dutch

French

The thirty-five year old mariner Robert Bowden of Sain Magdalen Bermondsey in Southwarke reported that he was well aware of the merchant Trenchpaine's handwriting and that he could understand the "french tongue."

• "1. delivery of the sayd three bayles back to the sayd de Richards, which

2. meets this deponent (being requainted well with the sayd Trenchpaines hand
3. writeing and understanding the french tongue) verily beleveeth (although hee sawe not the same wriiten) was and is
4. the proper hand writing of the sayd Trenchpaine, and saith the sayd Trenchpaines
5. factor did alsoe affirme the same noate to bee his the sayd Trenchpaines hand=
6. ˹writing˺ and that hee save him write the same, whereup this deponent replyed to the sayd
7. de Richards and told him that hee this deponent could not deliever the sayd
8. bayles unto him although they were his, for that hee this deponent had signed
9. and delivered to the sayd Trenchpaine three bills of ladeing of one tenor for the
10. sayd three bayles, and that the sayd bills were signed with blankes as to the
11. name of the person for whose risque and Accompt they were laden and alsoe as to
12. the name of the person to whome they were to be delivered at London
13. and that for ought hee this deponent knew the sayd Trenchpaine had filled
14. up these blankes and therefore it was not safe for him this deponent to deliever
15. the sayd goods to the sayd de Richards And hee saith that the sayd de Richards
16. there upon and further to these articles (saving his subsequent deposition and
17. saving hee saith the sayd Trenchpaine did not at any tyme whilst this deponent
18. remayned with his sayd shipp at Morlaix acquainte this deponent that the sayd
19. three bayles of linnen were for Accompt of the arlate Lewis desormeaux
20. or that they were to be delivered to the arlate John Tufton or any other their
21. in London) hee cannot depose"

- HCA 13/71 f.201v Case: Lewis de desormeaux against John de Richard Sieur de Kargonell; Deposition: 1. Robert Bowden of the parish of Saint Mary Magdalen Bermondsey in the County of Surrey mariner aged thirty five; Date: 05/05/1656. Transcribed by Jill Lewis

Spanish

Portuguese

Turkish

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Literacy

HCA 13/71 depositions offer some insights into requirements for functional literacy in different occupations. Assembling such insights and references from a range of HCA volumes would be time consuming, but ultimately rewarding.

The witnesses examined in the Court of Admiralty range from well educated merchants and mariners, with clear competency in reading and writing, through to a labourers, watermen and a number of common seamen, who were clearly illiterate, being unable either to read of write.

Quantitative analysis of the dataset of deposed witnesses in HCA 13/71 by declared occupation and described role suggests (though without strong statistical significance due to the sample size) that marine tradesmen were less literate, both on average and in absolute terms, than mariners performing the roles of officers below the level of Master - roles such as Purser, Quartermaster, and Boatswaine.

But illiteracy did not need to be a barrier to performing a job well. Arthur Cower was a highly experienced, but illiterate, anchorsmith, who lived in the parish of Saint Mary Magdalen Bermondsey, on the south side of the river Thames. He worked as a journeyman anchorsmith for his Master, the anchorsmith, Walter Gough. In his testimony in the Admiralty Court, Cower described how he coped with his inability to read and write. Gough's workshop was adjacent to the shipyard where Gough's customer, Mr Christmas, was building a new ship, the Redd Lyonn, alias Lyon. Christmas' yard was in the parish of Rederiff, with the rather wonderful common name of "the Pitchhoule," and Gough had been contracted to supply the yard with "seuerall parcells of Iron worke and nayles," consting of many and varied items, which are listed in the deposition.(f.422r-422v)

How did Cower keep track of his own production and of deliveries to Christmas' yard, and how could he be certain in court that the requisite deliveries had been made? In his testimony, Cower described his process of weighing out the iron work items, tallying them up, and "keeping Accompt thereof by scoreing vp the weight and numbers in chalke at the seuerall tymes of their deliuery."

He went on to detail:

"15. To the 6th hee saith that hee this deponent scored vp the goodes predeposed as they
16. were weighed and deliuered, and once a weeke gott a Scriuener to put the particulars
17. in writing according as they were scored hee this deponent not being able to
18. write."

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Literacy dataset

Some preliminary analysis has been done of a subset of the complete HCA 13/71 deposition data, examining signatures and markes used to approve depositions as recorded by the High Court of Admiralty clerks or proctors.

See: Literacy analysis, 04/12/12

The characteristics of the subset of data are as follows:

Depositions by country of location (alphabetical)

Barbados = 1
Denmark = 2
England = 436
France = 32
Germania = 2
Hansa Ports = 10 (Danzig: 2; Hamburg: 6; Lubeck: 2)
Ireland = 3 (Dublin: 1; Wexford: 1; Londonderry: 1)
New England = 1
Norway = 2
Pommerland = 1
Scotland = 3
United Provinces = 26

TOTAL = 520

Depositions by country of location (rank)

England = 436
France = 32
United Provinces = 26
Hansa Ports = 10 (Danzig: 2; Hamburg: 6; Lubeck: 2)
Scotland = 3
Ireland = 3 (Dublin: 1; Wexford: 1; Londonderry: 1)
Germania = 2
Norway = 2
Pommerland = 1
New England = 1
Barbados = 1

TOTAL = 520

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Depositions of persons located in England (alphabetical)

Bristol = 5
Cornwall = 2
County of Durham = 2
County of Lincoln = 1
County of Southampton = 5
Devon = 11
Dorset = 6
Essex = 11
Hampshire = 2
Isle of Wight = 3
Kent = 17
London = 155
Middlesex = 115
Norfolk = 4
Northumberland = 2
Suffolk = 16
Surrey = 63
Yorkshire = 1

TOTAL = 421

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Depositions of persons located in England (rank & grouping)

London = 155

Middlesex = 115
Surrey = 63
SUB TOTAL = 178

London + Middlesex + Surrey = 333

Kent = 17
Essex = 11
SUB TOTAL = 28

London + Middlesex + Surrey + Kent + Essex = 361

Devon = 11
Dorset = 6
Bristol = 5
Cornwall = 2
SUB TOTAL = 24

County of Southampton = 5
Hampshire = 2
Isle of Wight = 3
SUB TOTAL = 10

Suffolk = 16
Norfolk = 4
SUB TOTAL = 20

County of Durham = 2
Yorkshire = 1
Northumberland = 2
SUB TOTAL = 5

County of Lincoln = 1

TOTAL = 421

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Depositions of Londoners and surrounds

London parishes
- Aldermanburie, London = 2 (2x occupation unspecified)
- Allhallowes Barking, London = 4 (Winecooper; Servant/apprentice to a ship chandler; 2 x Mariner)
- Saint Andrews Wardrobe = 1 (Doctor in physicke)
- Saint Bennett Fimck = 1 (Notary publique)
- Saint Bottolphe without Allgate = 6 (2x Mariner; 2x Merchant taylor; Mariner; Waterman; Cooper)
- Saint Bottolphe Billingsgate, London = 2 (Merchant; Servant/apprentice to Salter)
- Saint Buttolphes without Bishopsgate, London = 2 (Armourer; Servant/apprentice to a Merchant)
- Saint Catherine near the Stocks = 1 (Grocer)
- Saint Dunstans in the East = 1 (Merchant)
- Saint Dunstans in the West = 1 (Mariner)
- Saint Edmonds Lombard Street = 1 (Master Mariner)
- Saint James Rotherhithe = 1 (Barber Chryugeon)
- Saint Katherine near the Tower of London = 4 (4x Mariner)
- Saint Mary Magdalens, London = 1 (Grocer)
- Saint Margaret Fishstreete, London = 1 (Cooper)
- Saint Martin Axe = 1 (Mariner)
- Saint Martin in the Vintry = 1 (Chirugion)
- Saint Mary at Hill, London = 4 (Merchant; Vintner; Salter; Scrivener)
- Saint Mary Colechurch = 1 (Grocer)
- Saint Mary Woolchurch = 1 (Merchant)
- Saint Maudlins Milkstreete = 1 (Secretary to Prize Commission)
- Saint Michael Bassishaw = 1 (Clothworker)
- Saint Michael Cornhill = 2 (Scrivener; Surgeon)
- Saint Michaels Crooked Lane = 1 (Servant/apprentice to fishmonger)
- Saint Nicholas Olaves = 1 (Chirugion)
- Saint Olaves, Southwarke, Surrey = 1 (Lighterman, 2x Waterman)
- Saint Pancras Soperlane, London = 2 (Merchant; Copperas man)
- Saint Stephens Wallbrooke = 1 (Merchant)
- Saint Thomas Apostle = 2 (2x Merchant)
- Saint Thomas Shoreditch = 1 (Mariner)
- Tower Libertie = 2 (Late servant to a compasse maker; Servant/apprentice to a sail maker)

- Saint Mary Matsellon alias Whitechappell, Middlesex = 5 (5x Mariner)
- Stepney, Middlesex = 1 (Mariner)

• Limehouse = 4 (4x Mariner)
• Shadwell = 8 (Anchor smith; 2x Carpenter; Master mariner, 4x Mariner)
• Wapping = 10 (1x Carpenter; Brewers servant; Mariner(Gunner); 3x Marine; Mariner (Cheife Mate); Mariner (Boatswaine); Deale merchant; Labourer)

SUBTOTAL = 22

- Saint Mary Magdalen Bermondsey in Southwarke, Surrey = 15 (XXXX)
- Saint Olave Southwarke, Surrex = 9 (8x Mariner; 1x Brewers clerk)

Middlesex parishes

Surrey parishes

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Use of translation

A number of depositions and other legal statements in HCA 13/71 were translated, either by other merchants or mariners, or by hired translators.

An example of this can be seen in XXXX.

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