Bernardino de Escalante
Encyclopedia
Bernardino de Escalante (ca. 1537, Laredo, Cantabria
- after 1605) was a Spanish soldier, priest, geographer and a prolific writer. He is best known as the author of the second book on China published in Europe, and the first one to obtain wide circulation outside of Portugal.
The foremost scholar of the European literature about Asia, Donald F. Lach, noted in 1965 about Escalante, "Very little is known about his biography". However, a significant amount of research on Escalante, spearheaded by Rufo de Francisco, was carried out in the late 20th century.
n hidalgo
s. His father, García de Escalante, was a sea captain and a shipowner. Based in Laredo, then one of the most important ports of Spain's northern coast, García de Escalante engaged in sea trade and participated in a number of important military campaigns. Some of Bernardino's early training was as part of the crew of his father's boat, on its twice-a-year journeys to Flanders
.
Bernardino's mother, Francisca de Hoyo, belonged to a well-connected family as well: her sister Catalina de Hoyo was married to Prince Philip's (later, King Philip II
's) secretary, Pedro del Hoyo.
Following his uncle Pedro, young Bernardino de Escalante entered the retinue of the future King Philip II in 1554.
He was aboard his father's boat, La Concepción, which was part of the fleet taking Prince Philip to England, for his wedding with Mary I of England
. The knowledge of Britain he acquired during his 14 months' stay there shows in his later writing.
In 1555-1558, Bernardino de Escalante participated in the war in Flanders
, and fought at St. Quentin
. It is not known whether he returned to Spain in 1559 (during which year his father died, Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was signed, and Philip II returned to Spain), or stayed in Flanders until the end of the mop-up operations in January 1561.
Soon after returning to Spain, Escalante felt that the period of European wars was over, and he deserved a peaceful life too, perhaps that of a scholar or an ecclesiastic. He went to study, although historians don't have any information as to what university he attended.
It is known that in the 1570s he enjoyed a benefice at a Laredo church, and served as the commissar of the Spanish Inquisition
for the Kingdom of Galicia
, often making business trips to Lisbon
and Sevilla. At some point he was apparently transferred to Sevilla, then Spain's main port for the America trade, as in 1581, we find him as an inquisitor in that city and the majordomo of the Archbishop of Seville
, Rodrigo de Castro Osorio
.
Spanish archives preserve a number of memorials written by Escalante for Philip II, his ministers and top archbishops, dated between 1585 and 1605. They discuss a variety of geopolitical issues, in particular related to the uneasy Anglo-Spanish relations
, and, according to the modern historian J.L. Casado Soto (who published these documents in 1995), were paid attention to by "Philip the Prudent" and his officials.
' Tratado das cousas da China (1569).
with wide margins. It can be conceptually divided into two parts. The first 5 chapters (folios 1-28) talks about the history of Portuguese explorations along the route from the Iberian Peninsula to the South-East Asia. The remaining chapters (chap. 6-16, on folios 28-99) represent an attempt of a systematic description of China - its geography, economy, culture, etc., to the (rather limited) extent known at the time to the Europeans (primarily Portuguese). The last folio (100) contains a brief description of the author's sources.
Escalante is not known to have traveled to China himself. As he explains on the last page of his Discurso, his work is primarily that of synthesis. His literary sources were primarily Portuguese, viz. the above mentioned 1569 book by the Dominican
Gaspar de Cruz (who had preached in Guangzhou
for a month), and the coverage of China in the 3rd Década of the Décadas da Ásia by João de Barros
(the 3rd Década was published in 1563; Barros never went to Asia either, but in his Lisbon office had access to Chinese books and a literate Chinese slave
who was able to read and interpret them for him). Escalante had also been interviewing Portuguese merchants who had traveled to the China coast, and even some "people of China" who had come to Spain ("los mesmos naturales Chinas que an venido à España").
, appeared in 1579, under the title A discourse of the Navigation which the Portugales doe Make to the Realmes and Provinces of the East Partes of the Worlde, and of the knowledge that growes by them of the great thinges, which are in the Dominion of China.
Escalante's Discurso was also one of the main sources for a much bigger book: Juan González de Mendoza
's Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China (1585), which became Europe's standard reference on China for several decades.
, or even languages of other nearby countries
, such as Japan
, Ryukyu, and Vietnam
; writing in vertical columns), there are also significant differences. While da Cruz gives a first-hand account of the "purser
" of a Chinese boat explaining to him the essentials of the writing system (right after he had finished writing a note to the Vietnamese port authorities), Escalante gives an abstract textbook-type description. Da Cruz gives the correct pronunciation (tiem) of one character (the one with the meaning "heaven" - i.e., obviously, 天, whose modern Pinyin transcription is tian), but does not actually show what the characters look like. Escalante's book, on the other hand, shows 3 sample characters, even if quite deformed and hardly recognizable, while his phonetic values are harder to interpret.
Escalante's sample of characters is not the earliest known example of hanzi/kanji printed in a European book: the earliest published examples known to researchers appeared in a collection of Jesuit letters from Asia printed in Portugal in 1570; however, those were drawn from a Japanese, rather than Chinese, context.
Escalante's sample turned out to be quite influential, primarily via the two publications that reproduced his discussion of the Chinese writing systems (including his characters):
As the characters given by Escalante's (and faithfully reproduced by Barbuda and Mendoza) are quite deformed, there has been a fair amount of discussion among commentators and translators of their works as to what their original form was.
(Modern reprint)
} (This is a modern transcription, with only slight modification to the original orthography. Full text as a PDF file.)
(Originally published 1583 in Sevilla)
Laredo, Cantabria
Laredo is a town in the Northern Spanish province and autonomous community of Cantabria.Located between the cities of Santander and Bilbao, Laredo is known in the region and nationally for "La Salvé", its 5 km long beach and for the historic part of town dating back to Roman times...
- after 1605) was a Spanish soldier, priest, geographer and a prolific writer. He is best known as the author of the second book on China published in Europe, and the first one to obtain wide circulation outside of Portugal.
The foremost scholar of the European literature about Asia, Donald F. Lach, noted in 1965 about Escalante, "Very little is known about his biography". However, a significant amount of research on Escalante, spearheaded by Rufo de Francisco, was carried out in the late 20th century.
Biography
Bernardino de Escalante came from a lineage of CantabriaCantabria
Cantabria is a Spanish historical region and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community , on the south by Castile and León , on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea.Cantabria...
n hidalgo
Hidalgo
Hidalgo officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Hidalgo is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 84 municipalities and its capital city is Pachuca de Soto....
s. His father, García de Escalante, was a sea captain and a shipowner. Based in Laredo, then one of the most important ports of Spain's northern coast, García de Escalante engaged in sea trade and participated in a number of important military campaigns. Some of Bernardino's early training was as part of the crew of his father's boat, on its twice-a-year journeys to Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
.
Bernardino's mother, Francisca de Hoyo, belonged to a well-connected family as well: her sister Catalina de Hoyo was married to Prince Philip's (later, King Philip II
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
's) secretary, Pedro del Hoyo.
Following his uncle Pedro, young Bernardino de Escalante entered the retinue of the future King Philip II in 1554.
He was aboard his father's boat, La Concepción, which was part of the fleet taking Prince Philip to England, for his wedding with Mary I of England
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
. The knowledge of Britain he acquired during his 14 months' stay there shows in his later writing.
In 1555-1558, Bernardino de Escalante participated in the war in Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
, and fought at St. Quentin
Battle of St. Quentin (1557)
The Battle of Saint-Quentin of 1557 was fought during the Franco-Habsburg War . The Spanish, who had regained the support of the English, won a significant victory over the French at Saint-Quentin, in northern France.- Battle :...
. It is not known whether he returned to Spain in 1559 (during which year his father died, Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was signed, and Philip II returned to Spain), or stayed in Flanders until the end of the mop-up operations in January 1561.
Soon after returning to Spain, Escalante felt that the period of European wars was over, and he deserved a peaceful life too, perhaps that of a scholar or an ecclesiastic. He went to study, although historians don't have any information as to what university he attended.
It is known that in the 1570s he enjoyed a benefice at a Laredo church, and served as the commissar of the Spanish Inquisition
Spanish Inquisition
The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
for the Kingdom of Galicia
Kingdom of Galicia
The Kingdom of Galicia was a political entity located in southwestern Europe, which at its territorial zenith occupied the entire northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. Founded by Suebic king Hermeric in the year 409, the Galician capital was established in Braga, being the first kingdom which...
, often making business trips to Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
and Sevilla. At some point he was apparently transferred to Sevilla, then Spain's main port for the America trade, as in 1581, we find him as an inquisitor in that city and the majordomo of the Archbishop of Seville
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seville
The Archdiocese of Seville is part of the Catholic Church in Seville, Spain. The Diocese of Seville was founded in the 3rd century. It was raised to the level of an archdiocese in the 4th century. The current Archbishop is Juan José Asenjo Pelegrina...
, Rodrigo de Castro Osorio
Rodrigo de Castro Osorio
Rodrigo de Castro Osorio, was Cardinal-Bishop of Zamora and Diocese of Cuenca , Archbishop of Seville, , a member of the Council of State of Spain and the Supreme Council of the Spanish Inquisition for the reign of Philip II of Spain. Great-uncle of Pedro Fernández de Castro y Andrade, Conde de...
.
Spanish archives preserve a number of memorials written by Escalante for Philip II, his ministers and top archbishops, dated between 1585 and 1605. They discuss a variety of geopolitical issues, in particular related to the uneasy Anglo-Spanish relations
Spain – United Kingdom relations
Spanish–British relations, also called Anglo-Spanish relations, are the bilateral international relations between Spain and the United Kingdom.-History:...
, and, according to the modern historian J.L. Casado Soto (who published these documents in 1995), were paid attention to by "Philip the Prudent" and his officials.
Discurso de la navegacion
Of particular historical interest is Escalante's first published book, Discurso de la navegacion que los Portugueses hacen a los Reinos y Provincias de Oriente, y de la noticia que se tiene de las grandezas del Reino de la China (Discourse of the navigation made by the Portuguese to the kingdoms and provinces of the Orient, and of the existing knowledge of the greatness of the Kingdom of China). Published in Sevilla in 1577, it became, according to Donald F. Lach, the second European book primarily dedicated to China, after Gaspar da CruzGaspar da Cruz
Gaspar da Cruz was a Portuguese Dominican friar born in Évora, who traveled to Asia and wrote one of the first detailed European accounts about China.-Biography:Gaspar da Cruz was admitted to the Order of Preachers convent of Azeitão...
' Tratado das cousas da China (1569).
Content of the Discurso and its sources
Escalante Discusrso was a fairly small book, 100 folios (i.e., 200 pages in the modern system of page-counting) in octavoOctavo
Octavo to is a technical term describing the format of a book.Octavo may also refer to:* Octavo is a grimoire in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett...
with wide margins. It can be conceptually divided into two parts. The first 5 chapters (folios 1-28) talks about the history of Portuguese explorations along the route from the Iberian Peninsula to the South-East Asia. The remaining chapters (chap. 6-16, on folios 28-99) represent an attempt of a systematic description of China - its geography, economy, culture, etc., to the (rather limited) extent known at the time to the Europeans (primarily Portuguese). The last folio (100) contains a brief description of the author's sources.
Escalante is not known to have traveled to China himself. As he explains on the last page of his Discurso, his work is primarily that of synthesis. His literary sources were primarily Portuguese, viz. the above mentioned 1569 book by the Dominican
Dominican Order
The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...
Gaspar de Cruz (who had preached in Guangzhou
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
for a month), and the coverage of China in the 3rd Década of the Décadas da Ásia by João de Barros
João de Barros
João de Barros , called the Portuguese Livy, is one of the first great Portuguese historians, most famous for his Décadas da Ásia , a history of the Portuguese in India and Asia.-Early years:...
(the 3rd Década was published in 1563; Barros never went to Asia either, but in his Lisbon office had access to Chinese books and a literate Chinese slave
Slavery in Portugal
-Ancient era:Slavery was a major economic and social institution in Europe during the classical era. A great deal is known about the ancient Greeks and Romans. The Romans added Portugal to their empire . It was the province of Lusitania. The name of the future kingdom was derived from Portucale, a...
who was able to read and interpret them for him). Escalante had also been interviewing Portuguese merchants who had traveled to the China coast, and even some "people of China" who had come to Spain ("los mesmos naturales Chinas que an venido à España").
Influence of the book
Unlike da Cruz's treatise, which apparently remained fairly obscure outside of Portugal, Escalante's book was quickly translated to other European languages. The English translation, by John FramptonJohn Frampton
John Frampton was a 16th century English merchant from the West Country, who settled in Spain, was imprisoned and tortured by the Inquisition, and escaped from Cádiz in 1567...
, appeared in 1579, under the title A discourse of the Navigation which the Portugales doe Make to the Realmes and Provinces of the East Partes of the Worlde, and of the knowledge that growes by them of the great thinges, which are in the Dominion of China.
Escalante's Discurso was also one of the main sources for a much bigger book: Juan González de Mendoza
Juan González de Mendoza
Juan González de Mendoza was the author of the first Western history of China to publish Chinese characters for Western delectation. Published by him in 1586, Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China is an account of observations several Spanish travelers...
's Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costumbres del gran reyno de la China (1585), which became Europe's standard reference on China for several decades.
Chinese language and characters in the Discurso
Chapter XI of the Discurso discusses Chinese writing system, as well as education in China. While Escalante's description of the Chinese writing is generally similar to that given by da Cruz (absence of a phonetic alphabet; around 5000 different characters, each representing not just a syllable, but a particular meaning; usefulness of the written languages for communication between people who speak mutually incomprehensible languages of ChinaSinitic languages
The Sinitic languages, often called the Chinese languages or the Chinese language, are a language family frequently postulated as one of two primary branches of Sino-Tibetan...
, or even languages of other nearby countries
Sinosphere
In areal linguistics, Sinosphere refers to a grouping of countries and regions that are currently inhabited with a majority of Chinese population or were historically under Chinese cultural influence...
, such as Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Ryukyu, and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
; writing in vertical columns), there are also significant differences. While da Cruz gives a first-hand account of the "purser
Purser
The purser joined the warrant officer ranks of the Royal Navy in the early fourteenth century and existed as a Naval rank until 1852. The development of the warrant officer system began in 1040 when five English ports began furnishing warships to King Edward the Confessor in exchange for certain...
" of a Chinese boat explaining to him the essentials of the writing system (right after he had finished writing a note to the Vietnamese port authorities), Escalante gives an abstract textbook-type description. Da Cruz gives the correct pronunciation (tiem) of one character (the one with the meaning "heaven" - i.e., obviously, 天, whose modern Pinyin transcription is tian), but does not actually show what the characters look like. Escalante's book, on the other hand, shows 3 sample characters, even if quite deformed and hardly recognizable, while his phonetic values are harder to interpret.
Escalante's sample of characters is not the earliest known example of hanzi/kanji printed in a European book: the earliest published examples known to researchers appeared in a collection of Jesuit letters from Asia printed in Portugal in 1570; however, those were drawn from a Japanese, rather than Chinese, context.
Escalante's sample turned out to be quite influential, primarily via the two publications that reproduced his discussion of the Chinese writing systems (including his characters):
- Abraham OrteliusAbraham Orteliusthumb|250px|Abraham Ortelius by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]Abraham Ortelius thumb|250px|Abraham Ortelius by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]Abraham Ortelius (Abraham Ortels) thumb|250px|Abraham Ortelius by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]Abraham Ortelius (Abraham Ortels) (April 14, 1527 – June 28,exile in England to take...
's atlas Theatrum Orbis TerrarumTheatrum Orbis TerrarumTheatrum Orbis Terrarum is considered to be the first true modern atlas. Written by Abraham Ortelius and originally printed on May 20, 1570, in Antwerp, it consisted of a collection of uniform map sheets and sustaining text bound to form a book for which copper printing plates were specifically...
(1584 edition), where these examples appeared in the brief text accompanying Luis Jorgé de Barbuda's map of China, - Mendoza's Historia ... de la China (1585), whose chapter on Chinese writing is based on Escalante's.
As the characters given by Escalante's (and faithfully reproduced by Barbuda and Mendoza) are quite deformed, there has been a fair amount of discussion among commentators and translators of their works as to what their original form was.
- The first character, said to mean "heaven" and have the sound value Guant, is, according to the 1853 Hakluyt Society commentators, George Staunton and R.H. MajorRichard Henry MajorRichard Henry Major was a geographer and map librarian who curated the map collection of the British Museum from 1844 until his retirement in 1880. During that time he published a number of books related to maps or documents of historical significance...
, hard to interpret. They make a guess that it might be 𨺩 (a variant of 乾, qián). Modern Chinese translators of Mendoza's books suggest that 穹 (Mandarin qióng; Cantonese hung1, kung4; "vast, lofty") may have been meant. (May one also guess it to be a combination of two characters, with the one on top being a 天, perhaps in seal scriptSeal scriptSeal script is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script , arising in the Warring State of Qin...
?). - The second character (said to mean "king", with the sound value Bontai) is a deformed 皇. This character is now usually used as a component of the word 皇帝, "emperor" (huángdì in Mandarin Pinyin, wong4dai3 in Cantonese, or hông-tè in Taiwanese); so one can imagine Escalante's informant using Bontai to transcribe the Cantonese reading of the word.
- The third (said to mean "city") is likely a poorly written 城 (chéng in Mandarin Pinyin). The two sound values given by Escalante, however, don't seem to be connected to this character: he has Fu (which was indeed used to refer to major (prefecture-level) cities, but is written 府), and Ieombi (or leombi?), which is hard to identify.
Commemoration
A secondary school in Laredo, "IES (Instituto de Educación Secundaria) Bernardino de Escalante", is named after Bernardino de Escalante.See also
- Escalante, CantabriaEscalante, CantabriaEscalante is a municipality located in the autonomous community of Cantabria, Spain. According to the 2007 census, the city has a population of 749 inhabitants.-External links:* - Cantabria 102 Municipios...
- a small town not far from Bernardino de Escalante's hometown (Laredo)
Works by Bernardino de Escalante
(An annotated collection of Escalante's memorials to the King of Spain and his ministers, 1585-1605)(Modern reprint)
} (This is a modern transcription, with only slight modification to the original orthography. Full text as a PDF file.)
-
- Page scans of the original 1557 edition (Here numbers stand for page numbers [in a modern numbering system], rather than the folio numbers [which are actually printed on the pages]).
(Originally published 1583 in Sevilla)