 |
| Click to enlarge. |
But ambassadors were far less help than they might have been
if they could somehow rapidly communicate back to their governments. Seeing how
well resident ambassadors were serving the interests of Venice, the rest of
Europe’s major countries soon began establishing their own ambassadorial corps.
All of them felt that lack of speed in the communications with those ambassadors.
Not only governments needed rapid communications. Merchants,
bankers and travelers needed fast, secure mail services. In fact, they had established
a system that was centuries old and the fastest available however much letters
often took weeks or even months to reach their destinations. Often long stretches of time passed during
which no trustworthy carrier was available and mail packets lay waiting.
Reading the correspondence of these various groups is an interesting
experience. A portion of the content can totally elude the general reader. A 1550
letter from the British expatriate John Burcher is perhaps as fine an example
of the issues as any.
Health and peace through our Lord
Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and our life. Your friend Froschover, my very
dear Bullinger, amidst the bustle of the Frankfort fair, has brought me a
letter and some books, which he desired me faithfully to convey by a safe hand
into England; and your very acceptable letter contained the same request. I have
willingly performed this office. There happened to be here a servant of my very
faithful friend, master Richard Hilles, whom he had sent to me upon especial
business. To this man I entrusted the book and letter to the king, together
with all your other letters. The remainder of the books I declined to give into
his charge, and not without reason. For in the first place, it is becoming that
the king should be preferred to others, and receive his copy before any one
else, lest that which might be more acceptable from its rarity should become
less so from being made common. The two remaining copies, therefore, which
belong to Hooper and another, I inclosed in some goods, which I took care should
be forwarded direct from Antwerp. I ordered the servant to give the letter and
books to master Richard, to whom I also wrote to forward the same to Hooper.[1]
Burcher is writing from his hometown, Strasbourg, Germany.
The date of the letter — April 20 — in itself tells a story. It falls shortly
after the close of the Easter Frankfort Fair. The fair actually occurred twice
a year for two weeks. Dates at the end of September and early October also
appear with telling frequency in letters from Switzerland and Central Germany
to England. Those reflect the Old or Michaelmas Frankfort Fair which generally
ended around September 20th.
Frankfort being some 120 miles from Strasbourg, and the fair
being great fun for an English Protestant intellectual, Burcher had become a
dependable link by which Englishmen sent mail between the European hinterlands
and England to each other. Other such protestant intellectuals left the fair
going toward Calais and England where mail could be handed along to various
agents of the Royal Court, noble houses and merchant groups. International
businessmen and their servants more generally went toward the great port of
Antwerp. After delivering and receiving Antwerp mail, they or the next members
in their relay shipped out to London.
If all of these carriers of mail arrived just before and
departed just after the fair, they would find cheap and ready transportation in
the caravans of merchants and customers passing the roads. They would also find
that the roads throughout the Holy Roman Empire (Germany, more or less) were
heavily patrolled by the troops, by special order of the Emperor, in order to
assure the fair was attractive not only for goods and entertainment but for
security from highwaymen along the transportation routes.
The fact that Burcher writes from Strasburg, rather than
Frankfort, also gives us important information. Strasburg is on the main overland
route to pass from Germany, through the Alps, into Italy, and vice-versa. Burcher
was also well connected with gentlemen and servants that regularly travelled
that route. Friends going along it would
be entrusted with his reply to his Zurich, Switzerland-based correspondent,
Henry Bullinger.
A friend of Bullinger, has brought Burcher “a letter and
some books, which [the friend] desired [him] faithfully to convey by a safe
hand into England”. Bullinger himself has sent his own letter also to ask Burcher
to see that an accompanying packet make its way safely to England.
Bucher speaks of two separate servants — the master of one whom
he names — by whom he is sending the contents of the two requests. It is part
of his role as private post-master to his friends. A role which keeps him well
connected with major business and intellectual figures of the Western world and
earns him many favors in return.
This is a prime example of the Tudor version of our International
First-Class Mail. There were many other smaller and less secure fairs
throughout Europe in which a similar but less effective version of
International Mail service was available. For some special correspondence, that
we will explore another time, the letter was entrusted to a merchant or his or
her servant to travel with them along the fair circuit until it reached its
destination. While this was quite slow, the merchant caravans traveled with
private security thus making it more likely that carrier and letter and/or
funds would arrive fully intact at their destination.
[1] Original Letters Relative
to the English Reformation, II.662. John Burcher To Henry Bullinger. Strasburgh,
April 20, 1550.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
No comments:
Post a Comment