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Trading Expertise: Sebastian Cabot between Spain and England*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Alison Sandman  and
Eric H. Ash
Alison Sandman
Affiliation:
University of Southern California
Eric H. Ash
Affiliation:
Wayne State University
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Abstract

Cabot has been hailed as the father of English navigation, bringing with him from Spain the methods of celestial navigation and the ability to unite navigational theory and practice. The system Cabot set up in England, however, differed not only from the actual system of navigation in Spain, but also from the policies he advocated while there. In transferring his expertise to England, Cabot reshaped the Spanish navigational methods for his new context, convincing the English to emulate a system that never existed as such, and creating a new balance between theory and experience in navigation.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , Fall 2004 , pp. 813 - 846
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2004

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Footnotes

*

The authors would like to thank the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology for the opportunity to collaborate on this project.

References

Bibliography

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Documents relating to the inspection of the Casa de la Contratacion by Hernan Perez de la Fuente, 1549-51. AGI. Justicia, 945-50.Google Scholar
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Expediente formado en la Casa de la Contratacion de Sevilla sobre que mediante la total inutilidad de Alonso Chaves cosmografo de la Casa de la Contratacion de Sevilla, se nombrase en su lugar a los capitanes Andres de Paz y Diego de Sotomayor. AGI. Patronato 271, R. 76.Google Scholar
Expedientes, informaciones y probanzas, 1533-35. AGI. Indiferente, 1204.Google Scholar
Processo de Pedro de Medina y otros cosmografos con Diego Gutierrez piloto y otros pilotos sobre la orden que se ha de guardar en la navegacion y ynstrumentos della. AGI. Justicia, 1146, N.3, R.2.Google Scholar
Procedures for pilots’ licensing exams. AGI. Patronato, 251, R. 22, 2 August 1527. Registros para la Casa de la Contratacion, Armadas y Flotas, 1561-66. AGI. Indiferente, 1966, Libros 14-15.Google Scholar
Thorne, Robert. “The booke made by the worshipfull Master Robert Thorne in Anno 1527.” British Library, London. Lansdowne MS 100/7, fols. 65-80.Google Scholar
Allen, John Logan. “The Indrawing Sea: Imagination and Experience in the Search for the Northwest Passage, 1497-1632.” In American Beginnings: Exploration, Culture, and Cartography in the Land of Norumbega, ed. Baker, Emerson W. et al., 8–35. Lincoln, 1994.Google Scholar
Andrews, Kenneth. Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630. Cambridge, 1984.Google Scholar
Ash, Eric H. “The Skylfullest Men': Patronage, Authority, and the Negotiation of Expertise in Elizabethan England.“ PhD diss., Princeton University, 2000.Google Scholar
Ash, Eric H. “A note and a caveat for the merchant ‘ : Mercantile Advisors in Elizabethan England.” Sixteenth Century Journal 33.1 (2002): 1–31.Google Scholar
Ash, Eric H. Power, Authority, and Expertise: Expert Mediators in Elizabethan England. Baltimore, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Barber, Peter. “England I: Pageantry, Defense, and Government: Maps at Court to 1550.” In Monarchs, Ministers and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe, ed. Buisseret, David, 26–56. Chicago, 1992.Google Scholar
Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers Relating to the Negotiations Between England and Spain, Preserved in the Archives at Simancas and Elsewhere. 1869-1954. Ed. Bergenroth, G.A. et al. 13 vols. Reprint, Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1969-78.Google Scholar
Cortes, Martin. The Arte of Navigation. Trans. Richard Eden. London, 1561.Google Scholar
Dasent, J. R. et al., eds. Acts of the Privy Council of England. 32 vols. London, 1890-1907.Google Scholar
Davies, Surekha. “The Navigational Iconography of Diogo Ribeiro's 1529 Planisphere.” Imago Mundi 55.1 (2003): 103–12.Google Scholar
Eden, Richard. “Of Moscouie and Cathay.“ Appended to Peter Martyr of Angleria, The Decades of the newe worlde or west India … . Trans. Richard Eden, fols. 249r-63r. London, 1555.Google Scholar
Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, Gonzalo. Historia generaly natural de las Indias, islasy tierra-firme del Mar Oceano. Ed. Natalicio Gonzalez, J. and )osi Amador de los Rios. 14 vols. Asuncion del Paraguay, 1944-45.Google Scholar
Fuson, Robert H. “The John Cabot Mystique.“ In Essays on the History of North American Discovery and Exploration, ed. Palmer, Stanley H., 35–51. College Station, 1988.Google Scholar
Hakluyt, Richard. Divers voyages touching the discouerie of America, and the Hands adiacent vnto the same. London, 1582.Google Scholar
Hakluyt, Richard. The principall navigations, voiages and discoveries of the English nation … . London, 1589.Google Scholar
Hakluyt, Richard. The principal navigations, voyages, traffques and discoveries of the English Nation…. 3 vols. 2nd rev. ed. London, 1598-1600.Google Scholar
Hakluyt, Richard. “Epistle Dedicatory” to De Orbe Novo Petri Martyris… Decades octo. In The Original Writings and Correspondence of the Two Richard Hakluyts: With an Introduction and Notes by EG.R. Taylor, 366-67. London, 1935.Google Scholar
Harrisse, Henry. John Cabot, the Discoverer of North-America and Sebastian, His Son: A Chapter of the Maritime History of England Under the Tudors, 1496-1557. London, 1896.Google Scholar
Herrera y Tordesillas, Antonio de. Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islasy tierrafirme del mar oceano. Ed. Ballesteros-Beretta, Antonio. 17 vols. Madrid, 1934-.Google Scholar
Joyner, Tim. Magellan. Camden, ME, 1992.Google Scholar
Karrow, Robert W., Jr. “Sebastian Cabot.“ In Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and their Maps: Bio-Bibliographies of the Cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, 1570, 103-12. Chicago, 1993.Google Scholar
Kelsey, Harry. “The Planispheres of Sebastian Cabot and Sancho Gutierrez.“ Terrae Incognitae 19 (1987): 41–58.Google Scholar
Mappemonde de Sebastien Cabot, pilote major de Charles-Quint — Gouverneur de la Compagnie des Aventuriersmarch- ands. 1544. Trans. Jeanne Sorozabal-Kirschen. Paris, 1968.Google Scholar
Medina, Jose Toribio. El Veneciano Sebastidn Caboto al Servicio de Espaha, y Especialmente de su Proyectado Viaje d las Molucas por el Estrecho de Magallanes y al Reconocimiento de la Costa del Continente hasta la Gobernacidn de Pedrarias Ddvilla. 2 vols. Santiago de Chile, 1908.Google Scholar
Navarro Garcia, Luis. “Pilotos, maestres y senores de naos en la Carrera de las Indias.“ Archivo Hispalense 46-47, nos. 141-46 (1967): 241-95.Google Scholar
Navarro Garcia, Luis, and Carmen Borrego Pla, Maria del. Actas de la Universidad de Mareantes. Seville, 1972.Google Scholar
Peck, Douglas. “Theory Versus Practical Application in the History of Early Ocean Navigation.” Terrae Incognitae 34 (2002): 46–59.Google Scholar
Pope, Peter E. The Many Landfalls of John Cabot. Toronto, 1997. Pulido Rubio, Jose\ El Piloto Mayor: Pilotos mayores, catedraticos de cosmografia y cosmdgrafos de la Casa de la Contratacion de Sevilla. 1923. Rev. ed. Seville, 1950.Google Scholar
Quinn, David Beers. England and the Discovery of America, 1481-1620: From the Bristol Voyages of the Fifteenth Century to the Pilgrim Settlement at Plymouth: The Exploration, Exploitation, and Trial-and-Error Colonization of North America by the English. New York, 1974.Google Scholar
Quinn, David Beers. Sebastian Cabot and Bristol Exploration. Rev. ed. Bristol, 1993.Google Scholar
Rodger, N A M . The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain. Vol. 1, 660-1649. London, 1997.Google Scholar
Sandman, Alison. “Educating Pilots: Licensing Exams, Cosmography Classes, and the Universidad de Mareantes in 16th-Century Spain.” In Fernando 01- iveira and his Era: Humanism and the Art of Navigation in Renaissance Europe (1450-1650), 99-109. Cascais, Portugal, 2000.Google Scholar
Sandman, Alison. “Cosmographers vs. Pilots: Navigation, Cosmography, and the State in Early Modern Spain.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2001a.Google Scholar
Sandman, Alison. “Mirroring the World: Sea Charts, Navigation, and Territorial Claims in Sixteenth-Century Spain.“ In Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Smith, Pamela and Findlen, Paula, 83–108. New York, 2001b.Google Scholar
Sandman, Alison. “Spanish Nautical Cartography.“ In The History of Cartography, vol. 3, Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Scott, William Robert. The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720. 3 vols. Cambridge, 1910-12. Taylor, E.G.R., ed. A briefsumme of geographic by Roger Barlow. London, 1932.Google Scholar
Waters, David W. The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times. New Haven, 1958.Google Scholar
Williamson, James Alexander. The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery under Henry VII. Cambridge, 1962.Google Scholar
Borough, Stephen. “Three esspeciall causes and consideracons amongest others wherfore the office of Pilott maior ys allowed and estemed in Spaigne, Portingale, and other places wheras navigacon florishethe.” British Library, London. Lansdowne MS 116/3, fols. 6–9.Google Scholar
Cartas remitidas al Consejo de Indias, 1541-70. Archivo General de Indias, Seville (hereafter AGI). Indiferente, 1093.Google Scholar
Documents relating to the inspection of the Casa de la Contratacion by Hernan Perez de la Fuente, 1549-51. AGI. Justicia, 945-50.Google Scholar
Documents relating to the inspection of the Casa de la Contratacion by Doctor Juan Vazquez de Arce, 1557. AGI. Justicia, 951.Google Scholar
Expediente formado en la Casa de la Contratacion de Sevilla sobre que mediante la total inutilidad de Alonso Chaves cosmografo de la Casa de la Contratacion de Sevilla, se nombrase en su lugar a los capitanes Andres de Paz y Diego de Sotomayor. AGI. Patronato 271, R. 76.Google Scholar
Expedientes, informaciones y probanzas, 1533-35. AGI. Indiferente, 1204.Google Scholar
Processo de Pedro de Medina y otros cosmografos con Diego Gutierrez piloto y otros pilotos sobre la orden que se ha de guardar en la navegacion y ynstrumentos della. AGI. Justicia, 1146, N.3, R.2.Google Scholar
Procedures for pilots’ licensing exams. AGI. Patronato, 251, R. 22, 2 August 1527. Registros para la Casa de la Contratacion, Armadas y Flotas, 1561-66. AGI. Indiferente, 1966, Libros 14-15.Google Scholar
Thorne, Robert. “The booke made by the worshipfull Master Robert Thorne in Anno 1527.” British Library, London. Lansdowne MS 100/7, fols. 65-80.Google Scholar
Allen, John Logan. “The Indrawing Sea: Imagination and Experience in the Search for the Northwest Passage, 1497-1632.” In American Beginnings: Exploration, Culture, and Cartography in the Land of Norumbega, ed. Baker, Emerson W. et al., 8–35. Lincoln, 1994.Google Scholar
Andrews, Kenneth. Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630. Cambridge, 1984.Google Scholar
Ash, Eric H. “The Skylfullest Men': Patronage, Authority, and the Negotiation of Expertise in Elizabethan England.“ PhD diss., Princeton University, 2000.Google Scholar
Ash, Eric H. “A note and a caveat for the merchant ‘ : Mercantile Advisors in Elizabethan England.” Sixteenth Century Journal 33.1 (2002): 1–31.Google Scholar
Ash, Eric H. Power, Authority, and Expertise: Expert Mediators in Elizabethan England. Baltimore, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Barber, Peter. “England I: Pageantry, Defense, and Government: Maps at Court to 1550.” In Monarchs, Ministers and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe, ed. Buisseret, David, 26–56. Chicago, 1992.Google Scholar
Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers Relating to the Negotiations Between England and Spain, Preserved in the Archives at Simancas and Elsewhere. 1869-1954. Ed. Bergenroth, G.A. et al. 13 vols. Reprint, Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1969-78.Google Scholar
Cortes, Martin. The Arte of Navigation. Trans. Richard Eden. London, 1561.Google Scholar
Dasent, J. R. et al., eds. Acts of the Privy Council of England. 32 vols. London, 1890-1907.Google Scholar
Davies, Surekha. “The Navigational Iconography of Diogo Ribeiro's 1529 Planisphere.” Imago Mundi 55.1 (2003): 103–12.Google Scholar
Eden, Richard. “Of Moscouie and Cathay.“ Appended to Peter Martyr of Angleria, The Decades of the newe worlde or west India … . Trans. Richard Eden, fols. 249r-63r. London, 1555.Google Scholar
Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, Gonzalo. Historia generaly natural de las Indias, islasy tierra-firme del Mar Oceano. Ed. Natalicio Gonzalez, J. and )osi Amador de los Rios. 14 vols. Asuncion del Paraguay, 1944-45.Google Scholar
Fuson, Robert H. “The John Cabot Mystique.“ In Essays on the History of North American Discovery and Exploration, ed. Palmer, Stanley H., 35–51. College Station, 1988.Google Scholar
Hakluyt, Richard. Divers voyages touching the discouerie of America, and the Hands adiacent vnto the same. London, 1582.Google Scholar
Hakluyt, Richard. The principall navigations, voiages and discoveries of the English nation … . London, 1589.Google Scholar
Hakluyt, Richard. The principal navigations, voyages, traffques and discoveries of the English Nation…. 3 vols. 2nd rev. ed. London, 1598-1600.Google Scholar
Hakluyt, Richard. “Epistle Dedicatory” to De Orbe Novo Petri Martyris… Decades octo. In The Original Writings and Correspondence of the Two Richard Hakluyts: With an Introduction and Notes by EG.R. Taylor, 366-67. London, 1935.Google Scholar
Harrisse, Henry. John Cabot, the Discoverer of North-America and Sebastian, His Son: A Chapter of the Maritime History of England Under the Tudors, 1496-1557. London, 1896.Google Scholar
Herrera y Tordesillas, Antonio de. Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islasy tierrafirme del mar oceano. Ed. Ballesteros-Beretta, Antonio. 17 vols. Madrid, 1934-.Google Scholar
Joyner, Tim. Magellan. Camden, ME, 1992.Google Scholar
Karrow, Robert W., Jr. “Sebastian Cabot.“ In Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and their Maps: Bio-Bibliographies of the Cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, 1570, 103-12. Chicago, 1993.Google Scholar
Kelsey, Harry. “The Planispheres of Sebastian Cabot and Sancho Gutierrez.“ Terrae Incognitae 19 (1987): 41–58.Google Scholar
Mappemonde de Sebastien Cabot, pilote major de Charles-Quint — Gouverneur de la Compagnie des Aventuriersmarch- ands. 1544. Trans. Jeanne Sorozabal-Kirschen. Paris, 1968.Google Scholar
Medina, Jose Toribio. El Veneciano Sebastidn Caboto al Servicio de Espaha, y Especialmente de su Proyectado Viaje d las Molucas por el Estrecho de Magallanes y al Reconocimiento de la Costa del Continente hasta la Gobernacidn de Pedrarias Ddvilla. 2 vols. Santiago de Chile, 1908.Google Scholar
Navarro Garcia, Luis. “Pilotos, maestres y senores de naos en la Carrera de las Indias.“ Archivo Hispalense 46-47, nos. 141-46 (1967): 241-95.Google Scholar
Navarro Garcia, Luis, and Carmen Borrego Pla, Maria del. Actas de la Universidad de Mareantes. Seville, 1972.Google Scholar
Peck, Douglas. “Theory Versus Practical Application in the History of Early Ocean Navigation.” Terrae Incognitae 34 (2002): 46–59.Google Scholar
Pope, Peter E. The Many Landfalls of John Cabot. Toronto, 1997. Pulido Rubio, Jose\ El Piloto Mayor: Pilotos mayores, catedraticos de cosmografia y cosmdgrafos de la Casa de la Contratacion de Sevilla. 1923. Rev. ed. Seville, 1950.Google Scholar
Quinn, David Beers. England and the Discovery of America, 1481-1620: From the Bristol Voyages of the Fifteenth Century to the Pilgrim Settlement at Plymouth: The Exploration, Exploitation, and Trial-and-Error Colonization of North America by the English. New York, 1974.Google Scholar
Quinn, David Beers. Sebastian Cabot and Bristol Exploration. Rev. ed. Bristol, 1993.Google Scholar
Rodger, N A M . The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain. Vol. 1, 660-1649. London, 1997.Google Scholar
Sandman, Alison. “Educating Pilots: Licensing Exams, Cosmography Classes, and the Universidad de Mareantes in 16th-Century Spain.” In Fernando 01- iveira and his Era: Humanism and the Art of Navigation in Renaissance Europe (1450-1650), 99-109. Cascais, Portugal, 2000.Google Scholar
Sandman, Alison. “Cosmographers vs. Pilots: Navigation, Cosmography, and the State in Early Modern Spain.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2001a.Google Scholar
Sandman, Alison. “Mirroring the World: Sea Charts, Navigation, and Territorial Claims in Sixteenth-Century Spain.“ In Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Smith, Pamela and Findlen, Paula, 83–108. New York, 2001b.Google Scholar
Sandman, Alison. “Spanish Nautical Cartography.“ In The History of Cartography, vol. 3, Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Scott, William Robert. The Constitution and Finance of English, Scottish, and Irish Joint-Stock Companies to 1720. 3 vols. Cambridge, 1910-12. Taylor, E.G.R., ed. A briefsumme of geographic by Roger Barlow. London, 1932.Google Scholar
Waters, David W. The Art of Navigation in England in Elizabethan and Early Stuart Times. New Haven, 1958.Google Scholar
Williamson, James Alexander. The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery under Henry VII. Cambridge, 1962.Google Scholar