الأحد، 14 يوليو 2024

Download PDF | (Brill's Series in the History of the Environment, 7) Rafal B Reichert - Wood, Trade, and Spanish Naval Power (C.1740-1795)-Brill (2024).

Download PDF | (Brill's Series in the History of the Environment, 7) Rafal B Reichert - Wood, Trade, and Spanish Naval Power (C.1740-1795)-Brill (2024).

277 Pages 







Introduction 

The dynastic change in Spain in 1700 brought about a series of political, economic, military, and cultural changes. The new Bourbon dynasty, represented by King Philip V (1700–1746), set about restoring and strengthening the Spanish Empire against its main rival, Great Britain. Key to this ambitious project was the modernisation of the navy, which in the words of John Lynch: “had not even a good place to boil a cauldron of pitch”.1 This lamentable state of the Spanish navy was the consequence of the neglect of the shipbuilding industry during the reign of the last Habsburg, Charles II (1665–1700), and also the result of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1713) during which the last of the king’s ships were immobilised. For this reason, the mission of reviving Spanish naval power began as early as 1714. The creation of the Ministry of the Royal Navy and the West Indies, and later of the intendancies, maritime departments, and royal shipyards in Guarnizo, El Ferrol, Cádiz-La Carraca, Cartagena de Levante, and Havana laid the foundations for the development of modern shipbuilding in Spain. 














Among the various figures who contributed to this process, the most outstanding are José Patiño, intendant and later minister of the Royal Navy, and Antonio de Gaztañeta, a sailor and shipbuilder who drew up the regulations for the king’s shipbuilding system in the “Spanish style”.2 These efforts by the king, his naval officers, and the royal treasury led to the revival of naval power, and by the eve of the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739–1748) the Spanish fleet comprised 29 ships-of-the-line, 11 frigates, six paquebotes, four bombards, two galleons, two azogues, two galeotas, two sloops, and one pingüe.3 This policy of naval reinforcement continued between 1743 and 1795 under the Marquis of Ensenada (1743–1754), Julián de Arriaga (1754–1776), Pedro González de Castejón (1776–1783), and Antonio Valdés (1783–1795), José Patiño’s successors in the Ministry of the Royal Navy. Owing to this successful strategy, by the 1790s the Spanish Navy was the second most powerful navy in Europe, after the British Royal Navy. Several factors contributed to this: financial stability; the skilful management of the intendants and officers of the Marina Real and the maritime departments; the implementation of technological innovations; and, finally, a functional raw material supply system. Jan Glete,4 followed by Iván Valdez Bubnov5 and Rafael Torres Sánchez,6 pointed out that this policy was grounded in the broader military strategy pursued by the Spanish and French crowns, whereby the Bourbons’ combined fleets7 could muster as many ships-of-the-line and frigates as the British navy.8 











This status was reached after the end of the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1748), and in the period between 1770 and 1789, the naval forces of Spain and France outstripped the Royal Navy in terms of warships. Thus, in the second half of the 18th century, the Bourbon navies became the mainstay of the colonial order, contributing to the naval balance against the powerful British navy. However, it is also clear that, despite having a similar or smaller number of ships, supremacy in combat was on the British side, because their crews and officers were better trained. This is why the Franco-Hispanic fleets meet with more defeats than victories in the second half of the 18th century. British policies to strengthen the Royal Navy during this period triggered the intensification of naval production in Spain and was also reflected in the introduction of technological innovations in shipbuilding. In the second half of the 18th century, the shipbuilding industry produced vessels based on three systems: the “English style”, introduced by Jorge Juan and the British constructors hired by the Bourbon Crown (1750–1765); the “French style”, implemented in the royal shipyards by the shipbuilder François Gautier (1765–1782); and the “mixed or perfected style”, led by the naval constructors José Romero de Landa and Julián Martín de Retamosa, who in their designs combined features of the earlier systems, for example using rigging in the English style to increase the speed of ships.9













The analysis of Bourbon Spain’s naval policy in the second half of the 18th century clearly shows that the most valuable raw material for the ambitious plans to modernise the Marina Real was wood. For this reason, the main subject of this book is timber sourcing, with special attention to the exploitation of forests outside the Iberian Peninsula, including foreign states in the southern Baltic region and in the Spanish colonies, for instance the viceroyalty of New Spain. This book describes the different ways in which wood supply operated, depending on local geographical factors, political situation, available personnel and funds, and the broader context of naval affairs involving the Spanish state, its allies, and its enemies. 














That is why the research presented in this book starts with two important questions: (1) how did Spain keep up with the increasing demand for timber as its naval power surged in the second half of the 18th century? and (2) what were the strategies deployed by the Bourbon monarchy to exploit and capture forest resources outside the Iberian Peninsula? In order to answer these two questions, it is necessary to revise the Spanish Crown maritime policies and the development of its naval power, which was the key factor in the protection of, and trade with, its overseas colonies in America. Before, however, it is worth recalling that, in early modern Europe, ships became the main medium of colonial expansion, and their production essential for the economic and military stability of crowns, states, and nations. European demand for wood gradually began to grow from the 1640s, and became acute during the 18th century, mostly as a result of naval competition between England/Great Britain, France, Spain, Holland, and Portugal. The resulting overexploitation of woodland led to the deforestation of many regions in these countries,10 forcing naval powers to reconnoitre other European markets for timber and other sources, from the hinterlands of the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Sea regions to America and Asia.11 No raw material – apart from precious metal – was as highly coveted by European naval powers as timber.















 In the Early Modern Age, this forest resource became the main tool for expansionist and colonialist policies, allowing European naval powers to develop their economy, trade, and military power. For this reason, greater emphasis needs to be put on wood as a strategic resource that led to technological progress in shipbuilding and the modernisation of the navies of England/Great Britain, Spain, France, Holland, and, to a lesser extent, Portugal, Sweden, and Denmark. This is not only from the political – military perspective but, as the Spanish case illustrates, also in terms of knowledge about forest resources in Iberian Peninsula and the American colonies. Thanks to the explorations and surveys undertaken by the Spanish army and naval officers,12 the rational harvesting of wood – to ensure the navy’s ability to self-supply – became a target in itself, and the crown implemented more  stringent monitoring systems to maintain the sourcing of this strategic raw material under strict control of the state.13 From the 16th century onwards, the colonial expansion of the European crowns in Africa, America, and Asia allowed the exploration of forests on these continents. This event opened up the opportunity to exploit new tree species other than those traditionally used for centuries in European shipbuilding, which were more suitable for sailing in warmer seas. The trees commonly used in the European shipbuilding industry were pine, oak, beech, spruce, black poplar, and elm. Depending on their physical characteristics (weight, strength, durability, density, elasticity), these European species were used to manufacture different ship parts. For example, pines were mainly used for masting and, to a lesser extent, for planking; beech for oars and rudders; black poplar and elm for planks, ribbons, and turn pieces; oak and melis pine for beams; and pedunculate oak for the structural parts of ships, such as keels, frames, elbows, and rods.14 The knowledge about the properties of tropical wood allowed the progress of European shipbuilding, which began to increasingly use American and Asian species, such as mahogany, sabicú, cedar, cypress, and also teak, ebony, guijo, betis, banaba: woods that performed better in warm waters than European timber, as well as being more resistant to naval shipworm or turu.15 For this reason, their service life was longer than those of vessels built with European wood.













 Once this critical issue was well understood, the navies of Spain, France, England/Britain, Portugal, and Holland began taking advantage of their colonies to exploit the durable tropical woods for the construction and repair of their ships overseas and in their European shipyard.16 Spain became aware of the importance of timber early, after the Carrera de Indias, which began systematically in 1543, triggered a constant demand for merchant ships to channel trade with the colonies and armed galleons to protect the vital routes along which precious metals and other commodities circulated.17 In 1562, Philip II and the councils of the Indies and State took measures to begin naval production on a mass scale to create the armadas needed to protect the vast Spanish Empire. This required the reorganisation of forest management by royal officials and massive tree-planting campaigns. In 1574, Philip II appointed Cristóbal de Barros y Peralta first Superintendent of Hills and Forests. The promotion and protection of woodland in northern Spain can be regarded as the first expression of sustainable forestry policies, which was not grounded on conservationist ideas, but on a strategy to guarantee a constant source of raw materials to build and repair ships.18 Interestingly, the same notions guided Spanish public policies until the 1830s, when orders to preserve and manage forests (e.g. Ordenanzas Generales de Montes, 1833) were published on the initiative of Minister Javier de Burgos. Importantly, his orders imposed strict restrictions on logging as an urgent measure to stop soil erosion and flooding, which were exacerbated by the lack of forested areas. For the first time in Spanish history, these ordinances reflected a change in the reasoning behind forestry policies: from preservation with a view on naval construction to the protection of woodland for conservationist purposes.19 














Back to the Early Modern Age, it is worth recalling that, between 1574 and the early 19th century, Spanish monarchs and officials triggered several policies to impose control over the exploitation of forest resources in Spain and the colonies. Examples of these official regulations, which focused on the use of common woodland – exploitation regimes, fines and punishments for non-compliance, and the impact of agriculture and stock-breeding – can be found in the Catalonian Ordinacions Forestals, written in 1627 by Miguel de los Santos de San Pedro. These rules tried to impose severe limitations on logging, while reinforcing the presence of the navy commissars tasked with selecting the most suitable trees for naval construction.20 Another example is Toribio Pérez de Bustamante’s Instrucción forestal (1656), with which Philip IV tried to centralise forest management not only in Spain but in his whole empire. The document established a new basic rule for the preservation of woodland: the prohibition to fell trees within two leagues of the coastline and navigable rivers, which were put under royal protection. The Instrucción also ordered local authorities to disseminate the document’s contents in the areas in which these forests were. Interestingly, churches were singled out as ideal points to disseminate the order. The Instrucción also included practical information, concerning felling periods, tree planting, and punishments for those that violated the ban on logging in royal, communal, and private woodland.21 It is interesting that the Spanish Habsburgs also included their American colonies in this legislation. Unsurprisingly, the first ordinance to protect American woodland was passed in Cuba, by order of Philip II in 1559. 















This regulation prohibited any logging, two leagues inland on the banks of the Chorrera River and also within ten leagues leeward and windward of Havana, without the governor’s permission. Anyone caught with an axe or a machete in the forests was sentenced to forced labour at the fortification works. Although this first order does not mention the navy’s needs, the following do, because throughout the 17th century the Spanish Crown prioritised shipbuilding in Cuba, notably in Havana. Especially important among all the royal orders concerning the navy’s wood resources was the one issued by Philip III on 26 March 1607, ordering the Cuban governor, Pedro de Valdés, to send 50 pieces and 100 boards of mahogany to the Casa de Contratación, Seville, for its qualities as shipbuilding material to be assessed. Also important was the order issued on 2 March 1620, authorising anyone arriving in Havana with the intention of building ships to fell trees anywhere in Cuba, and that issued on 2 March 1623, with which Philip IV addressed the petition of Cuba’s governor, Francisco de Venegas, to limit this permit to the constructors of naos only, because vecinos of Havana, especially ranchers, were expanding their land at the expense of woodland that was valuable for naval construction.22 During the rule of the Spanish Bourbons, one of the most important decisions was to publish the Ordenanza de 1748, which imposed norms for the exploitation of woodland in the Iberian Peninsula under the supervision of superintendents from the navy departments of El Ferrol, Cádiz-La Carraca, and Cartagena. 














The main promoter of this document was the Marquis of Ensenada, Minister of the Royal Navy and the Indies, who granted navy officers sweeping powers to manage public and private woodland in the Iberian Peninsula, prioritising the Navy’s needs and shipbuilding in the royal shipyards. They were bestowed with the authority to decide the fate of all woodland, and, in their surveys, they earmarked the best trees for the Spanish Navy, forcing private landowners to use inferior quality timber for their own needs. Intendants also had precedence to buy timber, sometimes paying below-market prices. Similarly, Navy officers had the authority to send supervisors to oversee planting operations.23 These policies, however, did not yield the expected results, sparking conflict between state officials and forest owners,24 and ultimately forcing the Ministry of the Royal Navy and Indies to seek other sources of timber outside the Iberian Peninsula through the asiento system.25 The analysis of these and other official documents,26 issued during the Early Modern Age, clearly illustrate that policies to protect woodland in Spain were  guided by the wish to ensure the supply of timber for the king’s ships. This policy of sustainable use of forest resources pursued by Bourbon Spain was in line with mercantilist ideas put forward in the first half of the 18th century by two Spanish politicians inspired by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, Jerónimo de Uztáriz and José del Campillo y Cossío, who highlighted the huge potential of American forests as the main source of timber for the Spanish royal shipyards. Uztáriz saw great advantage in the durability and resistance of American timber, which he expressed as follows: In the islands and mainland of America, where his majesty has many exquisite kinds of wood and an abundance of pitch and tar for the construction of ships ... with the considerable benefit that if the [ships] made in Europe resist for 12 to 15 years, [those in America] are preserved for more than 30 years since they are made there with the cedar, harder oak, and other woods of superior strength and resistance.27 Campillo y Cossío also demonstrated the advantages of American wood, saying that: Campeche wood, cedar, mahogany and other beautiful woods, masts for ships, planks, pitch ... that now come to us from the Baltic, we will have from our Indies; and also the furniture, tools, instruments for work ... we can take them [from Spain] there and sell them cheaper [in ­America].














His idea clearly shows that Spain should replace the timber provision from the Baltic and also from other European regions because the use of American timbers would offer a double benefit. First, the money invested in the purchase of timber production in the colonies would remain in Spanish commercial circuits. Second, timber extraction would be supervised by the royal and colonial authorities and would guarantee quality control of the wooden parts produced for ships. Uztáriz and Campillo y Cossío’s ideological approach was materialised during logging operations in Oaxaca and Cuba, which were carried out under the patronage of the Crown, and the concession of asientos to merchants and influential Creole residents from New Spain, Louisiana, and Cuba during the second half of the 18th century (see Chapter 4). During this period, especially after the Treaty of Paris (1763), which brought an end to the Seven Years’ War, in which Spain was defeated by the British, strenuous efforts were made to reinforce the Spanish Navy, which after the time of Ensenada had entered a period of stagnation. The first major change was technological, with the substitution of the “French style” of shipbuilding for the “British system”, which had been followed in the 1750s and the early 1760s. In 1772, Francisco Gautier issued a report entitled Observaciones sobre el estado de los montes de España, nota del consumo de la madera de construcción, que, en cada año, se considera necesaria en los departamentos de Ferrol, Cartagena y Cádiz; y proyecto para aprovisionar estos arsenales de maderas de América,29 in which he described the state of Spanish woodlands and made audacious proposals to use American timber in naval construction in the Iberian Peninsula. Gautier emphasised that “Cádiz uses American wood which is brought at great cost but with little profit, not because it lacks in quality, but because of the carelessness with which it is dispatched [to Spain], where it arrives badly cut, badly arranged, and poorly sorted”.30 











These words somewhat concealed his real intentions, which were to base the Navy’s timber supplies mostly on the exploitation of colonial forests; he points out that there was already a flow of tozas31 between Havana and other naval departments, but that this was insufficient and was limited to specific ship parts of sabicú, mahogany, and cedar. In any case, Gautier’s project began initiatives by the Navy and viceregal authorities in the colonies to exploit American forests. In the 1770s and 1780s, various woodland surveys were launched by royal officials to inspect potential timber sources, establishing species and volumes, from the Greater Caribbean and Louisiana to Veracruz, Oaxaca, Yucatán, Darién, the Magdalena River, Cumaná, and the Orinoco. Not all of these crystallised in felling asientos, but others met with greater success. As such, Louisiana and Chimalapas became sources of pine masting used in Havana; Coatzacoalcos, Tlacotalpan, Alvarado, Laguna de Términos, Cartagena de Indias, the Magdalena River, and Cumaná supplied shaped pieces and boards in cedar and mahogany, most of which were shipped to the Iberian Peninsula. Gautier’s idea to tap into the enormous resources of American forests made sense, as the shipbuilder wished to keep Spanish woodland as a strategic reserve for naval construction. 













However, the project was hampered by difficulties in hauling shaped pieces timber to Spain and could only become a complement to the supplies obtained in the Iberian Peninsula and other European regions. In the second half of the 18th century, the main supply routes for the Spanish Navy linked with the Baltic and the Northern seas, where timber was obtained from private merchants,32 mostly foreigners and representatives of trade houses from the Netherlands, England, France, and Scandinavia, which frequently had branches in Spain. These businesspeople were connected with Spanish traders and their political allies in Madrid and the main Spanish harbours (Bilbao, San Sebastián, Santander, Cádiz, Seville, Malaga, Cartagena, and Barcelona). The reason behind this model was the shortcomings of the Spanish merchant navy, which from the 17th century was gradually replaced by cheaper foreign freight options – depending on geopolitical conditions, English/British, Dutch, French, and, to a lesser extent, Scandinavians and Hamburgers. In the Mediterranean, the second major source of wood (Romanian, Balkan, and Italian), most contracts were signed with Italian merchants,33 who virtually monopolised timber supplies for the Spanish navy in the 18th century in the region, as illustrated by the contracts signed with asentistas Joseph Marcerano, Baltazar Castellini, and Carlos María Marraci.34 However, the most important source of wood during this period lay in the north, especially the Baltic, where Spain had to compete with other countries that traditionally sourced their timber there, that is, the British, Dutch, and French. Interestingly, with the help of a vast network of Spanish and foreign merchants and the diplomatic support of consuls, plenipotentiary ministers, and ambassadors, Bourbon Spain managed to gain, and keep, a foothold in the Baltic timber market in the period spanning the 1760s to the 1790s. 











This activity peaked in the run-up to the American War of Independence (1775– 1783), which Spain joined in 1779, and in the second half of the 1780s. Especially interesting are the attempts to nationalise wood asientos instead of working with foreign merchants. The contracts awarded to Miguel Soto and his representative Felipe Chone in the 1770s were the first step, followed in 1782 by the creation of the Banco de San Carlos to centralise naval supplies and finances. The Soto-Chone asiento yielded some positive results, but the monopolistic position awarded to the national bank was a fiasco, and traditional policies to find foreign merchants with solid Baltic networks, such as the Swedish Gahn, had to be resumed.35 It must be emphasised that the policies implemented by the Spanish Navy in the second half of the 18th century clearly show that Mahan’s thesis36 is – at least for this period – incorrect, because, as also shown by other recent research, Bourbon Spain had enough human capital, skilled royal officials, cash, natural resources in Spain and America, commercial networks, and diplomatic leverage to manage wood supplies in different northern and southern European markets, which led the Spanish armed forces to their greatest success in the 18th century, victory over Great Britain in the American War of Independence. 












This would have been impossible without the modernisation and development of the Navy, which in the 1780s became the second most powerful in the world, after the British37. As noted, the main aim of this book – which presents the results of research undertaken over ten years – was to contribute to our understanding of timber supplies for the Spanish Navy, especially from the southern Baltic and the viceroyalty of New Spain, for which little previous research has been undertaken. Although things have improved in recent years, significant gaps in our knowledge concerning these two regions still exist.38 As such, a comprehensive comparison of these important regions for timber supply through the lens of the Spanish Royal Navy’s development strategy was still lacking. Systematic work at Spanish, Mexican, Cuban, and Polish archives has shed light on trade relations, forest surveys, problems with transport, and use in naval construction of timber from the southern Baltic and New Spain, regions that presented very different geographical – economic – political – social contexts. However, owing to the determination of Spanish royal officials, Spain could ultimately meet its main target, which was to guarantee that its shipyards enjoyed a constant supply of timber from outside the Iberian Peninsula. For this reason, this book cannot be easily slotted into a single field, such as environmental history39 or maritime history.40 Instead, it must be seen as a multifaceted attempt to cut across disciplinary boundaries,41 to understand Spanish timber supply policies as a process that merged the environmental, economic, naval, political, geographic, military, and social histories of these two important regions (the southern Baltic and the viceroyalty of New Spain), their forested hinterlands, and harbours like Memel, Königsberg, Gdańsk/ Danzig, Szczecin/Stettin, Veracruz, Campeche, and Havana. 











In the 18th century, these places were intimately linked with the Spanish naval departments of El Ferrol, Cádiz-La Carraca, and Cartagena through trade contracts and the timber used to modernise the Royal Navy with the sponsorship of the state. The timber trade that mobilised transport networks in North America, the Caribbean, Spain, northern Europe, and the Baltic clearly illustrates the economic dimension of early globalisation, as it brought remote geographical regions to interact closely.42 It must be emphasised that a local product such as European and American timber became, in this process, a global commodity. The use of this wood in European shipbuilding contributed to colonisation and early globalisation because the ships built in the royal shipyards were later used to protect navigation routes across the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Often, these ships, built with timber from Spain, the Baltic, New Spain, and other places, were used to haul silver and other American products (gold, sugar, tobacco, cochineal, and indigo) to Spain, and also took part in offensive and defensive naval operations in time of war. As noted, the book approaches Spanish timber supply policies from different points of view. For this reason, the monograph is divided into two parts and comprises four chapters. The first part (Chapters 1 and 2), analyses timber extraction and wood trade and transport from the southern Baltic to Spain. 












The second part (Chapters 3 and 4) presents the Spanish Crown’s efforts to organise an efficient system to identify and harvest American timber from several provinces in the viceroyalty of New Spain, like Veracruz, Oaxaca, Campeche, Cuba, Louisiana, and other forested regions in the Caribbean. Chapter 1, entitled “Spanish Navy Wood Supplies from the Southern Baltic and Riga”, begins by presenting the policies devised by the Marquis of Ensenada, one of the most powerful ministers during the reigns of Philip V and Ferdinand VI, who faced the challenge of modernising the Spanish state with administrative, fiscal, military, and naval reforms. As Minister of the Navy and Indies, between 1743 and 1754 he continued the project to develop and renovate the Marina Real begun by José Patiño y Rosales in 1717. He created a network of consuls and spies to gather information about foreign armies, navies, and military industries. During his time in office, the Navy adopted the known system of asientos, which guaranteed public contracts with foreign entrepreneurs associated with the Spanish commercial sector. The first major contracts were signed in the 1750s to ensure the supply of timber and other raw materials, such as hemp and linen, for the naval departments of El Ferrol, Cádiz-La Carraca, and Cartagena. The chapter analyses the contracts proposed by different commercial houses – mostly Dutch, Irish, and Swedish – from 1750 to 1790.












 These contractors gave the Spanish Crown access to the Baltic markets, specifically the harbours between Szczecin/Stettin and Riga, which were able to supply excellent pine or fir masting, and pine – oak planks and beams. The chapter also examines attempts by Baltic merchants, for instance, Mathy and Schultz, from Gdańsk/Danzig, to compete with these businessmen, who held a virtual monopoly over timber exported to Spain. Chapter 2 examines the hinterlands of three major regions in Prussia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which were connected by sea through navigable rivers. The first section addresses the trade in wood from Silesia and Kłodzko, which were floated down the Oder River to Szczecin/Stettin. This section also analyses the timber market at this harbour, to which wood was delivered from the jurisdiction of Pomerania. The second section of the chapter examines the flow of timber down the Vistula to Gdańsk/Danzig, a Hanseatic commercial hub in Poland and an important harbour for trade in cereal, wood, hemp, and other Baltic products. 














This section also includes information about the earliest legislation passed in the kingdoms of Prussia and Poland to protect the royal forests in Silesia, Kłodzko, and Kozienice. The last-but-one section analyses the forest economy of the influential magnate family of the Radziwiłłs and the commercial networks involved in the commercialisation of timber and other products in Riga, Memel, and Königsberg.43 Finally, Chapter 2 examines Felipe Chone’s trip to evaluate the timber floated down the Oder River to Szczecin/Stettin, as well as the Spanish Ambassador in the Kingdom of Poland, Count of Aranda’s description of the Vistula timber trade, after taking a voyage downriver to Gdańsk/Danzig. Chapter 3, “The Survey of New Spain’s Woodlands”, takes the research focus to the other side of the Atlantic, where, beginning in the 1760s, the Ministry of the Navy carried out several inspections of forests in the vast Spanish American empire in order to identify places where wood could be extracted. From the early 18th century onwards, royal projects had begun using timber from the region of Veracruz, in the viceroyalty of New Spain, which is traversed by several major rivers, including the Alvarado and the Coatzacoalcos. This region was rich in tropical forests with good cedar, mahogany, and sabicú, while the mountains of Sierra Madre Oriental were covered in pine forests. The chapter analyses the strategies adopted by the Ministry of the Navy and the viceregal authorities to expedite the harvesting of wood for naval construction in Havana and Spain. Not all these inspections, undertaken by military and naval officers, resulted in wood-sourcing, but all of them yielded excellent geographical knowledge of the forested areas in the provinces of Veracruz and Oaxaca.











 The last section of the chapter examines timber-extracting projects in other regions of the viceroyalty, like the Usumacinta River, the Laguna de Términos, and the province of Huejutla. Chapter 4 studies the results of wood logging in New Spain (provinces of Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tabasco, and Yucatán) but also in other regions of the Spanish Empire like Louisiana and the Caribbean, in the General Captaincy of Cuba and the Viceroyalty of New Granada. In New Spain – the region on which the main focus of this book lies – several asientos were signed with the support of the royal treasure. In the period 1784–1787, these contracts were granted to members of the military – commercial elite of Veracruz, who pledged to supply the Marina Real with tozas of mahogany and cedar and also prepared parts for ships-of-the-line and frigates. 












This project lasted only four years, not for lack of money or wood, but because of the constant problems with the transport of the timber from the river mouths to the shipyards in Cuba and Spain. The section on Louisiana examines pine-logging contracts with merchants from New Orleans to bring masting and planks to Havana. Finally, asientos granted in the Caribbean, specifically in the regions of Cumaná, the Magdalena River, and Cartagena de Indias, as well as the illegal felling and contraband of wood in Cuba’s south-eastern forests are also analysed.









 





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السبت، 13 يوليو 2024

Download PDF | Folda, Jaroslav. Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting: The Virgin and Child Hodegetria and the Art of Chrysography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Download PDF | Folda, Jaroslav. Byzantine Art and Italian Panel Painting: The Virgin and Child Hodegetria and the Art of Chrysography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

358 Pages 




PROLOGUE: MANIFESTATIONS OF THE CULT OF THE VIRGIN IN THE YEARS AROUND 1260 

ON OCTOBER 24, 1260, IN THE PRESENCE OF LOUIS IX, THE MOST CHRISTIAN king of France, the newly completed cathedral in Chartres was dedicated to Mary the Mother of Jesus. Its full title was "The Cathedral Church of the Assumption of Our Lady," or Notre Dame for short. Elsewhere in France great cathedrals in the cities of Amiens, Bourges, Metz, Paris, and Reims, to mention only a few of the approximately eighty-some Gothic examples, were also dedicated to the Virgin, Lady Mary, in the thirteenth century. Hundreds of miles away, in Siena, a great victory had just been celebrated, the victory of the Sienese over their hated rivals, the Florentines and their Guelf allies, in the battle of Montaperti, on September 4, 1260.







 In preparation for this battle, the Sienese had dedicated their city to the Virgin. On September 3. the sindaco of Siena, Bonaguida Lucari, led his citizens barefooted into the cathedral of the Santissima Maria Assunta, where he prostrated himself before the high altar, and prayed the following words: "I most miserable and unfaithful of sinners give, donate, and concede to you this city of Siena and all its contado, its [military] force and its district, as a sign of this I place the keys of the city of Siena on this altar."









Nearly a year later, far to the east, in Constantinople, the Byzantine army of Michael VIII Palaeologus entered the city on July 25, 1261, to retake control of their empire from the Crusaders, who since 1204 had occupied Constantinople and made it the capital of their Latin Empire. On August 15, 1261, the Emperor Michael VIII, just returned from Asia Minor, was led into the city with a procession in which the holy icon of the Virgin Hodegetria was carried at its head.












 The icon of the Virgin and Child Hodegetria was the palladium which symbolized her role as safeguard of the city and protectress of the Orthodox Christians of Constantinople. Subsequently the emperor was crowned in the church of Hagia Sophia and the Byzantine Empire was reborn after its liberation from the Crusaders. Meanwhile, in the years from about 1260 to 1262, in Constantinople, in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, in Pisa, and in Siena, the artistic invention of a new image which transformed the Virgin and Child Hodegetria from the human Mother of God, the Theotokos in the Byzantine tradition, to the Virgin as "Queen of Heaven," resplendent in copious chrysography and radiant with divine light, took place. 













This image was apparently more or less simultaneously created by Crusader painters in the Holy Land (Plate 16) and in Constantinople (Plates 19, 20) and by Italian painters in Pisa (Plate 18) and Siena (Plates 26, 28) in the early 1260s as images of the Virgin and Child Hodegetria enthroned with angels. By these widely separated historical and cultural events the remarkable importance of the cult of the Virgin Mary was celebrated in Christendom in the early 1260s.








 Indeed it seems these events and these works of art can serve to indicate that in some way the apex of the widespread cult of the Virgin was reached in the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries starting around 1260, a cult which had overspread the east and west of Christian Europe as it gained momentum and intensified in ardor from the early twelfth century onward.















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Download PDF | Liz James, Art and text in Byzantine culture, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Download PDF |  Liz James, Art and text in Byzantine culture, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

230 Pages 





Art and Text in Byzantine Culture explores the relationship between images and words and examines the different types of interactions between pictures and texts in Byzantine art. Byzantium is the only major world power to have experienced political upheaval on a vast scale as a result of an argument about art. Conse- quently, the dynamic between art and text in Byzantium is essential for under- standing Byzantine art and culture. It allows us to explore the close linking of image and word in a society where the correct relationship between the two was critical to the well-being of the state. 











Composed of specially commissioned essays written by an international team of scholars, this volume analyses how the Byzantines wrote about art, how images and text work together in Byzantine art, and how the words written on Byzantine artworks contribute to their meaning. Liz James is Reader in Art History at the University of Sussex and Associate Director of the AHRC Centre for Byzantine Culture History. She is the author of Empresses and Power in Early Byzantium.






ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

It was Jas Elsner who suggested that a book on art and text in Byzantium would be a good thing and I am grateful to him and all the contributors for their enthusiasm for the project. The book was put together under the auspices and with the support of the AHRC Centre for Byzantine Cultural History and its Director, Margaret Mullett. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Kress Foundation, a grant from which made it possible to publish the illustrations to Bissera Pentcheva's chapter in colour. 











I'm very grateful to Simon Lane, Slide Librarian at the University of Sussex, for all his help with the images and the trials that they have posed; to Bente Bjørnhelt for typing up the Greek texts; to Michelle O'Malley and Jas Elsner for reading and commenting on various bits; and to the anonymous readers ar Cambridge University Press for their observations. 










I would also like to thank Beatrice Rehl at Cambridge University Press for her support and patience throughout the time of this project. A note on transliterations: transliterations have been the usual nightmare. I have tried to make names as accessible as possible and have therefore tended ro use familiar versions for the most familiar names (Procopius rather than Prokopios, Bacchos rather than Bakchos) and otherwise to rely on the versions given in the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. If che inconsistencies bother you. then I'm sorry.

















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Download PDF | Maaike van Berkel, Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, Letizia Osti - Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court: Formal and Informal Politics in the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir (295–320/908–32) , Brill 2013.

Download PDF | Maaike van  Berkel, Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Hugh Kennedy, Letizia Osti - Crisis and Continuity at the Abbasid Court: Formal and Informal Politics in the Caliphate of al-Muqtadir (295–320/908–32) , Brill  2013.

280 Pages 



Introduction 

The long reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir (295–320/908–32) was a period of dramatic contradiction and paradox. On the one hand it is the reign in which the political power of the Abbasid caliphs was in effect destroyed, the army of the caliphate was broken up and the bureaucracy was reduced to serving the needs of the self-appointed military commanders who increasingly replaced the servants of the dynasty as the leading political actors. On the other hand, it was an age when the cultural life of Baghdad and the caliphal court flourished and attained a richness and variety that has few equals in the history of the pre-modern Middle East. And we are amazingly well informed about the politics and culture of the reign. 









The writers who recorded the events of the reign were remarkable in their literary skill, the variety of their approaches and, perhaps most strikingly, their interest in the personalities who dominated the life of the court, with all their achievements, foibles and failures. In this book we have attempted to describe and account for the development of this picture, while reflecting on how to reconcile the two discourses of political decline and cultural efflorescence. And if at some points our messages seem to be mixed, that, in a real way reflects the culture of the age. While the royal court and court culture in medieval and early modern Europe have been for the past three decades ‘an important and exciting area of study in history, literature and political theory’,1 studies on the functioning of the Abbasid court are very scarce. It is significant that interpretations of one early modern European court, that of Louis XIV, dominates the academic discussion. This is largely due to the work of Norbert Elias, who ‘restored the relevance and legitimacy of the court as a theme of research’ and whose interpretation of the court of Versailles ‘turned into the single most powerful general model for studies of courts in Europe and elsewhere’.2 His interpretation of the French court as part of a civilizing process became the norm for court studies until the 1980s, when revisionist studies began to be produced. 











Historians of the court have pointed to the complexity of the subject. John Larner talks about ‘the ease with which any attempt at coherent examination dissolves either into a discussion of one of its parts [. . .] or into a general account of the character and policies of the prince who presided over it’.3 Any historical investigation of the court faces the problem of definition, because courts were so diverse and also because any ruler’s court could be different on different occasions.4 Historians of the court have also pointed to the vagueness of the terminology, the term ‘courtier’ being used as a generic term for all people at court from menial servants to the ruler high-ranking intimates and including domestic as well as state servants.5 













These multiple associations of the terms court and courtier complicate our understanding, and this is also the case for the court under study.6 In this book, we do not start from a theoretical definition of court and courtier but we illustrate figures and functions on the basis of how these are described by normative and narrative sources. With the almost total absence of court studies for various periods of Islamic history,7 we endeavour in this project to provide a polyphonic reading of the Abbasid court at a specific historical moment, hoping that it will serve as an example of the functioning of the Abbasid caliphate and also as a case study for further comparative work on medieval courts. Through a detailed and systematic examination of the working of the Abbasid institutions, as well as the court and its domestic world during the early part of the fourth/tenth century, we shall uncover the formal and informal politics of the ruling family and the various power groups surrounding it.

















The narratives describing the reign of al-Muqtadir are particularly rich for such an investigation due to the wealth of contemporary and nearcontemporary sources, historical annals and other literary texts that refer to this period. Written from diverse perspectives, the accounts permit us to reconstruct a balanced and nuanced representation of the period. They are vivid and extensive. They also chronicle the lives of individuals, providing fascinating details about their vicissitudes, successes and failures, so that they leap off the page as real, flesh-and-blood human beings.











 Our work owes much to the important studies on the reign of alMuqtadir published in the first half of the twentieth century: Guy Le Strange’s Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate was published in 1900, Louis Massignon’s La passion d’al-Hosayn-ibn-Mansour al-Hallaj in 1922, Harold Bowen’s The Life and Times of ʿAlí Ibn ʿÍsà, ‘The Good Vizier’ in 1928 and Adam Metz’s The Renaissance of Islam (looking at the decades following the caliphate of al-Muqtadir) in 1937.8 In 1959–60, Dominique Sourdel published Le vizirat abbāside de 749 à 936, providing a meticulous study of the institution of the Abbasid vizierate, including the reign of al-Muqtadir, which witnessed an especially rapid turnover of viziers.9













 As a result of this painstaking research by some of the most important scholars in the field, the reign of al-Muqtadir was among the best-studied periods of medieval Islamic history, and one in which the widest range of viewpoints and (then) modern methodologies were brought into play. However, in more recent years interest seems to have waned and the last half-century has seen little attempt to reconsider the reign.














The early part of the twentieth century also witnessed the edition and translation of the most important historical works for this period, namely, Tajārib al-umam by Miskawayh (d. 421/1030), which was composed at the Buyid court and which covers the years up to 373/983–4. Miskawayh’s history, distinguished by an effort towards synthesis and explanation, subjects events and people to critical evaluation. In his capacity as a secretary for a number of Buyid viziers, Miskawayh provides a bureaucratic view that places the great administrators at centre stage.11 H. F. Amedroz and D. S. Margoliouth provided a partial English translation, including the part recounting the events of the reign of al-Muqtadir.12 












Al-Ṭabarī’s (d. 310/923) Ta⁠ʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, a monumental universal history which forms the basis of much of our knowledge of early Islamic history, was continued until the year 302/914–15, but the author’s treatment of the events of the reign of al-Muqtadir is brief and contributes little new.13 Much more important is the Ṣilat ta⁠ʾrīkh al-Ṭabari by ʿArīb b. Saʿd al-Qurṭubī (d. c. 370/980) which continues al-Ṭabarī’s history down to the end of al-Muqtadir’s reign.14 Despite the fact that he lived all his life in al-Andalus and never, as far as we know, visited the East, his information is extensive and detailed and his work is a major source for the political history of the reign. Al-Ṭabarī’s Ta⁠ʾrīkh was published in the late nineteenth century but its systematic translation was only begun in the 1980s and was completed in 2007.15 ʿArīb’s Ṣilat has not been translated. Abū Bakr al-Ṣūlī (d. 335/947) presents a contemporary and more personal account of this period. As a boon companion under a number of caliphs, as well as a tutor, he provides a unique picture of life at the caliphal court based on first-hand knowledge. His Kitāb al-awrāq consists of historical material, personal recollections and eyewitness accounts. James Heyworth-Dunne edited a number of sections from Kitāb al-awrāq in the 1930s, including the chronicles of the years 322–33/933–44. This part was translated by Marius Canard in the late 1940s but received little attention. 















The part of the Awrāq concerning specifically the caliphate of al-Muqtadir was only published in 2000; until then, al-Ṣūlī’s accounts were only known through ʿArīb’s Ṣilat, where he is often quoted as a source.16 Another important author is Hilāl al-Ṣābiʾ (d. 448/1056), a secretary and at one point director of chancery at the Buyid court. Hilāl belonged to a dynasty of learned men, a family that illustrates ‘the affinity between chronography and ruling courts’, since they were commissioned to write dynastic history by the Buyid rulers.17 His two important works are Tuḥfat al-umarāʾ fī ta⁠ʾrīkh al-wuzarā and Rusūm dār al-khilāfa. The latter, redacted in the earlier part of the caliphate of al-Qāʾim (423–68/1031–75), relates the rules and regulations of the Abbasid court. It includes a myriad of material ranging from advice to viziers, secretaries, boon companions and others on how to dress, how to sit, and how to address the caliph, to descriptions of caliphal audiences.18 
















Miskawayh and al-Ṣūlī worked at court and Hilāl al-Ṣābiʾ belonged to a secretarial family that was affiliated to the court over several generations. It is hence not a coincidence that in attempting to understand the history of the Abbasid court, we should fall back on their works, since they were personally interested in including information about the internal organization of the court and the administration. However, this factor also means that the sources were written by an elite group with a particular agenda. Moreover, the exemplary character of the sources makes many of these narratives as much mirrors for good governance as they are histories.

















The sources described above differ in format, methodology and aims. Al-Ṣūlī’s is a chronicle of events of his own times, many of which he has witnessed; al-Ṭabarī’s Ta⁠ʾrīkh is a monumental universal history, which ʿArīb’s Ṣilat seeks to continue. Hilāl’s Wuzarāʾ and Miskawayh’s Tajārib al-umam are histories with a strong focus on the civil administration of the caliphate. Other important sources used in this volume, such as al-Masʿūdī’s (d. c. 345/956) Murūj al-dhahab and al-Tanūkhī’s (d. 384/994) Nishwār al-muḥāḍara,19 maintain a rough chronological order but are collections of anecdotes rather than chronicles. Al-Tanūkhī’s al-Faraj baʿd al-shidda is a collection of stories with an happy ending.20 In some cases we also use later works such as Ibn al-Ṭiqṭaqā’s al-Fakhrī, an eighth-/ fourteenth-century digest of history.21 Despite this variety, these sources share a basic building block, the khabar (pl. akhbār), a self-contained account of varying but limited length, often introduced by a chain of transmitters validating its authenticity. Akhbār can be compiled, shortened, edited, grouped thematically or chronologically, and merged, to suit the purpose and format of a given text. 














Thus, on a formal level we can distinguish a chronicle, where akhbār will succeed one another in rough chronological order, from a collection of instructive stories, where they will be grouped thematically; from a biography, where they will be clustered around particular characteristics or events in a person’s life; and from a normative manual, where they will be inserted to illustrate specific rules and practices. On a further level, some sources will convey their portrayal of an event or individual by juxtaposing akhbār and leaving the readers to draw their own conclusions, while other sources will reshape their material into one single coherent account or general assessment. In this volume, we explore various approaches to this vast pool of information, exploiting the sources’ sophisticated techniques through the filter of different lenses. In Part I, we look at the image of the reign as it has come down in narrative sources. 












Chapter 1 by Hugh Kennedy provides an overview of the reign of al-Muqtadir and of the historical sources dealing with it. It gives a brief account of the Abbasid caliphate up to the caliphs’s accession as well as a chronological account of the reign and a general discussion of the problems faced by the caliph and his administration during this period. It also discusses the impact of al-Muqtadir’s reign on the subsequent history of the Abbasid caliphate and the wider Islamic Middle East. Chapter 2 by Letizia Osti looks at how the contemporary and later sources portray and evaluate the reign of al-Muqtadir as the beginning of the ruin of the Abbasid caliphate. A few centuries after the death of alMuqtadir, the Arabic sources seem to agree that women and servants are to blame for its weaknesses, owing to the excessive influence they had on the young caliph. However, this opinion is reached gradually, through the editing and reshaping of accounts across different sources and successive times. Juxtaposing different accounts and reconstructing their motives and context help retrace the development of al-Muqtadir’s persona, and, at the same time, brings out conflicting and articulated views held by his contemporaries before they were assimilated into the general consensus of later centuries. 

















The second part of the volume focuses on three of the caliphate’s main institutions, the vizierate, the bureaucratic apparatus, and the military, looking at prescriptive literature as well as chronicles. Chapter 3 by Maaike van Berkel deals with the highest state official, the vizier. It addresses the viziers’ responsibilities, their perceived personalities, politics and networks. The vizier stood at the head of the Abbasid bureaucracy. He kept the caliph informed of the ins and outs of the state’s administration and implemented the latter’s instructions. This chapter discusses the various ways in which al-Muqtadir’s viziers acted in court politics and how they related to other power groups represented at the court, especially the military, the harem and the court servants. Chapter 4, also by van Berkel, deals with the functioning of the bureaucratic apparatus and its officials during the reign of al-Muqtadir. It discusses the institutional organization of the administration, the background education and specialization of its employees and the sometimes conflicting views between their selfrepresentations in the administrative literature and their day-to-day life in the administration. Chapter 5, by Kennedy, discusses the role of another main institution, the military. It provides an account of the army as it existed at al-Muqtadir’s accession and discusses the financial strains that the maintenance of this force imposed on the government. The leading figures in the military are investigated, notably Muʾnis al-Muẓaffar and Naṣr al-Qushūrī, as well as the attempt of the government to secure the services of a local leader such as Ibn Abī l-Sāj. This chapter ends with an investigation of the failure of the military system and its role in the collapse of caliphal power. 












The third part of the volume tackles the court, court culture and harem during the reign of al-Muqtadir, again through both prescriptive and descriptive literature. Chapter 6 by Nadia Maria El Cheikh studies the particular functions, roles and influence of chamberlains as examples of courtiers. The investigation of the texts reveals the multiplicity of roles that chamberlains could and did exercise. The extent of power and influence which chamberlains could attain are best reflected in the career of the chamberlain Naṣr al-Qushūrī whose connections with both the bureaucracy and the military establishment and his influential role at the court conferred upon him an impressive amount of political power. Understanding the function of the ḥājib (chamberlain), thus, helps us chart the political map of power relations at court in the presence of various circles of courtiers, during the early fourth/tenth century. Chapter 7, also by El Cheikh, examines the harem of al-Muqtadir. Studying the most important woman at the court of al-Muqtadir, his mother Shaghab, the chapter explores her sources of authority, her networks and other channels of influence. Her example is significant as it provides a spectrum of the possibilities open to such indirect exercise of authority while simultaneously revealing much about politics, gender and the interpretation of the past as presented exclusively by men. 
















The chapter also examines the multiplicity of roles that the qahramānas (harem stewardesses) and eunuchs exercised, notably in mediations and transactions across boundaries. Chapter 8 by Osti explores how education at court was organized, illustrating how learning and culture were valued by different members of the caliphal household and the kind of political influence that court scholars attained as a result of their proximity to power. This discussion attempts to frame and unify the two standard narratives about the caliphate of al-Muqtadir: that, on the one hand, it was a period of political decline, and, on the other, it was the golden age of Arabic culture. The Appendix, by Judy Ahola and Letizia Osti, contains a topographical study of Baghdad in the time of al-Muqtadir on the basis of evidence from biographical and historical sources as well as maps and photographs from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here again the wealth of the narrative sources comes to the fore, complementing the very little archaeological evidence that we have on Abbasid Baghdad. While our aim in writing this book is to make sense of the sources on the caliphate of al-Muqtadir, providing a model for the functioning of the  court and addressing general issues, certain aspects of the period, inevitably, have been left out of our portrayal, such as foreign diplomacy, some aspects of literary and intellectual life, religious and juridical policies, and material culture. Moreoever, while fundamental economic problems plagued the reign of al-Muqtadir, we did not feel that it was part of this book’s goal to outline them here since some important work has already been done by Hugh Kennedy elsewhere.22 










Another feature of this period that this book does not cover are the important trials that took place during the reign of al-Muqtadir, especially, the celebrated trial of the mystic al-Ḥallāj in 308–9/921–2, which was thoroughly studied in the seminal work of Louis Massigon. The genesis of this collaborative project was a panel on al-Muqtadir organized by Hugh Kennedy at the School of Abbasid Studies meeting in Leuven in 2004.23 At the following meeting, in St Andrews in 2006, a number of papers again focused on aspects pertaining to the caliphate of al-Muqtadir. Especially refreshing were the various angles and approaches that seemed to offer a critical and comprehensive reassessment of the reign of al-Muqtadir. Our discussions naturally evolved in the decision to put together our different perspectives in a coauthored book. Judy Ahola has been part of this project since its inception and has our warmest gratitude for contributing to it with her precious work in the Appendix. This is a collective effort. While we realized the difficulties involved in the production of a multi-authored work, the interpenetration of our research on the subject almost dictated that we embark on this risky journey. 












The complications inherent in the process of collaborative venture such as this one are many, notably the overlap in some of the material presented in different chapters. We have pointed to salient ones in the main text, and have noted parallels in the footnotes. On the other hand, we view the coexistence of our diverse approaches as one of our strengths, as it is not a simple juxtaposition, but rather the result of constant dialogue and discussion over the years.












The School of Abbasid Studies provided the perfect environment for our exchanges, and its members gave much support and input during the various conferences, starting in Leuven 2004. In this context, it is our intent and hope that this volume contributes to filling an important gap in Abbasid studies, and more broadly, in court studies. In order to make the primary material more accessible to non-Arabists, we decided to provide references to the English translation of some of the primary sources we refer to, when available. In particular, we constantly refer to Elie Salem’s translation of al-Ṣābiʾ’s Rusūm dār al-khilāfa, and, when available, to Margoliouth’s partial translation of al-Tānūkhī’s Nishwār al-muḥādara.24 In the case of Miskawayh’s Tajārib al-umam, we refer to the original Arabic which, however, is cross-referenced in the English translation by Margoliouth forming part of the same set of volumes under the title of The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate. Similarly, in the case of al-Ṭabarī’s Ta⁠ʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk, we refer to the original Arabic, which is cross-referenced in the integral English translation The History of al-Ṭabarī.25









 Throughout this volume our translations of passages from these sources are based on the above-mentioned English translations, with adjustments in wording and transliteration, unless indicated otherwise. For rendering Arabic words the transliteration of the Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān is used. Familiar geographical names such as Iraq, Mecca and Baghdad are given in their common English spelling; other geographical names are transliterated in agreement with the transliteration of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Both hijra and Common Era have been given.
















 














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