Diplomatic History

My lecture discusses four ongoing research projects I am currently involved in, all of which focus on significant, yet understudied aspects of Florentine history. The research project, developed in cooperation with John Padgett (University of Chicago), deals with political participation in republican Florence between the Black Death (1348) and the foundation of the Duchy of Florence (1530). Using the result of this study,  another project of mine looks at the practice of Florentine taxation and double-entry bookkeeping, which served later on as prototypes for the development of modern taxation and accounting system of business companies. In the framework of Géza Pálffy’s “Holy Crown” Research Team (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), I investigate Florentine diplomacy toward Hungary between the mid-14th and the late 17th centuries. Meanwhile my most recent, independent research project analyzes the social context of artistic production in Early Renaissance Florence in order to explain the extraordinary success of Florentine artisans of the period.

""Although readers of Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch have been familiar with the writings of Jacques de Coutre since the 1980s, scholars and researchers in Southeast Asia have yet to familiarize themselves with his autobiography (Vida) and his petitions. De Coutre, who was a native of Bruges in Flanders, spent roughly one decade in Southeast Asia between 1593 and 1603, and in this time was based in Melaka and Manila. From here he made lengthy trips to other parts of the Malay Peninsula – such as Pahang and Patani, and especially also to Siam and Cambodia. This paper which is held on the occasion of the launch of the first published English translation of a selection of De Coutre’s writings asks two very fundamental questions: Why should we bother to read this source and of what value might it be to Southeast Asian researchers today?
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A native of Bruges (now part of Belgium), Jacques de Coutre was a gem trader who spent nearly a decade in Southeast Asia in the early 17th century. In addition to a substantial autobiography written in Spanish and preserved in the National Library of Spain in Madrid, he wrote a series of memorials to the united crown of Spain and Portugal that contain recommendations designed to reverse the decline in the fortunes of the Iberian powers in Southeast Asia, particularly against the backdrop of early Dutch political and commercial penetration into the region. Translated into English for the first time, these materials provide a valuable first-hand account of the bigger issues confronting the early colonial powers in Southeast Asia, and deep insights into the societies De Coutre encountered in the territory that today makes up Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Ce travail aborde la construction institutionnelle et le rôle du consul français de Barcelone dans un contexte de grandes réformes administratives et de troubles politiques conséquents (1679-1716). Trois consuls se succèdent : Laurent Soleil (1679-1705), Jean-Philippe Monclus (1705-1709) et Simon Dupin (1713-1716). Issus du monde des marchands, leur profil s éloigne de celui de leurs homologues levantins et de la définition de leur fonction telle que la donne le titre IX du livre I de l ordonnance pour la marine d août 1681. Les secrétaires d État de la Marine successifs voient en eux les modérateurs des conflits locaux mais aussi les défenseurs des intérêts économiques français en Méditerranée et en mer du Sud. Cette thèse s attache donc à montrer les mécanismes de naissance du consulat comme institution royale, à analyser les systèmes de résolution des conflits et à cerner le rôle qu ont pu tenir les consulats français d Espagne, à travers l exemple barcelonais, dans le développement de l économie interlope notamment durant la guerre de la Succession d Espagne.; This work deals with the institutional construction of the French consulate and the function of its consul in Barcelona during a period of important administrative reforms and political troubles (1679-1716). Three consuls follow in a row: Laurent Soleil (1679-1705), Jean-Philippe Monclus (1705-1709) and Simon Dupin (1713-1716). As traders, they are very different from the Levant consuls and from the institutional definition contained in the title IX book I of The Secretaries of State of the Navy ordinance of august 1681. The Secretaries of State of the Navy use them to soothe the local conflicts and to defend French economical interests in the Mediterranean sea and in the South sea. This study lays the emphasis on the mechanisms at work in the construction of the consulate as a royal institution. It analyzes the system of conflicts resolution and, through the example of Barcelona, the part played by the French consuls in the development of the interlope economy during the War of Spanish Succession.

"This presentation will examine why European states (including, at times, the Iberian powers) persistently used chartered companies and limited partnerships as their primary instruments for acquiring and exercising imperial control in Asia. At first glance, such reliance is puzzling as these companies were only intermittently profitable – primarily when they were able to exploit conditions created by famines, wars or socio-political unrest - and all of them proved woefully inadequate to the tasks set for them. Still, as the history of Asia from 1600 to c.1800 clearly shows, chartered companies were founded time and again, and for many European imperial experiments proved to be the institution of choice. My paper at the workshop will survey the two main survivors - the EIC and VOC – as well as their many failed competitors in order to gain a clearer picture why chartered companies became the institution of choice. It will also identify some of their most distinctive common features (such as standing capital, tradable shares, and quasi-sovereign powers), and assess the extent to which markets or government policy/ interference ultimately sealed their fate or success."
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Jacques de Coutre was a young man from Bruges in Flanders who arrived in Southeast Asia in 1593. For the next decade he would use this Portuguese emporium of spice and trade as his base, taking trips to Pahang, Patani, Ligor, Ayutthaya, Cambodia, Brunei and Manila. As was customary in the early modern period, merchants often fulfilled a dual role as purveyors of goods and presents as well as intermediaries in diplomatic incidents. What does De Coutre have to recount on this front and what were his responsibilities during his missions to Pahang, Siam and Brunei? The insights of this paper are based on the new annotated English source translation of his autobiography and memorials to the Iberian crowns.

The present paper explores the shifting roles and understandings of the Singapore Straits from the latter Middle Ages until the opening decades of the eighteenth century. In pursuing this task, I will develop a set of basic questions that historicize and problematize the roles, functions and understandings of the Straits across the centuries, and also tease out historical and historiographical paradigms shaping and underpinning the understanding of the region’s past. In pursuing this programme I will make use of a broad range of sources including chronicles and histories, letters and treaties, navigational instructions and travel literature, as well as (European) cartography of the 16th to 18th centuries. In order to gain deeper appreciation of the multi-faceted roles and understandings of the Singapore Straits across the longue durée, I  not only adduce and evaluate materials of European colonial origin, but importantly also heed special attention to sources of Asian origin in general, and specifically to materials that have originally been written in Arabic, Malay, Chinese and have been made accessible to the wider reading public in various contemporary translations. The modes of enquiry and the insights brought to paper here differ both in terms of scope and objectives from my earlier findings expounded in The Singapore and Melaka Straits published in 2010.

"Admiral Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge was a commander of one of the first fleets sent out in 1605 by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) proper. Apart from the commercial instructions he received from the company directors, he also carried with him secret military instructions which unfortunately are now lost. With more than 1400 men at his disposal, Matelieff imposed a blockade on Portuguese Malacca in 1606, fought the Portuguese armada at sea, forged an enduring alliance with the Kingdom of Johor and Aceh, and founded the Dutch fort at Ternate.
On his return to the Netherlands in 1608 Matelieff penned a series of memorials recommending major changes in the way the Dutch organized their operations on the ground in Asia. Importantly, he recommended the founding of a permanent base and the appointment of a supreme authority, a Governor-General.  Matelieff also urged the forging of alliances with rulers in Asia to ensure ample supplies of spices and other goods for the company. Needless to say, these alliances were ostensibly also meant to contain the power and reach of the VOC’s European competitors and enemies.
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