DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.57079#0023
THE LEVANT COMPANY
7
before any very great numbers of them
adventured thither. Nevertheless, it was
gradually being felt that if English merchants
fetched the goods from the Levant and did
not depend on the Venetians, they would be
able to sell them at home much more cheaply
than the Venetians.21 This at any rate
was a spur to English merchants to try their
fortunes in the Levant. No doubt, too, the
spirit of adventure which was rife in England
in the second half of the sixteenth century
must also have worked in the same direction
The first Englishman who went to Turkey,
and of whom we know anything, was the
energetic and experienced traveller Anthony
Jenkinson, who at Aleppo in 1553 received
recognition at the hands of Sultan Solyman
the Great. The Sultan granted him a safe-
21 Cf. Hakluyt V. pp. 133, 115. “ And by reason that
we have not traded into those parts these many years
. . . I find that the Venetians do bring those com-
modities hither and do sell them for double the value
that we ourselves were accustomed to fetch them.”
Cf. also Sir William Monson’s Naval Tracts, p. 408 '
“ The Venetians have engrossed the whole trade on
those seas (the Mediterranean) and furnished us with
the rich merchandize of Turkey ... at what rate they
pleased themselves.”
7
before any very great numbers of them
adventured thither. Nevertheless, it was
gradually being felt that if English merchants
fetched the goods from the Levant and did
not depend on the Venetians, they would be
able to sell them at home much more cheaply
than the Venetians.21 This at any rate
was a spur to English merchants to try their
fortunes in the Levant. No doubt, too, the
spirit of adventure which was rife in England
in the second half of the sixteenth century
must also have worked in the same direction
The first Englishman who went to Turkey,
and of whom we know anything, was the
energetic and experienced traveller Anthony
Jenkinson, who at Aleppo in 1553 received
recognition at the hands of Sultan Solyman
the Great. The Sultan granted him a safe-
21 Cf. Hakluyt V. pp. 133, 115. “ And by reason that
we have not traded into those parts these many years
. . . I find that the Venetians do bring those com-
modities hither and do sell them for double the value
that we ourselves were accustomed to fetch them.”
Cf. also Sir William Monson’s Naval Tracts, p. 408 '
“ The Venetians have engrossed the whole trade on
those seas (the Mediterranean) and furnished us with
the rich merchandize of Turkey ... at what rate they
pleased themselves.”