Shakespeare Authorship, March the 17th and Social Media.

Standard Citation: Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Shakespeare Authorship, March the 17th and Social Media. Virtual Grub Street,  
http://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2018/05/shakespeare-authorship-march-17th-and.html [state date accessed].

The notes to Bayle’s Dictionary entry on Johannes Sturmius[1] [Link] are now posted and linked to the main text.  As might be expected of an 18^th century reference work for a small educated elite, the notes expand the word count to more than three times that of the base article.  The level of detail they add (better too much than too little) should be gratifying for anyone curious about the person, place or time.

When I informed a friend of the project she wondered what I could possibly expect to gain from it.  The question is all to a number of points.  Certainly, announcing information on Sturmius on social media is no one else’s standard practice.  There has been no rush to see it.  Nor will there likely be.

But for all the battling over the suspected sex lives of the Elizabethan principals in the Authorship realm, alleged secret codes to be found in the texts of various books, and debates over the identities of anonymous sitters from portraits of the time, etc., in comment threads, Wiki edit wars and chat rooms, it is close reading and research that is far more likely to win the day in the end.  Sturmius is a small detail.  One among vastly many that provide the scholar with the context within which the pieces of the greater puzzle might be properly assembled.  The old Latinist will show up in a number of key ways in the Authorship material I will be presenting in the weeks and months ahead.

While close work does not offer the excitement of a poor man’s Game of Thrones, with its lurid episodes, there is a great deal to be said for it.  It is essential.  On the other hand, people don't rush to catch up on the posts to their favorite social media platforms in hopes of a gripping Latin squib or obscure detail.  There is a deeply problematical paradox at the bottom of all of our attempts.

That Edward de Vere departed Paris for Strasbourg, and the hospitality of Sturmius, shortly after his letter of March 17, 1575[2], to his father-in-law Lord Burghley, for example, is a far more important fact than can be seen on the surface.  It is a small detail that effects the Authorship Question and/or De Vere’s itineraries to and from Italy in an over-sized way.

Easter Sunday fell on April 3 that year.  That meant that the bell would ring in the great Frankfurt fair on Tuesday April 5th.  The 17^th would have allowed De Vere to arrive at Strasbourg and settle in before traveling the 120 or so miles north to Frankfurt.  In those days, even the excellent roads between the two cities would not have been traversable at more than 30 (modern) miles per day (about 90 standard German miles in 1575).

But De Vere would not be going in order primarily to enjoy the fair.  It would have been unwise to travel with any more money than was necessary to complete any given leg of the trip.  Either in London or in Paris (or both), the Earl would have executed bills of exchange with one or another merchant who would be attending the fair.  There was a circuit of fairs.  The merchants who attended them received preferential treatment on the roads and traveled with workers additionally prepared to provide security should the protection of local authorities prove insufficient.  This was especially true of the roads and waterways leading to the Frankfort fair.

A bill executed in Paris or London could be made redeemable at the Frankfurt fair.  The fair at Frankfort was considered the best for the regulation of such exchanges in order to minimize risk.  The authorities were jealous of the fair's reputation in that and other respects in order to assure that it was heavily attended.  Still, Edward possibly executed several bills, one to each of several trusted vendors, in order to assure that at least the lion’s share of the money would be successfully redeemed.

This is how international financial transactions had been accomplished for centuries until the 16^th century and beyond.  The traveler had to carefully make arrangements ahead or be stranded and extremely vulnerable at some point in his trip.

In the major cities of Italy and in London, the first actual bank branches and bourses were just beginning to be established.  One or more of De Vere’s bills of exchange... [cont'd]

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[1] Bayle, Peirre. “Bayle's Dictionary Entry on Johannes Sturmius” http://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2018/04/bayles-dictionary-entry-on-johannes.html.  Virtual Grub Street, April 15, 2018.

[2] Green, Nina.  “Letter dated 17 March 1575 from Oxford to Lord Burghley acknowledging confirmation of his wife's pregnancy, and outlining plans for his continental tour” http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/CecilPapers/CP_8-24.pdf.  The Oxford Shakespeare Site, no date.