Muscovy Company

Thomas Dallam 1: Jenkinson and the Safavid Shah

1 Shah Ismail 1.jpg

We begin the journey of Thomas Dallam, Elizabethan organ-maker and ill-prepared ambassador to the Ottoman Sultan. This first episode, we're not actually going to get to Dallam though. We're setting the stage, introducing some of the background, and following a man named Jenkinson to Safavid Persia. Jenkinson is an interesting figure in his own right, and it's also a way to dip into the world of trade and diplomacy that Dallam was going to find himself in. Thanks for listening!

(MP3

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Sources for Dallam series:

  • Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant, edited by J. Theodore Bent. Hakluyt Society, 1893.
  • Andrews, Kenneth. Trade, Plunder, and Settlement. Cambridge University Press, 1984.
  • Brotton, Jerry. The Sultan and the Queen. Viking, 2016. 
  • Dallam, Thomas. The Sultan's Organ: London to Constantinople in 1599 and Adventures on the Way, translated by John Mole. Fortune, 2012.
  • Finkel, Caroline. Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. Basic Books, 2007.
  • Jardine, Lisa. “Gloriana Rules the Waves: or, the Advantage of Being Excommunicated (and a Woman).” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society No. 14 (2004): 209–22.
  • Jenkinson, Anthony, et al. Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and Persia. Hakluyt Society, 1886.
  • Maclean, Gerald. The Rise of Oriental Travel: English Visitors to the Ottoman Empire, 1580-1720. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
  • Mayes, Stanley. An Organ for the Sultan. Putnam, 1956.
  • Pedani, Maria Pia. "Safiye's household and Venetian diplomacy." Turcica, no. 32 (2000): pp. 9–32.
  • Sanderson, John. The Travels of John Sanderson in the Levant 1584-1602, edited by Sir William FosterHakluyt Society, 1931.
  • Somerset, Anne. Elizabeth I. Anchor, 2010.
  • Vlami, Despina. Trading with the Ottomans: The Levant Company in the Middle East. I.B.Tauris, 2015.
  • Willan, Thomas Stuart. Studies in Elizabethan Foreign Trade. Manchester University Press, 1959.
  • Wood, Alfred C. A History of the Levant Company. Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 2006.