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Sketches from the Life of Ragusan Merchants in London in the Time of Henry VIII
Veselin Kostić
Sažetak
The first half of the sixteenth century was a period of great expansion of Ragusan trade with England. As a result, there grew a considerable colony of Ragusan merchants in London, some of whom stayed in England several years or even decades. In spite of that, our knowledge of them is rather one-sided. The nature of the preserved documents is such that we can glean considerable information on their business activities but very little about their private life. The dim light that occasionally falls on that aspect of their lives comes usually from the courtroom, in which they appeared as defendants or plaintiffs in cases not directly related to their commercial affairs. The article deals with three cases of this kind. The first concerns Frano Gradić (Francisco de Gradi), who was active in London between 1525 and 1540. Around 1535 John Fuller from London accused Gradić that he had seduced his wife and taken some of his property. The case was transferred, at Gradić’s request, to the Chancery Court, because the Ragusan did not trust the impartiality of the London Court. The other documents relative to this dispute, apart from Gradić’s request, have not been preserved, so that we do not know its outcome. The second case is of a similar character, but contains fuller and more vivid details. It concerns the adulterous love affair between Gabrijel Pucić (Gabriel de Poza), a Ragusan merchant of minor importance, and Anne, the wife of Thomas Roydon, a London pewterer. The guilty couple were surprised during a nightly visit of the Ragusan to the wife of the supposedly absent Roydon, and both were jailed in a London prison. This case too was later transferred to the Chancery Court, before which both parties submitted their versions of the events in question. Unfortunately, the verdict has not been preserved. The third case concerns the murder of Jerko Đurđević (Heronimo de Georgio), a very successful young Ragusan merchant in London, who was lured by a woman and her accomplices into a boat on the Thames and murdered on a summer night in 1533. The circumstances of his assassination and the measures to be taken for the punishment of the murderers were set out in a special act of the English Parliament.
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Hrčak ID:
16199
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Datum izdavanja:
3.8.2007.
Posjeta: 2.488 *