Oldal 31 [31]
OCR
28 Vilmos Voigt English, Scots, and Irishmen; the Germans and Belgians; the Italians; the Spanish; the Hungarians, Poles, and Muscovites; and the Turks and Jews. The last seven synthetic chapters cover mental capacities and character, the power of obnoxiousness, tyrants and legitimate rulers, men in the service of the court, magistrates and patrons, divine experience, and religious leaders. There is no summarizing chapter, conclusion, or postscript in the work; nor are there illustrations, maps, or pictures of Europe or of the Europeans. The original publication has no explanatory notes or indices. To the later editions, notes and remarks were added, first in Latin and later in German, explaining difficult phrases, deciphering allusions, and adding further hints for the correct understanding of the sentences. However, these later additions do not change the premises or the conclusions of Barclay’s original work. The extremely well-educated author deals with four major topics: the general characteristics of man; the spirit of different historic ages; a description of the great European countries and nations; and the education, behavior, and capacities of men of various social status. It is not surprising that Barclay did not use the term “European,” neither in the title nor in the chapters of his book, because the context of his book was self-evident. For contemporary readers, his third topic, the description of a dozen European peoples, is the most important. The order of the peoples described is essentially practical (from the viewpoint of the author): he lived in France and owed the publication to the French king, but he was an English subject with a family background in Aberdeen, Scotland. There is no ranking among the mentioned peoples, and the author does not explain his reasons for ordering the lands and peoples as he did. Some well-known European peoples (like the Swiss, Portuguese, peoples of the Balkans, including the Greeks) are not separately mentioned in the descriptive chapters. In several chapters there are brief references to other cultures or peoples, but they are not extensively discussed. In some cases the described peoples are in fact not properly Europeans. Barclay’s work is an early concise characterization of the “early modern” Europe. It differs from the general typology of man, so well known in the (European) Renaissance, and it is also different from later national, ethnic, or even “racial” characterology, so popular during the Age of Enlightenment. As far as I know, Barclay’s book has not been treated in major works concerning ethnic stereotypes in Europe. However, here I can say only a few words about Barclay’s systematization of the European “mind” (animus and not anima). Unfortunately, we do not know much about the immediate sources of the book. His own impressions or the learned wisdom was his intimate source. We do not know whether Barclay was informed about a similar, but two generations earlier English book, First Book of the Introduction of Knowledge (1542) by the English physician Andrew Borde (1490-1549), an amusing and witty but not scholarly book based upon the authors extensive travels in Europe, which offers sarcastic remarks about many European ethnic or cultural groups, including the English, Cornish, Welsh, Scots, and many Continental peoples, mostly based on their behavior in inns.
