Fynes Moryson

Fynes Moryson (or Morison), (1566 – 12 February 1630) spent most of the decade of the 1590s travelling on the European continent and the eastern Mediterranean lands. He wrote about it later in his multi-volume "Itinerary", a work of considerable value to historians as a picture of the social conditions existing in the lands he visited.

Fynes Moryson was the son of a Lincolnshire gentleman, Thomas Moryson, member of parliament for Grimsby. He was educated at University of Cambridge, where, after graduating, he gained a fellowship. From May 1591 to May 1595 Moryson travelled round Continental Europe for the specific purpose of observing local customs, institutions, and economics. He took written notes. From early 1596 to mid-1597 he journeyed to Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch, Aleppo, Constantinople, and Crete, for the same purpose.

In 1600 Moryson was appointed personal secretary to Lord Mountjoy, head of government and commander-in-chief of the crown army in Ireland, then fighting against Tyrone's Rebellion. One of Moryson's brothers also held an upper level government appointment in Ireland. When the rebellion ended in 1603 Moryson and Mountjoy both returned to England. Moryson remained Mountjoy's secretary until the latter's death in 1606. Later Moryson wrote a book about the military and government affairs of Ireland during the years when he was there with Mountjoy.

In 1617 Moryson published the first three volumes of An Itinerary: Containing His Ten Years Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohemia, Switzerland, Netherland, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland and Ireland. The Itinerary was originally intended to consist of five volumes; but only three were published. The fourth volume was preserved in manuscript in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1903 the bulk of the fourth volume was transcribed by Charles Hughes and published under the title "Shakespeare's Europe: Unpublished Chapters of Fynes Moryson's Itinerary. Being a survey of the condition of Europe at the end of the 16th century." Volumes I, III and IV of Moryson's Itinerary primarily cover Continental Europe and secondarily the Ottoman lands, with volume I being travel narrative and volumes III and IV being thematic discourse covering themes of customs and institutions. (Volumes III and IV also have short chapters on customs and institutions in England, Scotland and Ireland.) Volume II, on the other hand, is devoted to affairs in Ireland from 1599 to 1603.

Sometimes Moryson is a prejudiced and unreliable informant. His biographer Charles Hughes says "he had a sane charity for all men, except Turks and Irish priests", which is another way of saying that he was highly prejudicial against the Turks and is a poor source for information about them.

Online Texts

The first three volumes of Moryson's Itinerary, as republished in the year 1907, are available from Archive.org, broken up into four physical parts:

• Itinerary 1, 2, 3 and 4

Also the fourth volume of Moryson's Itinerary, as published in 1903, is available from Archive.org. This volume is prefaced with a lengthy biography of Fynes Moryson written by Charles Hughes.

• Itinerary Volume IV

References

External links

•  "Moryson, Fynes". Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900​. London: Smith, Elder & Co. [s:Moryson, Fynes (DNB00). 

 "Moryson, Fynes". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.