The celebrant at the conversion of Chinano \u2013 probably a clumsy Anglicisation of the Turkish name Sinan \u2013 was Welsh minister Meredith Hanmer. Earlier that day, he had preached a sermon entitled \u201cThe Baptising of a Turke\u201d, informing the congregation that Chinano had been taken captive as a galley slave by the Spanish, then shipped to Cartagena in what\u2019s now Colombia. There he was \u201cliberated\u201d by Sir Francis Drake<\/a> in 1586, along with another hundred Turks, and brought back to London.<\/p>\n Hanmer announced that Chinano had \u201crenounced Mahomet\u201d and \u201cdesired he might be received as one of the faithful Christians, and be baptised\u201d. What happened to Chinano and those other Turks is unknown, because they disappear from the historical record.<\/p>\n The brief appearance of such people gives us an insight into the global world in which Tudor London<\/a> played its part, and the sheer variety of people from outside England who ended up living, working, marrying, having children and dying in the city. Some were religious exiles, refugees or enslaved people, but there were also visiting diplomats, explorers, physicians and chieftains from all corners of the world: Italy and Portugal, Morocco and Russia, Turkey, central Asia and the \u201cNew World\u201d<\/a> \u2013 the Americas.<\/p>\n Some were Muslims, others Jews; some converted from one religion to another; others believed in gods from Africa and the Americas that were unknown to the Tudors. Living alongside white, Christian Londoners, their DNA has long since dispersed, passed down through subsequent generations.<\/p>\n The reasons these people came to London were twofold: money and geography. As an international port facing Europe, London had long been a financial centre and a magnet for European merchants and financiers from as far afield as the Baltic, the Italian peninsula and the Aegean. From the time of Henry VIII<\/a>, the city\u2019s growth was aided by mercantilist policies that drove the export of the country\u2019s greatest asset \u2013 woollen cloth \u2013 and limited imports.<\/p>\n New industry was encouraged, with monopolies granted and skilled overseas workers supported. London\u2019s population soared as a result, quadrupling from approximately 50,000 in 1520 to around 200,000 in 1600. The City \u2013 defined by the old Roman city walls, today encompassing the financial district centred around Bank and Liverpool Street \u2013 spilled out into the \u201cLiberties\u201d.<\/p>\n These areas, extending beyond the walls and testing the limits of City governance, comprised many often seedier yet vibrant districts in which many foreigners \u2013 known to Tudor Londoners collectively as \u201cstrangers\u201d or \u201caliens\u201d \u2013 settled, enticed by the laxer prescriptions against \u201cstrangers\u201d and the cheap prices.<\/p>\n The Tudor break from Rome<\/a> and the Catholic church in the 1530s, culminating in the official excommunication of Henry VIII\u2019s Protestant daughter, Elizabeth I<\/a>, in 1570, was a theological Brexit<\/a> that forced London to look beyond Europe for its economic prosperity. As the city went global, its merchants, factors and sailors travelled to the Muslim kingdoms in north Africa and the Ottoman domains in Asia and the Middle East, to Persia and India, even to the New World.<\/p>\n And such connections went both ways, with an influx of \u201cstrangers\u201d and \u201caliens\u201d arriving in England from abroad. London\u2019s Tudor court also looked to Europe for skilled physicians, musicians and artists. It was probably in 1501 that the black African trumpeter John Blanke<\/a> arrived in England from Spain, in the entourage of Henry VIII\u2019s future wife, Catherine of Aragon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Blanke appears, playing the trumpet and wearing a turban, in the Westminster Tournament Roll (above)\u2013 a long, lavishly illustrated document depicting the events staged to celebrate the birth of Catherine and Henry\u2019s first living son, also Henry, in 1511. (The baby died just weeks later.) Blanke was not enslaved but, rather, a skilled musician welcomed into the ranks of the Tudor court\u2019s elite. Around this time, he successfully petitioned the king for a pay rise \u2013 from 8 to 16 pence a day \u2013 claiming that \u201chis wage now and as yet is not sufficient to maintain and keep him to do your grace like service as other your trumpeters do\u201d.<\/p>\n He was clearly confident in his talents and in his ability to win the ear of the music-loving king. When Blanke married, in 1512, Henry paid for his wedding outfit. We must assume that Blanke converted, to allow him to take Christian marriage vows, and that he probably married a white Englishwoman, though we can\u2019t be sure \u2013 as with Chinano and his fellow Turks, Blanke disappears from the record just a few years later.<\/p>\n Smithfield: tournaments and traitors<\/strong><\/p>\n Smithfield is the site of London\u2019s oldest market, which has operated here since the Middle Ages and is still trading today. During Tudor times the area was home to St Bartholomew\u2019s Hospital and key livery companies including the Haberdashers. It was a venue for popular festivals and tournaments including the annual St Bartholomew\u2019s Day celebrations, but also for the public executions of heretics and traitors. The area attracted a diverse variety of residents, including Jewish physicians.<\/p>\n Clerkenwell: ale and ill repute<\/strong><\/p>\n The Knights Hospitallers of St John originally had their headquarters at Clerkenwell Priory. This area lay outside the City walls, and became notorious for its alehouses, bowling alleys and dicing houses. Turnbull Street (now Turnmill Street near Farringdon Station) was regarded as one of the most disreputable thoroughfares in London, infamous for its thieves and brothels \u2013 as mentioned in Shakespeare\u2019s Henry IV, Part 2<\/em>.<\/p>\n Southwark: sex and stages<\/strong><\/p>\n Today home to Shakespeare\u2019s Globe theatre<\/a> and Tate Modern gallery, in Tudor times Southwark was an infamous liberty \u2013 an outlying district of the City of London \u2013 under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Winchester. Brothels and bear-baiting pits flourished here; local sex workers were known as \u201cWinchester Geese\u201d. Shakespeare himself lived and worked here, and it was the site of many of the first large open-air theatres. Londoners would cross the bridge or take water taxis to experience this dangerous yet exciting area south of the river \u2013 and it\u2019s still a popular destination for tourists and locals.<\/p>\n Austin Friars: Dutch denizens<\/strong><\/p>\n This district, north-east of the current site of the Bank of England<\/a>, took its name from an Augustinian friary founded in the 13th century. Some years after its dissolution in 1538, Edward VI<\/a> invited religious and economic migrants from Germany and the Low Countries to settle there and use the friary\u2019s church, which became known as the \u201cDutch Church\u201d. By 1600, the area\u2019s Dutch community numbered more than 5,000, and Austin Friars was also home to many other European and African settlers.<\/p>\n Bishopsgate: crossing boundaries<\/strong><\/p>\n As its name suggests, this area \u2013 now on the edge of the City and bordering London\u2019s East End \u2013 was the site of one of the ancient Roman city gates, and as a result during Tudor times straddled London\u2019s civic jurisdictions. Bishopgate\u2019s four churches were all dedicated to Botolph, the patron saint of boundaries, travel and trade. Sited just outside the City walls yet close to the river, the district drew migrants from abroad, many of whom settled and worked here, and were also converted and buried in its churches.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> New arrivals were not always welcomed with open arms. In 1517, the Evil May Day Riots<\/a> erupted in London when about a thousand apprentices turned on \u201cstrangers\u201d including French and Flemish artisans and Italian merchants in Lombard Street. This fracas exposed a faultline in London\u2019s economy: skilled workers from abroad were needed to bolster trade but, at times of famine, disease or social tensions, outsiders were vilified and attacked \u2013 as has, sadly, so often been the case throughout the centuries.<\/p>\n International trade and the rise of joint stock companies brought to London others from even farther afield. In 1560, the Muscovy Company agent Anthony Jenkinson returned to England from trading in Russia and central Asia, where he met the woman he called \u201cmy wench, Aura Soltana\u201d. Reflecting one of the more disturbing aspects of Tudor trade, Jenkinson appears to have bought this unfortunate woman in Astrakhan, in the Volga Delta.<\/p>\n Indeed, he boasted that he \u201ccould have bought many goodly Tartar children\u2026 a boy or a wench for a loaf of bread worth six pence in England\u201d. On his return to London, Jenkinson gifted the young woman to Elizabeth I, whose court records gave Aura the classically inspired name \u201cIppolyta the Tartarian\u201d.<\/p>\n Other records from that year note that she was christened \u2013 presumably another conversion \u2013 and given gold jewellery by the queen, who referred to her as a \u201cdear and well beloved\u201d servant. Records also survive of Elizabeth giving Ippolyta clothes of silk, velvet and satin, and suggest that the young woman introduced her to the Spanish fashion for leather shoes.<\/p>\n Many who settled in Tudor London had no connection with the court at all, instead leading relatively humble lives as skilled workers. One such was Reasonable Blackman, a silk weaver working in Southwark in the 1580s, who may have made costumes for the Bankside playhouses where plays by William Shakespeare<\/a> and Christopher Marlowe were performed. Probably born in west Africa, he came to London via the Low Countries, where he had learned his craft.<\/p>\nThe \u201cother\u201d Tudors<\/h3>\n
As an international port facing Europe, London had long been a financial centre and a magnet for European merchants and financiers <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
Religion in Tudor London<\/h3>\n
![\""A\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/12.-Trumpeters-after-joustcmyk-f3ca103-e1682339389188.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413"\" "\\"\"A\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>London: the 16th-century city that never slept<\/h4>\n
Five districts that offer a flavour of the vibrant, often dangerous, Tudor capital<\/h6>\n
The rise of foreign trade<\/h3>\n
![\""Portrait\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2023\/04\/2E3M9MWsml-ff2d937-e1682339273540.jpg?quality=90&resize=617%2C413"\" "\\"\"Portrait\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Lives of ordinary settlers<\/h3>\n