THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 



1529 



Le mardy XI™^ jour de may, au matin, furent faits chevaliers environ cin- 

 quante de nos gens, et eurent chacun l'acollée en passant sous lequateur, et 

 fut chantée la messe de Salve sancta parens à nottes pour la solennité du jour, 

 et prismes un grand poisson nommé albacore et des bonnites, dont fut fait 

 chaudière pour le souper en solennisant la fest de la chevalerie. 



(Le discours de la navigation de Jean et Raoul Parmentier de Dieppe. 

 Voyage à Sumatra en 1529; Description de l'isle de Sainct-Dominigo. 

 PubUé par M. Schefer. Paris, 1883. p. 20. Recueil de voyages et de docu- 

 ments pour servir à l'histoire de la géographie. ) 



This curtain raiser, by Parmentier, is the earliest — so far as I know now — first-hand report 

 of a ceremony. We see that as the ship crossed the hne on the morning of May 11, some fifty 

 were knighted by the usual accolade, a Mass was sung to mark the solemnity of the day, a big 

 albacore caught and with some bonitos was set to help the jollity if not the solemnity of it all by 

 sacrificing itself for the evening meal. 



Quite good, but plenty of questions come to mind. Were the fifty chosen from crew alone, 

 passengers excluded? (Does "nos gens" in French ship parlance refer usually to the crew?) 

 How were the fifty picked? Green hands never this far south before, the usual choice? Did none 

 escape, neither crew nor passenger? No suggestion here of buying freedom by paying a fine or 

 offering a gift. Was the singing of a Mass part of the usual daily life or was it sung for this 

 particular occasion on this day? Note how notliing is said as to the ceremony itself except the 

 stroke of the sword on the back, the usual accolade for knighthood. No shaving, no baptising, 

 no pranks? Note too how a ceremony like this is accepted as usual, normal, traditional, no ex- 

 planation of what it means or why done. Who gave the accolade? 



The worthy Parmentier, mathematician, map maker, navigator, scholar, was as devout as he 

 was versatile. Witness the fervor of his Description nouvelle des merveilles de ce mode, à- de la 

 dignité de Ihomme, composée en rithme francoyse en manière de exhortation, Paris, 1531. Was 

 it beneath his dignity to note such frivoHties as an irreverent crew may have staged on this voyage? 

 Did the readers he aimed at frovsni at mention in formal print of the modes and manners of the 

 lower classes? We shall see later how superior and aloof are some of the nobihty and gentry when 

 they have to endiure the pranks staged by rude sailors thinking they are doing something amusing 

 or something they feel gives them some fun. 



Some three centuries later we hear how yoimg Charles Darvdn notes his experience in his diary 

 giving a refreshing tale of the ducking and frolicing, but the ofBcial account of the voyage of the 

 Beagle says never a word about such things, quite properly for the formal record. And when Cook 

 made his crossing he says nothing when writing as commander of the ship. Some of us, however, 

 are happy that Sir Joseph Banks set the story down in some charming detail in his diary, which, 

 to be sure, had to wait for publication almost to our own day. 



French tales usually talk about "baptême" rather than accolades of knighthood, but the Italian 

 encyclopedia in 1938, as abeady noted, says the French call us chevaliers of the sea once we have 

 endured the crossing of equator or the Tropic. 



And it is worthy to note too how the clergy look on the ceremony with approval or disapproval, 

 largely a matter of personahty, I suppose. Sometimes they forbid it as sacrilegious, more often they 

 accept it, now and then enter into it all as harmless fim making. The first Russian crossing in 1803 

 speaks with particular care of the Mass sung then. 



The marking of the "solennité du jour" by the "messe de Salve sancta parens à nottes" does 

 indeed show that Parmentier and his companions felt that something important had taken place, 

 the first step into the new world where the sun stood in the north. So special an event called for 

 special attention, even a high mass. That meant singing. Singing "à nottes," my friend Dr. Otto 

 Kinkeldey, learned and wise in musicology, tells me meant that "On this solemn occasion they 

 must have had some among their company who were experienced singers, who could read music. 

 They sang 'from notes.' The composition was not a simple plain song which might have been sung 



[IS] 



