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{{Short description|Dutch merchant, traveller and writer (1563-1611)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
[[File:JanHuygenVanLinschoten.png|thumb|Portrait of Jan Huygen van Linschoten, from the ''princeps'' edition of his ''Itinerario''.]]
'''Jan Huygen van Linschoten''' (1563 – 8 February 1611) was a Dutch spy, merchant, traveller and writer.

He travelled extensively along the East Indies regions under Portuguese influence and served as the archbishop's secretary in [[Goa]] between 1583 and 1588. He is credited with publishing in Europe important classified information about Asian trade and navigation that was hidden by the Portuguese. In 1596, he published a book, ''Itinerario'' (later translated as ''Discours of Voyages into Ye East & West Indies''), which graphically displayed for the first time in Europe detailed maps of voyages to the East Indies, particularly India.

During his stay in Goa, he meticulously copied the secret charts page by page. Even more crucially, he provided nautical data like currents, deeps, islands and sandbanks that were vital for safe navigation, along with coastal depictions to guide the way. The publication of the navigational routes enabled the passage to the East Indies to be opened to trading by the Dutch, French and the English. As a consequence, the [[Dutch East India Company]] and the [[British East India Company]] would break the 16th-century monopoly enjoyed by the Portuguese on trade with the East Indies.

==Origins==
Jan Huygen was born in 1563 at [[Haarlem]] in [[Holland]], where his father, Huig Joostenszoon, was an innkeeper and notary. His mother, Marietje Tin Henrixdochter, had been previously married to a man named Tin with whom she had two sons, Willem and Floris Tin. In addition to his older half-brothers, Jan had a younger brother and sister.{{sfn |Parr |1964 |page=11}}{{sfn |Masselman |1963 |page=70}} Jan Huyghen added the patronym ''van Linschoten'' when he was living in Goa. Neither of his parents had any connection with the Utrecht village of Linschoten and it is not known why he appended it to his name.{{sfn |Koeman|1985 |page=30}}

The family moved to the town of [[Enkhuizen]] when he was young. His father was the innkeeper of ''The Golden Falcon'' and was prosperous enough to make loans in the shipping business. Details of Jan's education are not known but it is likely he attended an ''Enkhuizen Latin School'' where he studied reading, writing, mathematics and some Latin. He later recalled that he “took no small delight in the reading of histories and strange adventures". {{sfn |Parr |1964 |page=11-12}}

==Early career==
Linschoten left Holland in 1579 at the age of sixteen. When he was older, he confided that he had no plans except to seek a life of adventure so that when he returned home he would have "something to tell [his] children".{{sfn |Parr |1964 |page=15}} On January 1, 1580, he landed in Seville where his two older brothers, Willem and Floris, had established a business. He stayed briefly with Floris, hoping to learn Spanish and establish himself as a merchant. When [[Philip II of Spain]] marched into Portugal in August 1580, Linschoten and his brother Floris followed the army in search of opportunities they assumed would follow conquest. Floris soon died of a plague epidemic that swept through Spain and Portugal.{{sfn |Masselman |1963 |pages=70-71}}

Linschoten found a job in Lisbon, working with another merchant. A downturn in trade led him to seek alternatives. With the help of Willem, who was acquainted with the newly appointed [[Archbishop]] of the Portuguese colony of [[Goa]], Dominican D. Frei João Vicente da Fonseca, the younger Huyghen was appointed Secretary to the Archbishop. Huyghen sailed for Goa on 8 April 1583, arriving five months later via [[Madeira]], [[Guinea]], [[Cape of Good Hope|the Cape]], [[Madagascar]] and [[Mozambique]].

==Goa==
[[File:Rua Direita na Cidade de Goa.jpg|right|thumb|450px|[[Joannes van Doetecum the Elder|Joannes van Doetecum]]'s print of "[[Market of Goa (Van Doetecum)|The Market at Goa]]" in Linschoten's ''Itinerario'', showing the main street of [[Portuguese Goa]] in the 1580s]]
[[File:Fusta by Jan Huygen van Linschoten.jpg|thumb|A [[fusta]] with Portuguese pavilion from a book by Jan Huygen van Linschoten]]
While in Goa, Jan Huygen van Linschoten kept a diary of his observations of the Portuguese-ruled city, amassing information about the Europeans, Indians, and other Asians who lived there. He also had access to maps and other privileged information about commerce and Portuguese navigation in southeast Asia and used his cartographic and drawing skills in order to copy and draw new maps, reproducing a considerable amount of nautical and mercantile information. Several of the nautical charts that he copied had been meticulously kept secret by the Portuguese for more than a century.

Later, after returning to Enkhuizen, he collected accounts from other travellers, such as his friend [[Dirck Gerritsz Pomp|Dirck Gerritsz "China" Pomp]], a fellow resident of Enkhuizen who earned his nickname from his travels in the Far East, and was the first Dutchman to travel to China and Japan in three voyages of the ''[[Black Ships#First kurofune ships: nau do trato|Nau do Trato]]'' as constable of artillery. Jan Huygen van Linschoten made note of the trading conditions among different countries, and the sea routes for travelling between them. This information later helped both the Dutch and the English to challenge the Portuguese monopoly on East Indian trade.

The 1587 death of his sponsor, the Archbishop of Goa, while on a voyage to Lisbon to report to the King of Portugal, meant the end of van Linschoten's appointment. He set sail for Lisbon in January 1589, passing by the Portuguese supply depot at [[Saint Helena|St. Helena Island]] in May 1589.

==The Azores==
[[File:Terceira Azores seen by Linschoten.jpg|thumb|250px|The island of [[Terceira]], [[Azores]], in a hand-colored engraving in the ''Itinerario''.]]
During a stopover on [[Saint Helena]] he met Gerrit van Afhuijsen, an Antwerp resident who had been in [[Malacca]]. From him he gained a knowledge of the spice trade in that region. On the next stopover, the [[Azores]], he stayed for two years due to shipwreck caused by the English, who [[Azores Voyage of 1589|besieged the island]]. He used the time to map the city of [[Angra do Heroísmo|Angra]] on [[Terceira]] for the island's governor, Juan de Urbina. Van Linschoten only reached [[Lisbon]] in January 1592. He spent six months at Lisbon, then sailed to his homeland in July 1592 and settled in his home city of Enkhuizen.

==Barentsz First voyage==
[[File:Plakaat jan huygens walviskaak 1594.JPG|thumb|250px|Plaque painted by [[Karel van Mander]] commemorating whalebone given to Haarlem by Jan Huyghen van Linschoten from [[Willem Barentsz]] expedition.]]
In June 1594, van Linschoten sailed from [[Texel]] in the expedition headed by Dutch cartographer [[Willem Barentsz]]. The fleet of three ships was to enter the [[Kara Sea]], with the hopes of finding the [[Northeast passage]] above Siberia.<ref>[[#Synge 1912|Synge 1912]], p. 258</ref> At Williams Island the crew encountered a polar bear for the first time.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}} They managed to bring it on board, but the bear rampaged and was killed. Barentsz reached the west coast of [[Novaya Zemlya]] and followed it northward, before being forced to turn back in the face of large icebergs.

==Barentsz Second voyage==
[[File:Aanvaring tussen de schepen van Barentsz en Van Linschoten, 1595, NG-1979-564-7 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Barentz flagship ''Gulden Windthunde'' nearly collided with that of the Vice Admiral. Linschoten on the latter. 6 August 1595]]
The following year they sailed again in a new expedition of six ships, loaded with merchant wares that they hoped to trade with China.<ref>[[#ULT 2009|ULT 2009]], web</ref> The party came across [[Samoyedic peoples|Samoyed]] "wild men" but eventually had to turn back when discovering the Kara Sea to be frozen. Van Linschoten was one of two crew members to publish journals about the Barentsz expedition.

==Return to Holland==
In 1595, with assistance from Amsterdam publisher [[Cornelis Claesz]], who specialised in shipping, geography and travels, Jan Huygen van Linschoten wrote {{lang|nl|Reys-gheschrift vande navigatien der Portugaloysers in Orienten}} (Travel Accounts of Portuguese Navigation in the Orient). This work contains numerous sailing directions, not only for shipping between Portugal and the East Indies colonies, but also between India, China and Japan.<ref name="schama"/> It also contains one of the earliest European accounts of [[tea]] drinking in Japan:

"Their manner of eating and drinking is: everie man hath a table alone, without table-clothes or napkins, and eateth with two pieces of wood like the men Chino: they drink wine of Rice, wherewith they drink themselves drunke, and after their meat they use a certain drinke, which is a pot with hote water, which they drink as hot as ever they may indure, whether it be Winter or Summer... The aforesaid warme water is made with the powder of a certaine hearbe called Chaa, which is much esteemed, and is well accounted among them."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=YdpL2YCGLVYC&pg=PA63 'The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug', by Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer, p. 63]</ref>

In the same year, 1595, he married Reynu Meynertsdr. Seymens of Enkhuizen. She was "already four months pregnant by her intended second husband....At the time of her courtship Reynu Seymens was thirty-one and a mother of three. Her lover's voyaging career may well have hastened their consummation."<ref name="schama">Simon Schama, ''The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age''. New York: Vintage Books, 1987, p. 438.</ref>

Jan Huygen van Linschoten also wrote two other books, ''Beschryvinghe van de gantsche custe van Guinea, Manicongo, Angola ende tegen over de Cabo de S. Augustijn in Brasilien, de eyghenschappen des gheheelen Oceanische Zees'' (Description of the Entire Coast of Guinea, Manicongo, Angola and across to the Cabo de St. Augustus in Brazil, the Characteristics of the Entire Atlantic Ocean), published in 1597; and ''Itinerario: Voyage ofte schipvaert van Jan Huygen van Linschoten naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien, 1579-1592'' [http://fondosdigitales.us.es/books/digitalbook_view?oid_page=291800] (Travel account of the voyage of the sailor Jan Huygen van Linschoten to the Portuguese East India), published in 1596. "The frontispiece of the first edition [was] pirated [from] the engraving from (of all things) a work celebrating the campaigns of a Spanish general and printed...up as the Dutch hero" by his publisher Joost Gillis Saeghman.<ref>Schama, p. 28.</ref> The map published in this book, [http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm4335 ''Exacta & accurata delinatio… regionibus China, Cauchinchina, Camboja, sive Champa, Syao, Malacca, Arracan & Pegu''], was prepared by [[Petrus Plancius]].<ref>Leo Bagrow, ''History of Cartography,'' revised and enlarged by R. A. Skelton, London, Watts, 1964, p. 265. [http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm4335 Exacta & accurata delinatio cum orarum maritimarum tum etiam locorum terrestrium quæ in regionibus China, Cauchinchina, Camboja, sive Champa, Syao, Malacca, Arracan & Pegu]; Cornelis Koeman, ''Jan Huygen Van Linschoten,'' Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra Biblioteca Geral 1, 1984, Centro de Estudos de Historia e Cartografia, Vol. 153, pp. 39–41. Also in ''Revista da Universidade de Coimbra,'' vol. 32, 1985, pp. 27–47.</ref>

An English-language edition of the ''Itinerario'' was published in [[London]] in 1598, entitled ''Iohn Huighen van Linschoten his Discours of Voyages into ye Easte & West Indies''. A German edition was printed the same year. Considered very significant, it was published in Latin in Frankfurt, 1599; another Latin translation in Amsterdam, 1599; and in French in 1610.<ref>For a list of the various editions, see Koeman (1985: pp. 41ff.)</ref>

The ''Itinerario'' continued to be re-edited after van Linschoten's death in 1611, until the middle of 17th century. Jan Huygen also published the Dutch translation of Father [[José de Acosta]]'s book on Spanish America in 1597, and in 1601 he published an academic account of his own travels to the North. He joined the [[Dutch East India Company]] (VOC) in 1606. In 1609, he also published in Dutch the letter from the duke of Lerma, the King's favourite, to Philip III of Spain, about the Moorish revolt in Spain. That same year he was asked to give an opinion on foundation of the [[Dutch West India Company]] (GWC).

In addition to detailed maps of these places, van Linschoten also provided the geographic ‘key’ to unlocking the Portuguese grip on passage through the [[Malacca Strait]]. He suggested traders approach the East Indies from south of [[Sumatra]] through the [[Sunda Strait]], thereby minimizing the risk of Portuguese intervention. This passage eventually became the main Dutch route into southeast Asia and was the origin of their colonization of the territories that form today's [[Indonesia]].

This data was used extensively in the preparation of the first fleet for Asia, that of [[Cornelis de Houtman]] (1595-1597). Van Linschoten gave the route that de Houtman followed, sailing to the west of Madagascar on the way to Java island, which the Dutch would follow for many years, and he participated in the debates over the fleet's preparation and destination. Due to this, during his lifetime, van Linschoten engaged personally in polemics with [[Petrus Plancius]], the later cartographer of the VOC, for the preparation of de Houtman's fleet, but also in his sailings North. He also worked closely with [[Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer]] and [[Bernardus Paludanus]].

Van Linschoten died in [[Enkhuizen]], where he had acted as Treasurer to the town since 1597.<ref>{{cite book|first=Gerrit|last=de Veer|title=A True Description of Three Voyages by the North-east Towards Cathay and China: Undertaken by the Dutch in the Years 1594, 1595 and 1596|url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_18644|year=1853|publisher=[[Hakluyt Society]]|page=[https://archive.org/details/cihm_18644/page/n225 40]|isbn=9780665186448 }}</ref>

==Legacy and honors==
*The [[Linschoten-Vereeniging|Linschoten Society]] (Linschoten-Vereeniging) was founded in 1908 to publish rare or unpublished Dutch travel accounts of voyages, journeys by land, and descriptions of countries.
*The minor planet [[10651 van Linschoten]] is named after him.

== Editions ==
* 1598 English translation, ''John Huighen van Linschoten, His discours of voyages into ye Easte and West Indies: deuided into foure bookes'', London: John Wolfe. [https://books.google.com/books?id=nRN-HgO3tREC&pg=PP7 online]. In Wolfe's ordering, the [https://books.google.com/books?id=nRN-HgO3tREC&pg=PR13 First Book] is the 1596 ''Itinerario'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=nRN-HgO3tREC&pg=PA201 Second Book] is 1597 ''Beschryvinghe'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=nRN-HgO3tREC&pg=PA299 Third Book] is the 1595 ''Reys-gheschrift'' and the [https://books.google.com/books?id=nRN-HgO3tREC&pg=PA449 Fourth Book] is van Linschoten's translation of the revenues of the Spanish crown. In other editions, the 2nd and 3rd books are often switched around.
* 1598 [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/kislak.07722.1 ''John Huighen van Linschoten his Discours of Voyages into ye Easte & West Indies'' ] From the Collections at the [[Library of Congress]]
* 1874–85 English edition, ''The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies'', 1874–85 edition, London: Hakluyt. Reprint of only the First Book of 1598 translation ( [https://books.google.com/books?id=IwoVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR3 vol. 1], [https://books.google.com/books?id=XF9KAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR3 vol. 2])

==See also==
*[[Chronology of European exploration of Asia]]
*[[Francisco Gali]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Bibliography==
* Boogaart, Ernst van den. Jan Huygen van Linschoten and the moral map of Asia. London: The Roxburghe Club, 1999.
* Boogaart, Ernst van den. “Heathendom and civility in the Historia Indiae Orientalis. The adaptation by Johan Theodor and [[Johan Israel de Bry]] of the edifying series of plates from Linschoten's Itinerario”, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art, 53 (1), 2002a, 71–106.
* Boogaart, Ernst van den. Civil and Corrupt Asia. Word and text in the Itinerario and the Icones of Jan Huygen van Linschoten. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
* {{cite journal|last=Koeman|first=C.|year=1985|title=Jan Huygen van Linschoten|journal=Revista da Universidade de Coimbra|volume=32|pages=27–47|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EVjPRRuwV8AC&pg=PA25}}
* {{Cite book |last=Masselman |first=George |title=The Cradle of Colonialism |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1963 |url=https://archive.org/details/cradleofcolonial0000mass}}
* {{Cite book |last=Parr |first=Charles McKew |title=Jan Van Linschoten : The Dutch Marco Polo |publisher=Thomas Y. Crowell Company |year=1964 |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/janvanlinschoten0000char}}
* {{cite book |last= Synge |first= J.B. |title= A Book of Discovery |url= http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=synge&book=discoverybook&story=_contents&PHPSESSID=458b6ee0d |year= 1912 |publisher= Yesterday's Classics |isbn= 1-59915-192-8 |ref= Synge 1912 |archive-date= 10 June 2011 |access-date= 20 September 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110610050434/http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=synge&book=discoverybook&story=_contents&PHPSESSID=458b6ee0d |url-status= dead }}
* {{cite web| title=Willem Barentsz and the Northeast passage |publisher= University Library of Tromsø – The Northern Lights Route |url=http://www.ub.uit.no/northernlights/eng/wbarentsz.htm|access-date= 18 June 2010|ref=ULT 2009}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite encyclopedia |title=van Linschoten, Jan Huyghen |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to World Exploration |year=2007 |editor-last=Buisseret |editor-first=David |publisher=Oxford University Press |location= |isbn=978-0-19-514922-7 |id= |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195149227.001.0001/acref-9780195149227-e-0393 }}
* {{citation |year=1885 |author1=Burnell, Arthur Coke |author2=Tiele, P.A |url=https://archive.org/details/voyagejohnhuygh02tielgoog |title=The voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies |series=from the old English translation of 1598: the first book, containing his description of the East |place=London |publisher=The [[Hakluyt Society]]|ref=none}}. Full text at Internet Archive.
* {{Cite journal |last=Saldanha |first=Arun |date=2011 |title=The Itineraries of Geography: Jan Huygen van Linschoten's "Itinerario" and Dutch Expeditions to the Indian Ocean, 1594–1602 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27980165 |journal=Annals of the Association of American Geographers |volume=101 |issue=1 |pages=149–177 |doi=10.1080/00045608.2010.520227 |jstor=27980165 |issn=0004-5608|url-access=subscription }}
* {{citation |year=2005 |author1=Van Linschoten |author2=Jan Huygen |title=The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies |series=Elibron Classics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-8QniNZT8jsC&q=%22John+Huyghen+van+Linschoten+%22+2005&pg=PP2 |publisher=the [[Hakluyt Society]] |isbn= 1-4021-9507-9|ref=none}}
* Van Linschoten, Jan Huygen. ''Voyage to Goa and Back, 1583–1592, with His Account of the East Indies'' : From Linschoten's Discourse of Voyages, in 1598/Jan Huygen Van Linschoten. Reprint. New Delhi, AES, 2004, xxiv, 126 p. {{ISBN|81-206-1928-5}}.
* {{Cite journal|last=Vila-Santa|first=Nuno|title=Jan Huygen van Linschoten and the Reys-gheschrift: Updating Iberian Science for the Dutch Expansion |journal=Historical Research|volume=95|issue=265|date=2021 |pages=1–22|url=https://www.academia.edu/49339772}}
* Vila-Santa, Nuno, "Jan Huygen van Linschoten´s Itinerario: a decaying commercial portrait of Portuguese Asia?" in Espelhos de Mercúrio. A representação do comércio nas Monarquias Ibéricas, 1500-1800, edited by Pablo Sánchez León, Carla Vieira and Nina Vieira, Coimbra, Imprensa da Universidade, 2024, pp. 261-288."{{https://www.academia.edu/115557158/_Jan_Huygen_van_Linschoten_s_Itinerario_a_decaying_commercial_portrait_of_Portuguese_Asia_in_Espelhos_de_Merc%C3%BArio_A_representa%C3%A7%C3%A3o_do_com%C3%A9rcio_nas_Monarquias_Ib%C3%A9ricas_1500_1800_edited_by_Pablo_S%C3%A1nchez_Le%C3%B3n_Carla_Vieira_and_Nina_Vieira_Coimbra_Imprensa_da_Universidade_2024_pp_261_288}}

==External links==
* {{Commons category-inline|Jan Huygen van Linschoten}}
* Jan Huygen van Linschoten (1563-1611): An Annotated Bibliography [https://www.academia.edu/49642105/Technical_Note_Jan_Huygen_van_Linschoten_1563_1611_An_Annotated_Bibliography]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Linschoten, Jan Huygen Van}}
[[Category:1563 births]]
[[Category:1611 deaths]]

[[Category:17th-century Dutch businesspeople]]
[[Category:17th-century merchants]]
[[Category:Dutch merchants]]
[[Category:17th-century Dutch historians]]
[[Category:People from Haarlem]]
[[Category:People from Enkhuizen]]

[[Category:16th-century Dutch explorers]]

[[Category:Early modern Netherlandish cartography]]
[[Category:Explorers of South Asia]]
[[Category:People from Dutch India]]

Jan Huyghen van Linschoten - Revision history

ErmelindaDez at 18:16, 3 February 2026