Part 4 — APPENDIX

APPENDIX A Georg Gyze, or Gisze

A letter written by Thomas Houth to the Earl of Kildare, Lord Deputy of Ireland, shows that in 1533 Holbein’s sitter, Georg Gyze, was Deputy to the Alderman of the Steelyard.

The portion of the document which here concerns us, in which recovery is sought of a debt owed by one Wolff, in the employment of Kildare, to a man named Peter Rych, runs as follows:

“Your servant Wolff is indebted to the bearer, as appears by bills of Wolff’s son-in-law’s hand. I ascertained at the Steelyard that the handwriting was his, by the evidence of George Gyes, the Alderman’s Deputy....”⁠[491]

The origin of the name of Gyze, and the variations in the mode of spelling it, have been a considerable puzzle to students of Holbein. It occurs several times over on the addresses of letters and other accessories introduced into the portrait of this German merchant painted by Holbein in 1532, and each time takes a different form. Perhaps the most salient version is that placed in the portrait beneath the motto, “Nulla sine merore voluptas,” where the name is variously read “G. Gisze,” or “Gyze,” according to whether the second letter is taken to be an “i,” followed by a long “s,” or whether the two strokes are combined into one letter, and read as a “y.”⁠[492]

Equal uncertainty appears to prevail as to the type of German used in the various inscriptions. The catalogue (1891) of the Berlin Gallery, where the portrait now is, spells “Gisze,” and says, “An der Wand Briefe mit seiner Adresse in hochdeutscher Mundart.” (On the wall letters with his address in High German dialect.) Dr. Woltmann, in the first volume of “Holbein und seine Zeit” (2nd German edition, 1874), writes “Gyze,” and says (in his note, page 366), “Die Adressen auf den Briefen sind in nieder-deutschen Sprache geschrieben.” (The addresses on the letters are written in Low German language.) In his second volume (1876, “Verzeichniss der Werke von Hans Holbein d. J.,” No. 115), Dr. Woltmann alters the spelling to “Gysse,” a form which adds another stroke to the name and corresponds with no rendering given by Holbein.

Where authorities differ so widely a further suggestion may perhaps be permissible.

It must be recollected that the merchants of the Hansa came from many different localities, and brought a variety of dialects to the Steelyard of London. At this time, when the spelling of proper names was, like some of the languages to which they belonged, still in a fluid state, and largely phonetic, the rendering of any given name was liable to vary very considerably, according to local circumstances and the pleasure or provenance of the writer.

Whether we read Gisze or Gyze, the name was probably a variation of that of Gueiss, which was one of the most distinguished of the Steelyard, and frequently reappears in its annals. The family belonged to Cologne. Albert von Gueiss was a representative of the Steelyard at the conference held at Bruges in 1520 between England and the Hansa.⁠[493] He was Burgher-master of Cologne in 1523 and 1526.⁠[494] As it is recorded in the portrait of George Gyze by Holbein that the sitter was in his thirty-fourth year in 1532, he may have been a younger brother or possibly a son of this Albert von Gueiss. Further research in the archives of Cologne would perhaps reveal his exact identity.

Besides the form already quoted, Holbein gives the name on the portrait in several other versions: “Gisse” and “Ghisse,” and, in Latin, “... Georgii Gysenii.” (See Berlin catalogue under “Holbein.”)

The name of Gueiss is also found in three different shapes in the records of the Steelyard: “Albertum von Gueyss,” “Albert von Gueiss,” and “Albert Gissen.”⁠[495]

The third form “Gissen” is practically or wholly identical⁠[496] with at least one of Holbein’s renderings of the name; while Gueiss, Gisze, Gyze, and Gyes are sufficiently nearly related to make it appear tolerably certain that, in the loose orthography of the period, they represent the same name, varied according to the fancy or nationality of the writer.

APPENDIX B “Presbyter Joannes” (Prester John)

“The idea” (says Colonel Yule)⁠[497] “that a Christian potentate of enormous wealth and power, and bearing this title, ruled over vast tracts in the far East, was universal in Europe from the middle of the twelfth to the end of the thirteenth century, after which time the Asiatic story seems gradually to have died away, whilst the Royal Presbyter was assigned to a locus in Abyssinia; the equivocal application of the term India to the East of Asia and the East of Africa facilitating this transfer. Indeed I have a suspicion, contrary to the view now generally taken, that the term may from the first have belonged to an Abyssinian Prince, though circumstances led to its being applied in another quarter for a time.

“Be that as it may, the inordinate report of Prester John’s magnificence became especially diffused from about the year 1165, when a letter full of the most extravagant details was circulated, which purported to have been addressed by this potentate to the Greek Emperor Manuel, the Roman Emperor Frederick, the Pope, and other Christian sovereigns. By the circulation of this letter, glaring fiction as it is, the idea of this Christian Conqueror was planted deep in the mind of Europe, and twined itself round every rumour of revolution in further Asia....”

The title of Prester John, borne by this semi-mythical Christian hero, was transmitted to his successors in Africa; and at the time when Holbein copied the name of his kingdom on to the globe of the “Ambassadors,” was the common appellation of David, King of Abyssinia.

Lord Herbert of Cherbury⁠[498] has a curious passage concerning this personage. In his narrative of the meeting that took place at Bologna between Charles V. and the Pope in the winter of 1532-33,⁠[499] he says:

“During this interview I find in our records a Portuguez in the name of David King of the Ethiopians (vulgarly called Prete Jan) presented himself Ambassador to his Holiness; for authorizing which Charge he brought with him not only Letters of Credence (translated out of the Chaldee to the Italian and Portugal tongues) wherein the said King declared himself to be descended from Queen Candace, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, but a Crucifix of gold; the further effects of his employment being to require some excellent artificers and 2000 Arquebusiers whom he would use in a war against the Turk in Egypt, when his Holiness would compose the differences in Western Parts, and join all Christian Princes for recovery of the Holy Land; pretending thereupon in the name of that King to render obedience to the Pope as the true successor of St. Peter. But this (as Augustino de Augustini, an Italian there present, and sometimes servant to Cardinal Woolsey, hath it in his letter to Cromwell⁠[500]) made the rest suspected; and the rather that other circumstances made it probable, that this Ambassador was suborned partly by the Portugal to countenance his monopoly of spices towards those parts (much grudged by his neighbour Princes), and partly by the Pope to advance his authority and reputation.”