Samuel Purchas
Samuel Purchas (1577-1626) was an English cleric and author known for his significant contributions to the literature of exploration during the Tudor and Stuart periods. Born in Essex, he studied at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he earned his B.A. in 1597 and his M.A. in 1600. Purchas served various parishes in Essex, eventually becoming the rector of St. Martin's Ludgate in London. His most notable works include "Hakluytus Posthumus" and "Purchas His Pilgrimage," which are celebrated for their accounts of global exploration and travel. These texts were informed by the writings of earlier explorers, including Richard Hakluyt, and contained a mix of factual and legendary narratives regarding voyages to Asia, the Americas, and beyond. Purchas's writings played a role in shaping perceptions of exploration in his time, and his influence extended into literature, with poets like Samuel Taylor Coleridge drawing inspiration from his work. Purchas passed away shortly after his appointment as rector at All Hallows Church in London.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Samuel Purchas
Writer
- Born: November 20, 1577 (baptized)
- Birthplace: Thaxted, Essex, England
- Died: September 1, 1626
- Place of death: London, England
Biography
Samuel Purchas was born in 1577, and baptized on November 20, 1577, at Thaxted, Essex, England, the sixth of ten children of clothier George Purchas and his wife Anne. He went up to St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1594, obtaining his B.A. in 1597, and his M.A. in 1600. He was ordained a deacon at Witham in 1598, and a priest there in 1601, and then became a curate at Purleigh before being appointed vicar of Eastwood in 1604, all three parishes being in Essex. He married Jane Lease in December 1601; their three children included a son, Samuel, who published a satire, A Theatre of Politicall Flying-Insects, in 1657.
The elder Samuel Purchas was appointed rector of St. Martin’s Ludgate in London in 1614, retaining that position until 1626. From 1621 until 1624 he was also a fellow of King James College, Chelsea, a key source of anti-Catholic polemic and propaganda in the troubled years between the Gunpowder Plot and the Civil War. His only published sermon, The Kings Towre, preached at St. Paul’s Cross in 1622, was composed there.
Purchas His Pilgrimage: Or, Relations of the World and the Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discovered from the Creation unto This Present (1613), is one of numerous Biblically-based histories published in England in the Tudor and Stuart eras. A fourth enlarged edition of the book was printed in 1626 as a fifth volume supplement to his most famous work, Hakluytus Posthumus: Or, Purchas His Pilgrimes: Contayning a History of the World, in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells, by Englishmen and Others, although the two works have little in common except their titles. Another book with a similar title, Purchas His Pilgrim: Microcosmus, or, The Historie of Man, Relating the Wonders of his Generation, Vanities in his Degeneration, Necessity of his Regeneration, was published in 1619.
Hakluytus Posthumus was initially issued in four volumes in 1625. The book was inspired by Purchas’s acquisition of the papers of Elizabethan explorer Richard Hakluyt. Much of the book was based on accounts of voyages undertaken or recorded secondhand by Hakluyt, carefully augmented by consultation of the East India Company’s archives; however, the book also included some legendary material similar to that on which Purchas had based his earlier books, recklessly mixing the testimonies of explorers Marco Polo and John Mandeville as well as drawing upon late medieval chroniclers whose reliability is extremely dubious. The success of the work was guaranteed by the fact that its newer materials, like Hakluyt’s published writings, constituted a ringing celebration of the exploratory enterprise of Elizabethan navigators; it included congratulatory accounts of expeditions to India, China, Japan, and the Americas as well as regretful testimony of failed attempts to discover a northwest passage to the Orient. Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge credited the inspiration of his poem “Kubla Khan” to both Purchas and opium. Purchas died in September, 1626, shortly after being appointed rector at All Hallows in Broad Street.