#emdiplomat of the day: Anton Meuting (ca. 1524-1591)
With the evolvement of #NewDiplomaticHistory more (social) and professional groups were considered as diplomatic actors than just nobles and councillors, among these “new” groups were merchants like Anton Meuting. (1/6)
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Anton Meuting was son of Lukas Meuting, a merchant from #Augsburg who worked for the famous House of #Fugger. His brother-in-law did not only establish the branch of the trading company of the House of #Welser, the second famous Augsburg based merchant and banking family, at the Spanish #court but also provided an excellent and exceptional education abroad for Anton, including the acquisition of language skills in Spanish, the practising of a ‘courtly’ habitus and building up a network of contacts. Thus, Anton Meuting was well connected to the two most important European merchant families of his time.
By the way, did you know that these competing merchant families are now united in their very own museum?
https://www.fugger-und-welser-museum.de
(2/6)
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After his marriage in 1550, Anton Meuting worked as an independent merchant, especially in and with #Spain, where he established himself as a cultural broker between the #court in #Munich and the court in #Madrid and was active in various fields - the purchase and sale of goods, financial services. From 1560, he was regularly mentioned as a supplier of jewellery, devotional objects, silk, clothing and accessories to the Bavarian ducal court. (3/6)
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Anton Meuting did not limit himself to commercial activities and cultural mediation, but also repeatedly accepted diplomatic commissions. He passed on news and information, a core task of all #emdiplomats. Moreover, in 1573 duke Albrecht of #Bavaria commissioned him to secretly negotiate a marriage between the Bavarian princess Maximiliane and king Sebastian of #Portugal a nephew of the Spanish king, at the #court in #Madrid. At the end of the year, Meuting continued his mission to #Lisbon for secret negotiations with Sebastian’s grandmother, Catherine of #Austria who was in favour of this project. However, Meuting’s efforts did not succeed. (4/6)
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Fours years later, in 1577, Meuting travelled to #Spain, again. This time, he had a bunch of smaller commissions to negotiate: debt claims of the descendants of the late Hans Jakob #Fugger, Ferdinand of Bavaria's Spanish pension, the support of king Philip II for the Bavarian bishopric policy, in particular for the election of Duke Ernst of #Bavaria as coadjutor of the bishopric of #Liège, as well as the possibility of the Spanish #Netherlands joining the #Landsberg Confederation.
During his last journey to Spain in 1590, Meuting did not act as an official representative for the duke of Bavaria, but acted as an informant who collected and provided information on the events and developments in #Madrid on a regular basis until he died there in 1591. (5/6)
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Throughout his life, Meuting was not restricted to one profession. He was merchant, cultural mediator and #emdiplomat. His several roles existed simultaneously, overlapped and sometimes competed with each other.
If you want to know more about Anton Meuting, we recommend the book by Mark Häberlein and Magdalena Bayreuther (in German):
Häberlein, Mark, Bayreuther, Magdalena: Agent und Ambassador. Der Kaufmann Anton Meuting als Vermittler zwischen Bayern und Spanien im Zeitalter Philipps II. Augsburg 2013. (6/6)
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Early Modern Diplomacy