Notes on the origins of the diplomatic corps: Constantinople in the 1620s

The diplomatic corps, that is, the corporate body of diplomats of all states resident at one post, may well have passed its hey-day but it remains an institution of some significance. Garrett Mattingly maintains, probably rightly, that it originated in Renaissance Rome. However, any account of the origins of the diplomatic body, or at any rate its early evolution and strengthening, would be remiss if it did not also attach importance to diplomatic life in another great city: Constantinople, after 1453 the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Drawing chiefly on the despatches of Sir Thomas Roe, English ambassador at Constantinople from 1621 until 1628, this paper concludes that the city had a small diplomatic body that deserved the name. Its members - the Venetians, French, English, and Dutch - were thrown together by common interests in resisting insult and violence, defending their capitulations, exchanging information, and preserving their communications with the outside world. Joint deliberations were also made easy by the fact that they lived in relatively close proximity to each other, in Pera. On at least one occasion an attempt was also made by the Porte to tax them as a collective body. It was for these reasons that, though the diplomatic corps was seriously threatened by a bitter argument over precedence between the English and French ambassadors, it eventually found a limited way out of this by its own exertions.