John Frampton

John Frampton was a 16th-century English merchant from Bristol, who settled in Spain, was imprisoned and tortured by the Inquisition, and escaped back in England in 1567. He became a translator from Spanish.

John Frampton mastered Spanish during his career as a merchant in the Seville trade, a career that exposed him to the changing fortunes of Anglo-Hispanic relations. In 1561, he was arrested by the Spanish Inquisition, tortured, tried, and his ship and goods were confiscated. After the trial he was under the kind of house arrest and could have spent the rest of his life in these conditions but was able to arrange for an escape. Back in England Frampton started translating Spanish books ranging from Monardes’s study of herbs and medical simples brought back from the New World to the Travels of Marco Polo. His publications include:

1577: Nicolás Monardes, “Ioyfull newes out of the newe founde worlde, wherein is declared the rare and singular vertues of diuerse and sundrie hearbes, trees, oyles, plantes, and stones, with their applications, as well for phisicke as chirurgerie”, translated from the 1565 Spanish edition

1578: Fernández de Enciso, “Geography”

1579: “The most noble and famous travels of Marco Polo”

1579: Bernardino de Escalante, “A discourse of the Navigation which the Portugales doe Make to the Realmes and Provinces of the East Partes of the Worlde, and of the knowledge that growes by them of the great thinges, which are in the Dominion of China”: thought to be the second European book (although small) primarily dedicated to China, and the first of them to be made available in English

1580: Nicolás Monardes, “Ioyfull newes out of the newe founde worlde: a new edition enlarged on the basis of the 1574 Spanish edition”

1581: Pedro de Medina, “Art of Navigation”