Calvinism's Debt to the Turks

Published on by D. G. Hart

The arrangement and deployment of these symbols [of the Turks] – weapons and costume – began to alter subtly in the first decades of the eighteenth century, in part, remarkably, as a result of a shared interest in flowers. Flowers had been highly visible in the Ottoman capital from the mid-sixteenth century. By the 1630s the famous Turkish traveler Evliya Chelebi was estimating that there were some 300 florists in Constantinople. The open meadows along the Golden Horn were filled with tulips and lilacs in the spring and the lilacs’ scent was intoxicating. The introduction of the tulip to Europe from Turkey in the mid-sixteenth century, first to Augsburg in 1559, then to Antwerp and the Habsburg domains in the Netherlands between 1562 and 1583, revived a passion for flowers and gardens in the West. Mass production of blooms exported opened into an industry in the Netherlands, and tulip bulbs were exported across Europe. The Margrave of the small estate of Baden Durlach had more than 4,000 tulips in his garden by 1636, all carefully listed in his garden registers. . . .

It is impossible to be precise about the date but certainly beginning in the Tulip Era the symbolic connotations of “the Turk” began to gather new and extended meanings. The similarity of the tulip’s appearance to a turban was first noted by the Habsburg ambassador to Constantinople Ghislain de Busbecq in the 1550s. He was passionate about flowers and, based upon this visual connection, mistakenly gave the tulips their name, a corruption of the Turkish for turban, tulban. But turbans, once the symbol of Eastern violence, now acquired an additional, softer connection. . . . For the West, flowers, silks, and flowing robes suggested an indolent life rather than the rigors of the field of battle . . . (Wheatcroft, Infidels, 265, 266)

23 thoughts on “Calvinism's Debt to the Turks”

  2. When my wife and I went on a recent garden/flower tour, she pointed out to me on the way home that many of the home-owners were homosexuals, and that perhaps they had spent the resources other put into college education for children into their gardens. Of course I was too innocent to notice any of this.

    I objected, perhaps they were “metrosexuals”. My wife took one look at my sweat pants and reminded me again of how little I could possibly know about that….

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  3. Mark,

    Now that they’re getting married and having kids they’ll be paycheck-to-paycheck working stiffs like the rest of us. This equality thing isn’t so bad.

    Wear those sweat pants proudly.

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  4. Funny you mention that, Mark, because for the last 15 years I’ve noticed a strong correlation between gay homeowners and excellent landscaping.

    But, to actually tie this in with the post, Pella Iowa has an annual “Tulip Festival” complete with thousands of tulips and tall people parading down the street in clogs. Kyle Korver is the only tall person from Pella to make it to the NBA as far as I know.

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  6. ……………….And that should tell you all you need to know to understand why Gee needed to retire Tuesday as the boss at Ohio State. Gee loved attention. Show me a man who wears a bow tie in this day and age and I’ll show you a man who wants to be noticed.

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  10. Writing in Slate, Rob Walker called the bow tie a “stunt accessory” and claimed that it is “the nose ring of the conservative.”

    Larry David; “There’s a lot of meshugena Muslims out running around, are there not?”

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  14. If I ever smoked or wore ties I could embrace cigars and bow ties. I avoid both, however, although my wife is after me to buy a new suit for our daughter’s wedding.

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  15. I don’t like bow-ties either. But since I am not Reformed, I can’t say “not Reformed”. So I will say that bow ties are evidence of thinking in terms of “free-will”.

    I remember a long time ago, when I was teaching in a Dutch Reformed school in Choteau, Montana. Two little girls got in a debate at recess, One said to the other—“that’s free-will”. I am pretty sure the little girls didn’t know much about predestination debates, but they had heard enough from their culture to know that “free will” was bad.

    I think the bow ties some students wear at Grove City College actually come from the Austrian economics department. And I hope that not all Austrian economists are into “free-will”. I for one am glad that my son graduated from Grove City without ever once wearing a bow tie.

    And the frisbee golf is mostly gone now.

    Someday I want to visit Hillsdale College and check out the bow-tie/Austrian economics correlation.

    old mark

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  17. Mark, when I taught at a Pentecostal school two girls had the same debate on the playground, but they were talking about the whale movie.

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  19. Darryl, you get some street cred with the drag queens maybe, but only if you manscape and bare the midriff, maybe some hot pants to go with. What you really need, since you’re an academic, is some ear guages and a soul patch(beware of the Stellman slope) so you fit in better with the beatniks at the starbucks, maybe pair it with a shirtless vest, cords and birks.

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  22. It’s a team game. More shots from behind the three for Bosch, more air-balls from D Wade, and more game planning from Pat Riley….and thus more Heat losses….

    The Spurs are only going to get better.

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