Emanuel van Meteren

Emanuel van Meteren or Meteeren (6 September 1535 – 11 April 1612) was a Flemish historian and Consul for "the Traders of the Low Countries" in London. He was born in Antwerp, the son of Sir Jacobus van Meteren, Dutch financier and publisher of early English versions of the Bible, and Ottilia Ortellius, of the famous Ortellius family of mapmakers, and nephew of the cartographer Abraham Ortelius.

As a historian Van Meteren was special in that he was not merely a chronicler of the events of his time, but also a powerful and wealthy man who influenced those events:

The van Meteren family...had fled the Netherlands for religious reasons. Van Meteren’s father, Jacob, played a key role in the publication of the first English Bible in the 1530s, and the family established itself as a pillar of the Protestant refugee community in London. As an adult, Emmanuel lived on Lime Street, became the consul for the Dutch merchants in London, and occupied the all-important office of postmaster. Reliable mail service was an essential component of any natural history network, since specimens ranging from tulip bulbs to rhinoceros horns needed to circulate between interested naturalists. Accompanying these specimens, of course, were the letters on which the European natural history community in particular, and the Republic of Letters more generally, depended in order to thrive...[V]an Meteren’s skillful management of the post...made him indispensable. When the artist Marcus Gheeraerts wanted to send smoked herring to Antwerp, or Ortelius wanted gifts to arrive at his sister’s house in London, they inevitably went through Emmanuel van Meteren and his formidable network of middlemen, merchants, sailors, and travelers to ensure that precious messages and gifts reached their destination.

In 1581 he was the Consul representing Dutch merchants in London. In that year he harbored Christiaen, the fourth secretary of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, while he was being pursued by enraged Spaniards. He related the surrounding events in his work Album.

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