Henry Maundrell

Henry Maundrell (1665–1701) was an academic at Oxford University and later a Church of England clergyman, who served from 20 December 1695 as chaplain to the Levant Company in Syria. His Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter A.D. 1697 (Oxford, 1703), which had its origins in the diary he carried with him on his Easter pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1697, has become an often reprinted "minor travel classic." It was included in compilations of travel accounts from the mid-18th century, and was translated into three additional languages: French (1705), Dutch (1717) and German (1792). By 1749, the seventh edition was printed.

Maundrell was born at Compton Bassett, near Calne, Wiltshire, in 1665. He attended Exeter College, Oxford from 1682 and obtained his BA and then in 1688, his MA; at his graduation he was appointed a Fellow of the college, where he would remain until 1689. He accepted a curacy at Brompton, Kent, 1689–95, he was ordained priest by the Bishop of Rochester, Thomas Sprat, at Croydon, on 23 February 1691. His uncle, Sir Charles Hedges, was a judge of Admiralty Court who later served as one of Queen Anne's Secretaries of State. Another uncle, Sir William Hedges, a director of the Bank of England, had directed the Levant Company's "factory" at Constantinople, an essential factor in Maundrell's appointment (1695), which paid him £100 p.a., with room and board in the Aleppo "factory" and perquisites. The Levant Company community at Aleppo consisted of only forty men, living in monastic seclusion: Maundrell wrote to Henry Osborne, "We live in separate squares, shut up at night after the manner of colleges. We begin the day constantly... with prayers, and have our set times for business, meals, and recreations" Like other Anglican clergy of his day, Maundrell made no attempt to understand Islam or to read Arabic; in the wake of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) he refused the hospitality of Louis XIV's consul in Jerusalem.

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