Singapore in Johann Heinrich Zedler’s Universal-Lexicon

Johann Heinrich Zedler’s 68-volume Universal-Lexicon (Universal Lexicon, “Encyclopedia”), which was published between 1732 and 1754, is one of the landmark knowledge troves compiled and printed during the German Aufklärung (“Enlightenment”) in the first half of the 18th century. Although there is some controversy today concerning the originality of the individual entries and contributions, the work is still widely acknowledged as an important historical snapshot of the state of knowledge about almost any place or subject during the first half of the 18th century.

The Universal-Lexicon is also important in the context of Singapore history as volume 37 of the encyclopedia features five entries for the island, city and region of Singapore under different spellings. These five entries encapsulate the state of knowledge in Europe about Singapore in the early 18th century, about eight decades before the founding of the British emporium by Sir Stamford Raffles and William Farquhar in 1819. What emerges from a close reading and also comparison of these entries is that the name Singapura was understood broadly and applied not just to the settlement, the island and the Straits, but the wider region in the southern Malay Peninsula.

A translation of the different German-language entries yields the following information under the entries for Sincapor(e), Sincapur, Sincapura, Sincapurum Promontorium and Singapour.

Under the first entry Sincapor/ Sincapore, the encyclopedia explains that this name refers to a “Maritime strait in Asia situated between the Malay Peninsula and the islands on the opposite side. See also the entry for Sincapur”.

For the entry Sincapur, it is explained as follows: “Sincapur, Latin Sincapurum Promontorium, a coastal range in India at the tip of the Malay Peninsula, located at the entry of the Strait by this name, which is sometimes also called the Strait of Sincapur. See also the entry Sincapor.”

The third entry Sincapura defines it as “A city in the East Indies located in the Kingdom of Siam at the coastal range at the outermost part of the land”.

The entry Sincapurum Promontorium (the Promontory of Singapore) is a referral back to the entry on Sincapor.

The fifth and final entry under Singapour provides the following key explanation: a “Maritime strait … which has also been named after a city located there bearing the same name”.

This last entry is arguably the most interesting in historical terms as it is claimed that the maritime strait obtained its name from the nearby city or settlement. The actual word Stadt (city) is unambiguous and refers to a settlement of importance and magnitude. The source upon which Zedler based this entry is not known, but may very well have been materials of Portuguese origin most notably the Comentários (Commentaries) of Alfonso de Albuquerque or the Décadas (Decades) of João de Barros. Both were published in the second half of the 16th century. An alternative source could be accounts provided in the early Dutch voyages to the East Indies of the first half of the 17th century published by Isaac Commelin in 1645–6. What the author(s) of the five entries on Singapore did not, or perhaps were unable to know, was that the city and polity of Singapura had, by the mid-18th century, reached an advanced state of decline.

References
Zedler, J. H. (1732–1754). Universal-Lexicon. Leipzig and Halle: Verlag Heinrich Zedler. 
[This title is accessible online via the website of the State Library of Bavaria (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek) in München. The five entries on Singapore are found in volume 37, which was published in 1743.]