Adrian Jaime, lead author on newly published article, started work as Historical Studies ROP student
The Department of Historical Studies is proud to share that Adrian Jaime, the lead author on the newly published article, "Tudor England and Stewart Scotland Through Spanish Eyes: A Complete Transcription and Translation of Pedro de Ayala's Letter of 1498 to King Ferdinand of Castile and Queen Isabella of Aragon", started his work on the project as an ROP student in our department. Continue reading for an interview with Adrain.
Why did you sign up for the ROP (Research Opportunity Project) in the first place?
I originally signed up for the ROP because I wanted to gain first-hand research experience. I joined in the second semester of my first year and was fortunate to be accepted into a project centred on early modern Scotland and England that allowed me to engage directly with primary sources. While regular courses emphasize theory and broad historical narratives, I was eager to apply those ideas in practice and better understand how historical research unfolds.
What particularly interested me about this ROP was the opportunity to work with Spanish-language sources, where I could apply my second-language skills directly. In particular, a fifteenth-century Spanish diplomatic letter, written from the vantage point of an observer within the Scottish court, developed over time into a full translation project that ultimately culminated in this article. At the outset, I did not expect that my ROP work would lead to a publication, which is why I strongly encourage other students to participate—you never know where the experience might lead!
What did you learn from the ROP experience?
I came to understand that research is fundamentally collaborative and rooted in community. Because there was a limited body of scholarship on the Spanish letter I worked with, I relied heavily on conversations with other scholars, both online and in person, to help guide my interpretation. The ROP experience showed me how knowledge is built collectively rather than in isolation. I am especially grateful to my fellow students—the aptly named “Tudor gang”—whose intellectual camaraderie made the ROP both fulfilling and enjoyable.
What are you most excited about or proud of in the article?
I am most excited about the translation work itself. The source we translated had previously been poorly rendered into English, which obscured important information about fifteenth-century international diplomacy, the courts of Henry VII of England and James IV of Scotland, the geography, economy, and culture of Scotland, and the voyages of John Cabot to North America.
The translation proved daunting: there were many moments where my co-authors and I spent hours working through a single obscure word or phrase, compounded by the fact that a portion of the text was encrypted. Although challenging, I am very proud of the final article because it makes this Spanish source more accessible to a wider English-speaking audience, and I am confident that it will support more accurate historical scholarship on the period. I am deeply grateful to my co-authors, Professor Mairi Cowan and PhD candidate Valeria Tapia Cruz, for their support and collaboration throughout the project. It could not have been done without them.
