Prince Henry the Navigator, Who Brought This Move Ment of European Expansion Within Sight of Its Greatest Successes
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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com PrinceHenrytheNavigator CharlesRaymondBeazley 1 - 1 1 J fteroes of tbe TRattong EDITED BY Sveltn Bbbott, flD.B. FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD PACTA DUOS VIVE NT, OPEROSAQUE OLMIA MHUM.— OVID, IN LI VI AM, f«». THE HERO'S DEEDS AND HARD-WON FAME SHALL LIVE. PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR GATEWAY AT BELEM. WITH STATUE, BETWEEN THE DOORS, OF PRINCE HENRY IN ARMOUR. Frontispiece. 1 1 l i "5 ' - "Hi:- li: ;, i'O * .1 ' II* FV -- .1/ i-.'..*. »' ... •S-v, r . • . '**wW' PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR THE HERO OF PORTUGAL AND OF MODERN DISCOVERY I 394-1460 A.D. WITH AN ACCOUNr Of" GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS THROUGH OUT THE MIDDLE AGLi> AS THE PREPARATION FOR KIS WORlf' BY C. RAYMOND BEAZLEY, M.A., F.R.G.S. FELLOW OF MERTON 1 fr" ' RifrB | <lvFnwn ; GEOGRAPHICAL STUDEN^rf^fHB-SrraSR^tttpXFORD, 1894 ule. Seneca, Medea P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON Cbe Knicftetbocftet press 1911 fe'47708A . A' ;D ,'! ~.*"< " AND TILDl.N' POL ' 3 -P. i-X's I_ • •VV: : • • •••••• Copyright, 1894 BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Entered at Stationers' Hall, London Ube ftntcfeerbocfter press, Hew Iffotfc CONTENTS. PACK PREFACE Xvii INTRODUCTION. THE GREEK AND ARABIC IDEAS OF THE WORLD, AS THE CHIEF INHERITANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN MIDDLE AGES IN GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE . I CHAPTER I. EARLY CHRISTIAN PILGRIMS (CIRCA 333-867) . 29 CHAPTER II. VIKINGS OR NORTHMEN (CIRCA 787-1066) . 50 CHAPTER III. THE CRUSADES AND LAND TRAVEL (CIRC A II OO-1 300) 76 S CHAPTER IV. , MARITIME EXPLORATION (CIRCA 1 250-1410) . I06 < CHAPTER V. * GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE IN CHRISTENDOM FROM THE ^ FIRST CRUSADES (CIRCA I IOO-1460) . 114 I V vi Contents. CHAPTER VI. PAGB PORTUGAL TO I4OO (1095-1400) .... 12$ CHAPTER VII. henry's position and designs at the time of the first voyages, 1410-15 .... 138 CHAPTER VIII. PRINCE HENRY AND THE CAPTURE OF CEUTA (1415) . 147 CHAPTER IX. HENRY'S SETTLEMENT AT SAGRES AND FIRST DIS COVERIES (1418-28) 160 CHAPTER X. CAPE BOJADOR AND THE AZORES (1428-41) . 168 CHAPTER XI. HENRY'S POLITICAL LIFE (1433-41) .... 179 CHAPTER XII. FROM BOJADOR TO CAPE VERDE (144I-5) . 192 CHAPTER XIII. THE ARMADA OF I445 228 CHAPTER XIV. VOYAGES OF I446-8 240 CHAPTER XV. THE AZORES (143I-60) . 250 Contents. vii CHAPTER XVI. FAGS THE TROUBLES OF THE REGENCY AND THE FALL OF DON PEDRO (1440-9) 257 CHAPTER XVII. CADAMOSTO (1455-6) CHAPTER XVIII. VOYAGES OF DIEGO GOMEZ (1458-60) . 289 CHAPTER XIX. HENRY'S LAST YEARS AND DEATH (1458-60) . 299 CHAPTER XX. THE RESULTS OF PRINCE HENRY'S WORK . 308 INDEX 325 ! I ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE MAIN GATE OF THE MONASTERY CHURCH AT BELEM, Frontispiece Built on the site of an old sailor's chapel, existing in Prince Henry's day, and used by his men. In the niche between the two great entrance doors, is a statue of Prince Henry in armour. THE MONASTERY CHURCH AT BATALHA 1 132 West front of church in which Prince Henry and his House lie buried. This church was founded by the Prince's father, King John, in memory of his victory over Castille at Aljubarrota. BATALHA CHURCH — PORTUGAL'S WESTMINSTER 1 136 The aisle containing the tombs of Prince Henry and his brothers, the Infants of the House of Aviz. Effigies of king john the great and queen philippa . 148 Henry's father and mother, from their tomb in the Abbey of Batalha. GATEWAY OF THE CHURCH AT THOMAR 154 The Mother Church of the Order of Christ, of which Henry was Grand-Master. * From a water-colour. is X Illustrations. PAGE HENRY IN MOURNING DRESS 1 258 The original forms the frontispiece to the Paris MS. of Azurara's Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. COIMBRA UNIVERSITY 298 THE RECUM3ENT STATUE OF PRINCE HENRY .... 306 From his tomb in Batalha Church ; with his escutcheons(i) as titular King of Cyprus ; (2) as Knight of the Garter of England ; (3) as Grand Master of the Order of Christ. ALLEGORICAL PIECE ' 3IO Supposed to represent Columbus, as St. Christopher, carrying across the ocean the Christian faith, in the form of the infant Christ. From the map of Juan de la Cosa, 1500. VASCO DA GAMA ' 314 From a portrait in the possession of the Count of Lavradio. AFFONSO D* ALBUQUERQUE 4 3l8 1 From Major's Life of Henry the Navigator. * From the Hakluyt Society's Select Letters of Columbus. 8 From the Hakluyt Society's edition of Thee Voyages of Vasco da Gama. * From the Hakluyt Society's edition of Albuquerque's Commentaries. LIST OF MAPS.* THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PTOLEMY 2 From Nordenskjald's fac-simile atlas THE WORLD ACCORDING TO EDRISI. C. II50 . ... 24 As reconstructed by M. Reinaud from the written de scriptions of the Arabic geographer. This illustrates the extremely unreal and untrue conception of the earth among Moslem students, especially those who followed the theories of Ptolomy — e.g. , in the extension to Africa eastward, so as practically or actually to join China, making the Indian Ocean an inland sea. THE MAPPE-MONDE OF ST. SEVER 48 (B. Mus., Map room, shelf 35 [5], sheet 6). Of un certain date, between c. 780-980 but probably not later than the 10th century. One of the earliest examples of Christian map-making. THE ANGLO-SAXON MAP 54 (B. Mus., Cotton mss., Tib. B.V., fol. 59). This gives us the most interesting and accurate view of the world that we get in the pre-Crusading Christian science. The square, but not conventional outline is detailed with con siderable care and precision. The writing, though min ute, is legible ; but the Nile, which, like the Red Sea in Africa, is coloured red, in contrast to the ordinary grey of water in this example, is made to wander about Africa from side to side, with occasional disappearances, in a xi List of Maps. thoroughly mythical fashion. This map, from a ms. of Priscian's Peviegesis, appears to have been executed at the end of the ioth century ; it is on vellum, highly finished, and has been engraved, in outline, in Playfair's Atlas (PI. I), and more fully in the Penny Magazine (July 22, 1837). In the reign of Henry II., it appears to have belonged to Battle Abbey. THE TURIN MAP OF THE IITH CENTURY .... 76 (B. Mus., Map room. From Ottino's reproduction). One of the oldest and simplest of Christian Mappe-Mondes, giving a special prominence to Paradise, (with the figures of Adam, Eve, and the serpent), to the mountains and ' rivers of the world, and to the four winds of heaven. It is to be associated with the Spanish map of nog, and the Mappe-Monde of St. Sever. THE SPANISH-ARABIC MAP OF IIOO. 84 (B. Mus., Add. mss., 11695). The original, gorgeously coloured, represents the crudest of Christian and Moslem notions of the world. Even more crude than in the Turin map and the Mappe-Monde of St. Sever, both of which offer some resemblances to this. The earth is represented as of quadrangular shape, surrounded by the ocean. At the E. is Paradise with the figures of the Temptation. A part of the S. is cut off by the Red Sea, which is straight (and coloured red), just as the straight Mediterranean, with its quad rangular islands, divides the N.W. quarter, or Europe, from the S.W. quarter, or Africa. The ^Egean Sea joins the Mediterranean at a right angle, in the centre of the map. In the ocean, bordering the whole, are square islands, e. g. , Tile (Thule), Britania, Scocia, Fu(o)rtunarum insula. The Turin map occurs in another copy of the same work — A Commentary on the Apocalypse. THE PSALTER MAP OF THE I3TH CENTURY. g2 (B. Mus., Add. mss., 28, 681). A good illustration of the circular type of mediaeval map, which is sometimes little better than a panorama of legends and monsters. Christ at the top ; the dragons crushed beneath him at the List of Maps. xiii bottom ; Jerusalem, the navel of the earth, in the middle as a sort of bull's-eye to a target, all show a " religious" geography. The line of queer figures, on the right side, figuring the S. coast of Africa, suggests a parallel with the still more fanciful Mappe-Monde of Hereford. (For copy see Bevan and Phillott's edition of the Hereford map) THE S.W., OR AFRICAN SECTION OF THE HEREFORD MAP C. 1 275-1 3OO 106 (B. Mus., King's Lib., XXIII). The S. coast of Africa, as in the Psalter map, is fringed with monstrous tribes ; monstrous animals fill up a good deal of the interior ; half of the wheel representing Jerusalem in the middle of the world appears in the N.E. comer ; and the designer's idea of the Mediterranean and Atlantic islands is specially note worthy. The Hereford map is a specimen of the thoroughly traditional and unpractical school of mediaeval geographers who based their work on books, or fashionable collections of travellers' tales — such as Pliny, Solinus, or Martianus Capella — and who are to be distinguished from the scien tific school of the same period, whose best works were the Portolani, or coast-charts of the early 14th century. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MARINO SANUTO. i. A.D. I3O6 . 114 (B. Mus., King's Lib., 149 F. 2 p. 282). The shape of Africa in this map is supposed by some to be valuable in the history of geographical advance, as suggesting the possibility of getting round from the Atlantic into the Indian Ocean.