\A/;-^!:-.J., /M|!;> ^AA- H-^'tHw 1' f.' ' UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH JJarlini^ton Alemorial Ijibrary m * . * A. ••• ,,i.«'.^ ^ • # 4 PORTRAIT OF MESSIRE JEAN DE BETHENCOURT, KING OF THE CANARIES. THE CANARIAN, OR, BOOK OP THE CONQUEST AND CONVERSION OF THE CANARIANS IN THE YF.AR 1102, Messiee jean DE BETHENCOURT, K""., Lord of the Manors of BHhencourt, Riville, Gotirrel, hnd Grahiville hi Tcintti Baron of St. Martin le Gaillard, Councillor and Chamberlain in Ordinary to Charles V aiid Charles VI, COMPOSED BY PIERRE BOXTIER, and JEAN LE VERRIER, TRANSLATED AND EDITED, SlSIitf) Xoics ant) ait £ntvoBuction, BY RICHARD HENRY MAJOR, F.S.A., etc., KEEPER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MAPS AND CHARTS IN THE BRITISH MUSI AND HON. SEC. OF THE ROYAL GE'JGR XPHICAL S'iCIETY. LONDON: rniXlEl) FOIJ THE HAKLUYT .SOCIETY'. M.I^CCC.T.XX LE CANARIEN Livre de la conqucfte et converfion faidte des Canariens a la foy et Religion cadiolique apoflo- lique et Romaine en I'an 1402 : par Meffire Jehan de Bethencourt, Chevalier, gentilhomme Cauchois, Seigneur du lieu de Bethencourt, Riville, Gourrel, Chaftelain de Grainville la Tain- tnriere, Baron de Saincl Martin le Gaillard, Confeiller et Chambcllau ordinaire des Roys Charles 5 et 6. COMPOSE PAR PIERRE BONTIER, moyne de Sainc Jouyn de Marnes, El' JEAN LE VERRIER, Preare, SERVIJEURS DU DIT DE HETIIENCOURT. corxciL THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY. The Eioht Hon. Sia DAVID DUNDAS, President. Admihal C. E. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B. Major-Gen. Sir HENRY C. RAWLINS Rev. GEORGE P. BADGER, F.K.G.S. J. BARROW, Esq., F.R.S., F.R.G.S. REiR-ADMIRAL COLT.INSON, C.B., F.R.G.S. General C. FOX, F.R.G.S. W. E. FREKE, Esq., F.K.G.S. Captain J. G. GOODENOUGH, E.N., F.R.G.S. CHARLES GRET, Esq., F.R.G.S. EGERTON VERNON HARCOORT, Esq., F.R.G.S. JOHN WINTER JONES, Esq., F.S.A. R. H. MAJOR, ESQ.,F.S.A., Sec.R.G.S. Sir W. STIRLING MAXWELL, Bart., F.R.G.S. Sir CHARLES NICHOLSON, Bart., D.C.L., F.R.G.S. Vice-Admihal ERASMUS OMHANNET, C.B., F.R.S. Captain SHERARD OSBORN, R.N., C.B., F.R.S. Tbe Lord STANLEY of Alderley. The Hon. FREDERICK WALPOLE, M.P., F.R.G.S. CLEMENTS It. MARKil.VM, C.B., F.S. A., Sec.R.G.S., HoNORAr.Y Skcret ; INTRODUCTION. It is a remarkable fact that in the prond list of the glories of noble France there is one class of achieve- ments for which she has claimed more, and at the same time received less, hononr than she really deserves. She has put forth a claim to having preceded even Prince Henry of Portugal in lifting the veil from the Sea of Darkness, the mysterious Atlantic, and in colonising the west coast of Africa but although the most illustrious of her claunants to this distinction, the learned M. d'Avezac, still clmgs lovingly to his patriotic convictions on this head, the present writer has ah'eady demonstrated that that claim can by no means be maintained.^ At the same time France is very far from having received the amoimt of honoru' which is her due for the boldness of her maritime explorations at a some- what later but still very early period. There can be no doubt that in the first half of the sixteenth century France was the nation which followed most boldly in the footsteps of Portugal, and it is possible ' See Ijife ofFrince Henry tlic Navic/ator and its ItcsuUs, Loudon, 1868, chapter of "The Sea of Darkness," pp. 117-128. 11 INTRODUCTION. tliat we have yet much to learn from unexamined manuscripts as to the exploits of the adventviroiis Diepj)ese at that interesting period in the history of navigation. The voyage treated of in the present volume holds an isolated and highly distinguished position midway as to date between the pretended and the real early achievements of the French nation at sea ; for whereas the former were said to have taken place m the fourteenth, and the latter unquestionably did take place in the sixteenth, this voyage of De Bethencourt was made at the very commencement of the fifteenth century. It is con- sequently the earliest authenticated distant voyage made by Frenchmen to the south. Had it been dhected to unexplored latitudes it would have eclipsed the glory even of Prince Henry himself, whose fii'st exjDedition it preceded at least by thirteen years, if not more. But though its des- tination was only to the Canaries, a group of islands whose position was well knoA\ai, and which had been the subject of poetical allusion for more than two thousand years, yet as an early attempt at colonisa- tion, which has made the name of its originator illustrious, it possesses a strong claim to insertion among the series of our Society's publications. Asa mere maritime feat, the expedition was in no way remarkable. The track was a beaten one. For a century the Venetians had already been in the habit of making the voyage to Flanders, and the ' Onr learned compatriot, ]\[r. Rawdon Brown, who lias for so many j-cars been an nnwearied student iif Yenelian records. INTRODITCTIOX. Ill Spaniards and the Genoese not unfreqnently visited the Canaries for goat's-flesh, making their way by the west coast of Africa do^^^l to Cape Cantin, and so by a short traverse to Lancerote or Fuerte- ventiira. And while it is true that in this expedi- tion originated that colonisation of the Canaries from which spj'ung their present European popula- tion, yet it is not correct to suppose, as hitherto it has been generally asserted, that the principal islands of the group then received for the first time the names which they at present bear. But in order that the reader may form an idea of the true position and value of this exjDedition in the history of dis- covery, it will be necessary to take a brief survey of what had been previously known of these islands. In the poems of Homer the ocean is treated as a river beyond which at the earth's confines were the Elysian fields which Hesiod and Pindar made to be surrounded by water, so that the habitations of the blest were transformed into islands, and hence, pro- bably, originated the name of the Insulse Fortunate or Fortunate— Islands. On this point Strabo says, lib. 3 : " The poets make mention of the Islands of the Blest, and we know that even now they are to be seen not far from the extremity of Mauritania, opposite Gades (Cadiz). Now I say that those who pointed out these things were the Phoenicians who, bas published, ia his VArcliivto cli Veiiezia coit. rir/uardo specinle alia Storia Inglese, Venezia e Torino, 1805, IGnio, pp. 274-279, a list of the captains in the Flanders voj-ages from lol7 down to 1533. h 2 IV INTRODUCTION. before the time of HoDier, had possession of the best part of Africa and Spain." Here we see the Canaries evidently alluded to, and the inference suggested that they were known to the Phoenician colony of Carthaginians established at Cadiz three thousand years ago. About eighty-two years before our era, we find these islands afresh brought imder notice. Some Lusitanian sea captains who had just returned from them, fell in with Sertorius, wlio, in his flight from the ships of Annius, had passed through the straits and landed near the mouth of the Quadal- quivir. Their glowing accoinit of the fertility of the soil, the purity of the air, and the hajDpiness of the people, inspired Sertorius v.-ith an ardent desne to withdraw from the business of life, and seek repose there, but fate decreed otherwise. It is to Plutarch (see Plutarch's Life of Sertorius) that we are in- debted for this account. Two islands only were mentioned, prubably Lancerote and Fuerteventura. Twenty years after the death of Sertorius, we have five islands specified by distinct names in a vague itinerary drawiL up by one Statins Sebosus from the accounts of navigators of his time, and preserved to us by Pliny. He represents the group, to which he gives the name of Hesperides, as one day's sail from tJie western promontory (Cape Non). He names them (l) Junonia, at 750 miles from Gades (Cadiz), (2) Pluvialia, and (3) Capraria, 7.50 miles west of Junonia, and 250 miles beyond, to the left of Mauritania and towards the ninth hour of the sun, vrere the great Fortunate Islands, one called (4) INTRODUCTION. V Convallis and the other (5) Planaria, on account of their form ; but all these indications are too indis- tinct to supply us with any information beyond the fact that in the time of Sebosus five islands of the Canary group had received individual names. Happily we are supplied also by Pliny with in- formation of a far more distinct character respecting these islands. When King Juba the Second was reinstated by Augustus on the throne which his father had lost, on his return to Mauritania he turned to account the geographical knowledge which he had acquired through his education in Italy, and sent out an expedition for the express purpose of exploring the Fortunate Islands. On the return of the navigators he wrote a narrative of the voyage from their report, and sent it to the emperor. A fragment only of that narrative survives, and has been transmitted to us by Pliny in the following shape: "The Fortunate Islands lie to the south-west, at 625 miles from the Purpurarife.