Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D.

by C. Raymond Beazley.

PREFACE

This volume aims at giving an account, based throughout upon original sources, of the progress of geographical knowledge and enterprise in Christendom throughout the Middle Ages, down to the middle or even the end of the fifteenth century, as well as a life of Prince Henry the Navigator, who brought this movement of European Expansion within sight of its greatest successes. That is, as explained in Chapter I., it has been attempted to treat Exploration as one continuous thread in the story of Christian Europe from the time of the conversion of the Empire; and to treat the life of Prince Henry as the turning-point, the central epoch in a development of many centuries: this life, accordingly, has been linked as closely as possible with what went before and prepared for it; one third of the text, at least, has been occupied with the history of the preparation of the earlier time, and the difference between our account of the eleventh-and fifteenth-century Discovery, for instance, will be found to be chiefly one of less and greater detail.

This difference depends, of course, on the prominence in the later time of a figure of extraordinary interest and force, who is the true hero in the drama of the Geographical Conquest of the Outer World that starts from Western Christendom. The interest that centres round Henry is somewhat clouded by the dearth of complete knowledge of his life; but enough remains to make something of the picture of a hero, both of science and of action.

Our subject, then, has been strictly historical, but a history in which a certain life, a certain biographical centre, becomes more and more important, till from its completed achievement we get our best outlook upon the past progress of a thousand years, on this side, and upon the future progress of those generations which realised the next great victories of geographical advance.

The series of maps which ill.u.s.trate this account, give the same continuous view of the geographical development of Europe and Christendom down to the end of Prince Henry's age. These are, it is believed, the first English reproductions in any accessible form of several of the great charts of the Middle Ages, and taken together they will give, it is hoped, the best view of Western or Christian map-making before the time of Columbus that is to be found in any English book, outside the great historical atlases.

In the same way the text of this volume, especially in the earlier chapters, tries to supply a want--which is believed to exist--of a connected account from the originals known to us, of the expansion of Europe through geographical enterprise, from the conversion of the Empire to the period of those discoveries which mark most clearly the transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern World.

The chief authorities have been:

For the Introductory chapter: (1) Reinaud's account of the Arabic geographers and their theories in connection with the Greek, in his edition of Abulfeda, Paris, 1848; (2) Sprenger's Ma.s.soudy, 1841; (3) Edrisi, translated by Amedee Jaubert; (4) Ibn-Batuta (abridgment), translated by S. Lee, London, 1829; (5) Abulfeda, edited and translated by Reinaud; (6) Abyrouny's _India_, specially chapters i., 10-14; xvii., 18-31; (7) texts of Strabo and Ptolemy; (8) Wappaus' _Heinrich der Seefahrer_, part 1.

I. For Chapter I. (Early Christian Pilgrims): (1) _Itinera et Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae_, vols. i. and ii., published by the Societe de l'Orient, Latin, Geneva, 1877 and 1885, which give the original texts of nearly all the Palestine Pilgrims' memoirs to the death of Bernard the Wise; (2) the Publications of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society; (3) Thomas Wright's _Early Travels in Palestine_ (Bohn); (4) Avezac's _Recueil pour Servir a l'histoire de la geographie_; (5) some recent German studies on the early pilgrim records, _e.g._, Gildemeister on Antoninus of Placentia.

II. For Chapter II. (The Vikings): (1) Snorro Sturleson's _Heimskringla_ or Sagas of the Norse Kings; (2) Dozy's essays; (3) the, possibly spurious, _Voyages of the Zeni_, with the Journey of Ivan Bardsen, in the Hakluyt Society's Publications.

III. For Chapter III. (The Crusades and Land Travel): (1) Publication of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society; (2) Avezac's edition of the originals in his _Recueil pour Sevir a l'histoire de la geographie_; (3) Yule's _Cathay and the Way Thither_; (4) Yule's Marco Polo; (5) Benjamin of Tudela and others in Wright's _Early Travels in Palestine_; (6) Yule's _Friar Jorda.n.u.s_; (7) Sir John Mandeville's _Travels_.

IV. For Chapter IV. (Maritime Exploration): (1) The Marino Sanuto Map of 1306; (2) the Laurentian Portolano of 1351; (3) The Catalan Map of 1375-6; (4) scattered notices collected in early chapters of R.H.

Major's _Prince Henry the Navigator_; (5) Bethencourt's _Conquest of the Canaries_ (Hakluyt Society, ed., Major); (6) Wappaus' _Heinrich der Seefahrer_, part 2.

V. For Chapter V. (Geographical Science): (1) Neckam's _De Naturis Rerum_; (2) the seven chief Mappe-Mondes of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries; (3) the leading Portolani; (4) scattered notices, _e.g._, from Guyot de Provins' "Bible," Brunetto Latini, Beccadelli of Palermo, collected in early chapters of Major's _Henry the Navigator_; (5) Wauwerman's _Henri le Navigateur_.

VI. For Chapter VI. (Portugal to 1400): (1) _The Chronicle of Don John I._; (2) Oliveiro Martins' _Sons of Don John I._; (3) A. Herculano's _History of Portugal_; (4) Osbernus de Expugnatione Lixbonensi.

VII. For Chapter VII. (Henry's position in 1415): Azurara's _Discovery and Conquest of Guinea_.

VIII. For Chapter VIII. (Ceuta): (1) Azurara's _Chronicle of the Conquest of Ceuta_; (2) Azurara's _Discovery of Guinea_.

IX. For Chapter IX. (Henry's Settlement at Sagres): (1) Azurara's _Guinea_; (2) De Barro's _Asia_; (3) Wauwerman's _Henri le Navigateur et l'ecole Portugaise de Sagres_.

X. For Chapter X. (Cape Bojador and the Azores): (1) Azurara's _Guinea_; (2) O. Martins' _Sons of Don John I._

XI. For Chapter XI. (Henry's Political Life, 1433-41): (1) Pina's _Chronicle of King Edward_; (2) O. Martins' _Sons of Don John I._; (3) Azurara's _Chronicle of John I._; (4) Pina's _Chronicle of Affonso V._

XII. For Chapter XII. (From Boyador to Cape Verde).--(1) Azurara's _Guinea_; (2) De Barros; (3) Pina's _Chronicle of Affonso V._; (4) O.

Martins' _Sons of Don John I._

For Chapters XIII. to the end.--(1) Azurara's _Discovery and Conquest of Guinea_; (2) Narratives of Cadamosto and Diego Gomez; (3) Pina's _Chronicle of Affonso V._; (4) Prince Henry's Charters.

The three modern lives of Prince Henry which I have chiefly consulted are:

R.H. Major's _Henry the Navigator_, Wappaus' _Heinrich der Seeffahrer_, and De Weer's _Prinz Heinrich_, with O. Martins' _Lives of the Infants of the House of Aviz_ in his _Sons of Don John I._

The maps and ill.u.s.trations have been planned in a regular series.

I. As to the former, they are meant to show in an historical succession the course of geographical advance in Christendom down to the death of Prince Henry (1460). Setting aside the Ptolemy, which represents the knowledge of the world at its height in the pre-Christian civilisation, and the Edrisi which represents the Arabic followers of Ptolemy, whose influence upon early Christian geography was very marked, all the maps reproduced belong to the science of the Christian ages and countries.

The two Mappe-mondes above referred to are both placed in the introductory chapter, and are treated only as the most important examples of the science which the Graeco-Roman Empire bequeathed to Christendom, but which between the seventh and thirteenth centuries was chiefly worked upon by the Arabs. Among early Christian maps, that of St. Sever, possibly of the eighth century, the Anglo-Saxon map of the tenth century, the Turin Map of the eleventh, and the Spanish map of the twelfth (1109), represent very crude and simple types of sketches of the world, in which within a square or oblong surrounded by the ocean a few prominent features only, such as the main divisions of countries, are attempted. The Anglo-Saxon example, though greatly superior to the others given here, essentially belongs to this kind of work, where some little truth is preserved by a happy ignorance of the travellers' tales that came into fashion later, but where there is only the vaguest and most general knowledge of geographical facts.

On the other hand, in the next group, to which the Psalter map is allied, and in which the Hereford map is our best example, mythical learning--drawn from books like Pliny, Solinus, St. Isidore, and Martia.n.u.s Capella, which collected stories of beasts and monsters, stones and men, divine, human, and natural marvels on the principle _Credo quia impossible_--has overpowered every other consideration, and a map of the world becomes a great picture-book of curious objects, in which the very central and primary interest of geography is lost. But by the side of and almost at the same time as these specimens of geographical mythology, geographical science had taken a new start in the coast charts or portolani of Balearic and Italian seamen, some specimens of which form our next set of maps.

Dulcert's portolano of 1339 and the Laurentian of 1351 are two of the best examples of this kind of work, which gave us our first really accurate map of any part of the globe, but which for some time was entirely confined to coast drawing, and was meant to supply the practical wants of captains, pilots, and seamen. The Catalan atlas of 1375-6 shows the portolano type extended to a real Mappa Mundi; the elaborate carefulness and sumptuousness of this example prepares us for the still higher work of Andrea Bianco and of Benincasa in the fifteenth century. As the Laurentian portolano of 1351 commemorates the voyage of 1341 and marks its discoveries in the Atlantic islands, so the Catalan map of 1375-6 commemorates the Catalan voyage of 1346, and gives the best and most up-to-date picture of the N.W. African coast as it was known before Prince Henry's discoveries.

Last of these groups of maps is that of examples from Henry's own age, such as the Fra Mauro map of 1459 or the maps of Andrea Bianco and Benincasa (_e.g._, 1436, 1448, 1468), among which the first-named is the only one we have been able to give here.

The Borgian map of 1450 is given as an extraordinary specimen of what could be done as late as 1450, not as an example of geographical progress; and the map of 1492, recording Portuguese discoveries down to the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope, is added to ill.u.s.trate the advance of explorers in the years closely following Henry's death, as it was realised at the time.

The maps have in most cases been set from the modern standpoint, but, as will readily be seen by the position of the names, the normal mediaeval setting was quite different, with the S. or E. at the top.

II. The ill.u.s.trations aim at giving portraits or pictures of the chief persons and places connected with the life of Prince Henry. There are three of the Prince himself; one from the Paris MS. of Azurara, one from the gateway of the great convent church of Belem, one from the rec.u.mbent statue over his tomb at Batalha. Two others give: (1) The whole group of the royal tombs of Henry's house,--of his father, mother, and brothers in the aisle at Batalha, and (2) the rec.u.mbent statues of his father and mother, John and Philippa, in detail; the exterior and general effect of the same church--Portugal's Westminster, and the mausoleum of the Navigator's own family of Aviz--comes next, in a view of this greatest of Portuguese shrines.

Coimbra University, with which as rector or chancellor or patron Prince Henry was so closely connected, for which he once provided house room, and in which his benefactions earned him the t.i.tle of "Protector of the studies of Portugal" is given to ill.u.s.trate his life as a student and a man of science; the mother church of the order of Christ at Thomar may remind us of another side of his life--as a military monk, grand master of an order of religious chivalry which at least professed to bind its members to a single life, and which under his lead took an active part in the exploration and settlement of the African coasts and the Atlantic islands.

The portraits of Columbus, Da Gama, and Albuquerque, which conclude this set of ill.u.s.trations, are given as portraits of three of Prince Henry's more or less conscious disciples and followers, of three men who did most to realise his schemes. The first of these, who owed to Portuguese advance towards the south the suggestion of corresponding success in the west, and who found America by the western route to India,--as Henry had planned nearly a century before to round Africa and reach Malabar by the eastern and southern way,--was the nearest of the Prince's successful imitators in time, the greatest in achievement; he was not a mere follower of the Portuguese initiative, for he struck out a new line or at least a neglected one, made the greatest of all geographical additions to human knowledge, and took the most daring plunge into the unknown that has ever been taken--but Columbus, beside his independent position and interest, was certainly on one side a disciple of Henry the Navigator, and drew much of his inspiration from the impulse that the Prince had started. Da Gama, the first who sailed direct from Lisbon to India round Africa, and Albuquerque, the maker, if not the founder, of the Portuguese empire in the East, were simply the realisers of the vast ambitions that take their start from the work and life of Prince Henry, and he has a right to claim them as two leading champions of his plans and policy. In many points Albuquerque, like Columbus, is more than a follower; but in the main outline of his achievement he follows upon the work of other men, and, among these men, of none so much as the Hero of Portugal and of modern discovery.

Lastly. I have to thank many friends generally for their constant kindness and readiness to a.s.sist in any way, and in particular several for the most generous and valuable help in certain parts.

Mr. T.A. Archer, besides the benefit of his suggestions throughout, has given special aid in Chapters I., III., V., and the Introductory Chapter, especially where anything is said of the connection of geographical progress with the Crusades.[7]

[Footnote 7: Compare Archer and Kingsford, _The Crusades_, in the _Stories of the Nations_.]

Mr. F. York Powell has revised Chapter II. on the Vikings, and Professor Margoliouth has done the same for the Introductory Chapter on Greek and Arabic geography; Mr. Coote has not only given me every help in the map room of the British Museum, but has read the proofs of Chapter V. Mr.

H. Yule-Oldham in Chapter XVIII. on the Voyage of Cadamosto, and Mr.

Prestage in Chapters VIII. and IX. on Prince Henry's capture of Ceuta and settlement at Sagres, have been most kind in offering suggestions.

For several hints useful in Chapter I.--the early Christian pilgrims--I have also to thank Professor Sanday; and for revision of a great part of the proof-sheets of the entire book, Mr. G.N. Richardson and the Rev.

W.H. Hutton.

As to the ill.u.s.trations, of portraits and monuments, etc., I am especially obliged to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University (Dr.

Boyd), who has allowed his water-colour paintings of Portuguese subjects to be reproduced; and to the Rev. R. Livingstone of Pembroke, and Sir John Hawkins of Oriel, for their loan of photographs.

PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR.

The Lusitanian Prince who, heaven-inspired, To love of useful glory roused mankind, And in unbounded commerce mixed the world.

THOMSON: _Seasons, Summer, 1010-2._