Prince Henry the Navigator: The hero of Portugal and of modern discovery 1394-1460 A.D. With an account of geographical progress throughout the middle ... (Heroes of the nations, ed. by E. Abbott)

217 Pages·1895·6.037 MB·English

by  C. Raymond Beazley

PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR

GATEWAY AT BELEM.
WITH STATUE, BETWEEN THE DOORS, OF PRINCE HENRY IN ARMOUR.
PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR
THE HERO OF PORTUGAL AND OF MODERN
DISCOVERY
1394-1460 A.D.
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF GEOGRAPHICAL PROGRESS THROUGHOUT
THE MIDDLE AGES AS THE PREPARATION FOR HIS WORK
BY
C. RAYMOND BEAZLEY, M.A., F.R.G.S.
FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD; GEOGRAPHICAL STUDENT IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 1894
Venient annis sæcula seris
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum
Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus,
Tethys que novos detegat orbes,
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.
SENECA, Medea 376/380.

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK
27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
LONDON
24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND
The Knickerbocker Press
1895
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE xvii
INTRODUCTION.
THE GREEK AND ARABIC IDEAS OF THE
WORLD, AS THE CHIEF INHERITANCE OF
1
THE CHRISTIAN MIDDLE AGES IN
GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY CHRISTIAN PILGRIMS (CIRCA 333-
29
867)
CHAPTER II.
VIKINGS OR NORTHMEN (CIRCA 787-
50
1066)
CHAPTER III.
THE CRUSADES AND LAND TRAVEL
76
(CIRCA 1100-1300)
CHAPTER IV.
MARITIME EXPLORATION (CIRCA 1250-
106
1410)
CHAPTER V.
GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE IN
CHRISTENDOM FROM THE FIRST 114

CRUSADES (CIRCA 1100-1460)
CHAPTER VI.
PORTUGAL TO 1400 (1095-1400) 123

CHAPTER VII.
HENRY'S POSITION AND DESIGNS AT THE
138
TIME OF THE FIRST VOYAGES, 1410-15
CHAPTER VIII.
PRINCE HENRY AND THE CAPTURE OF
147
CEUTA (1415)
CHAPTER IX.
HENRY'S SETTLEMENT AT SAGRES AND
160
FIRST DISCOVERIES (1418-28)
CHAPTER X.
CAPE BOJADOR AND THE AZORES (1428-
168
41)
CHAPTER XI.
HENRY'S POLITICAL LIFE (1433-41) 179

CHAPTER XII.
FROM BOJADOR TO CAPE VERDE (1441-5) 192

CHAPTER XIII.
THE ARMADA OF 1445 228

CHAPTER XIV.
VOYAGES OF 1446-8 240

CHAPTER XV.
THE AZORES (1431-60) 250

CHAPTER XVI.
THE TROUBLES OF THE REGENCY AND
257
THE FALL OF DON PEDRO (1440-9)
CHAPTER XVII.
CADAMOSTO (1455-6) 261

CHAPTER XVIII.
VOYAGES OF DIEGO GOMEZ (1458-60) 289

CHAPTER XIX.
HENRY'S LAST YEARS AND DEATH (1458-
299
60)
CHAPTER XX.
THE RESULTS OF PRINCE HENRY'S WORK 308

INDEX 325
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
MAIN GATE OF THE MONASTERY
Frontispiece
CHURCH AT BELEM

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
132
BATALHA[1]

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—
136
PORTUGAL'S WESTMINSTER[1]

The aisle containing the tombs of Prince Henry
and his brothers, the Infants of the House of Aviz.
EFFIGIES OF KING JOHN THE
148
GREAT AND QUEEN PHILIPPA

Henry's father and mother, from their tomb in the
Abbey of Batalha.
GATEWAY OF THE CHURCH AT
154
THOMAR
The Mother Church of the Order of Christ, of
which Henry was Grand-Master.
HENRY IN MORNING DRESS[2] 258

The original forms the frontispiece to the Paris
MS. of Azurara's Discovery and Conquest of
Guinea.
COIMBRA UNIVERSITY 298

THE RECUMBENT STATUE OF
306
PRINCE HENRY

From his tomb in Batalha Church; with his
escutcheons (1) as titular King of Cyprus; (2) as
Knight of the Garter of England; (3) as Grand
Master of the Order of Christ.
ALLEGORICAL PIECE[3] 310

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[4] 314

From a portrait in the possession of the Count of
Lavradio.
AFFONSO D'ALBUQUERQUE[5] 318

Ebd

E-BooksDirectory.com
LIST OF MAPS.[6]
PAGE
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PTOLEMY 2

From Nordenskjöld's fac-simile atlas
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO EDRISI. c.
24
1150

As reconstructed by M. Reinaud from the written
descriptions 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
uncertain 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 considerable
care and precision. The writing, though minute, 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 thoroughly mythical fashion.
This map, from a ms. of Priscian's Peviegesis,
appears to have been executed at the end of the
10th century; it is on vellum, highly finished, and
has been engraved, in outline, in Playfair's Atlas
(Pl. 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 11TH 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 1109, and the
Mappe-Monde of St. Sever.
THE SPANISH-ARABIC MAP OF 1109 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 quadrangular
islands, divides the N.W. quarter, or Europe, from
the S.W. quarter, or Africa. The Ægean 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 13TH 92
CENTURY

(B. Mus., Add. mss., 28, 681). A good illustration
of the circular type of mediæval map, which is
sometimes little better than a panorama of legends
and monsters. Christ at the top; the dragons
crushed beneath him at the 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
106
HEREFORD MAP c. 1275-1300

(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. corner; and the designer's idea of the
Mediterranean and Atlantic islands is specially
noteworthy. The Hereford map is a specimen of
the thoroughly traditional and unpractical school
of mediæval 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
scientific school of the same period, whose best
works were the Portolani, or coast-charts of the
early 14th century.
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MARINO
114
SANUTO. c. A.D. 1306

(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.
SKETCH MAP OF DULCERT'S
116
PORTOLANO OF 1339
(From Nordenskjöld's fac-simile atlas). This
illustrates the accuracy of the 14th century coast-
charts, especially in the Mediterranean.
THE LAURENTIAN PORTOLANO OF 1351 120

(From the Medicean Lib. at Florence; reproduced
in B. Mus., Map room, shelf 158, 22, 23). This is
the most remarkable of all the Portolani of the
14th century, as giving a view of the world, and
especially Africa, which is far nearer the actual
truth than could be expected. Especially its outline
of S. Africa and of the bend of the Guinea coast, is
surprisingly near the truth, even as a guess, in a
chart made one hundred and thirty-five years
before the Cape of Good Hope was first rounded.
N.W. SECTION OF THE CATALAN MAP OF
124
1375-6

(B. Mus., Map room, 13, 14). This gives the
British Islands, the W. coasts of Europe, N. Africa
as far as Cape Boyador, and the Canaries and
other islands in the Atlantic. The interior of Africa
is filled with fantastic pictures of native tribes; the
boat load of men off Cape Boyador in the extreme
S.W. of the map probably represents the Catalan
explorers of the year 1346, whose voyage in
search of the "River of Gold" this map
commemorates.
CHART OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA,
128
BY BARENTSZOON

(Engraved in copper 1595. Almost an unaltered
copy of a Portolano from the 14th century. From
Nordenskjöld's fac-simile atlas). This illustrates the
remarkable correctness in the drawing of the
Mediterranean basin and the coasts of W. Europe,
reached by the Italian and Balearic coast-charts, or
Portolani, in the 14th century.
THE BORGIAN MAP OF 1450 290

(B. Mus., Map room, shelf 2 [6], 13, 14; copy of
1797). This map was executed just before the fall
of Constantinople (1453), and gives a view of the
world as imagined in the 15th century. It is very