Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. | Page 4

table
are filled up with four small circles representing: (1) The Ptolemaic
System in the Spheres. (2) The lunar influences over the tides. (3) The
circles described in the terrestial globe. (4) A picture of the expulsion
from Eden, with the four sacred rivers.
MAP OF 1492 322
(B. Mus., Add. mss. 15760). This gives a general view of the
Portuguese discoveries along the whole W. coast of Africa, and just
beyond the Cape of Good Hope, which was rounded in 1486.
[Footnote 6: **Missing.** Please see the Transcriber's Note at the foot
of the text.]

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 illustrate 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 Massoudy, 1841; (3)
Edrisi, translated by Amédée 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) Wappäus' Heinrich der
Seefahrer, part 1.
I. For Chapter I. (Early Christian Pilgrims): (1) Itinera et Descriptiones
Terræ Sanctæ, vols. i. and ii., published by the Société 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 à l'histoire de la géographie; (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