Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. | Page 7

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 assist 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 illustrations, 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.

INTRODUCTION.
THE GREEK AND ARABIC IDEAS OF THE WORLD, AS THE
CHIEF INHERITANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN MIDDLE AGES IN
GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.
Arabic science constitutes one of the main links between the older
learned world of the Greeks and Latins and the Europe of Henry the
Navigator and of the Renaissance. In geography it adopted in the main
the results of Ptolemy and Strabo; and many of the Moslem travellers
and writers gained some additional hints from Indian, Persian, and
Chinese knowledge; but, however much of fact they added to Greek
cartography, they did not venture to correct its postulates.
And what were these postulates? In part, they were the assumptions of
modern draughtsmen, but in some important details they differed. And
first, as to agreement. Three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa, an
encircling ocean, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and Caspian, the
Red Sea and Persian Gulf, the South Asiatic, and North and West

European coasts were indicated with more or less precision in the
science of the Antonines and even of Hannibal's age. Similarly, the
Nile and Danube, Euphrates and Tigris, Indus and Ganges, Jaxartes and
Oxus, Rhine and Ebro, Don and Volga, with the chief mountain ranges
of Europe and Western Asia, find themselves pretty much in their right
places in Strabo's description, and are still better placed in the great
chart of Ptolemy. The countries and nations from China to Spain are
arranged in the order of modern knowledge. But the differences were
fundamental also. Never was there a clearer outrunning of knowledge
by theory, science by conjecture, than in Ptolemy's scheme of the world
(c. A.D. 130). His chief predecessors, Eratosthenes and Strabo, had left
much blank space in their charts, and had made many mistakes in detail,
but they had caught the main features of the Old World with fair
accuracy. Ptolemy, in trying to fill up what he did not know from his
inner consciousness, evolved a parody of those features. His map, from
its intricate falsehood, backed as it was by the greatest name in
geographical science, paralysed all real enlargement of knowledge till
men began to question, not only his facts, but his theories. And as all
modern science, in fact, followed the progress of world-knowledge, or
"geography," we may see how important it was for this revolution to
take place, for Ptolemy to be dethroned.
[Illustration: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PTOLEMY. (SEE
LIST OF MAPS)]
The Arabs, commanding most of the centres of ancient learning
(Ptolemy's own Alexandria above all), riveted the pseudo-science of
their predecessors on the learned world, along with the genuine
knowledge which they handed down from the Greeks. In many details
they corrected and amplified the Greek results. But most of their
geographical theories were mere reproductions of Ptolemy's, and to his
mistakes they added wilder though less important confusions or
inventions of their own. The result of all this, by the tenth