CHAPTER XV
EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY
144. The revolution about 1500; topics to be considered.—The period centering about the year 1500 was marked by changes so rapid and so extensive that they deserve the name of revolution. The changes affected not only the intellectual life of Europe (the Renaissance) and its religious life (the Protestant Revolt or Reformation); they caused a revolution also in the world of politics and in the world of industry and commerce. It will be necessary to survey some of these changes before we return to the narrative of the history of commerce. Three main topics will occupy the attention: first, the extension of the commercial area by exploration and discovery; second, the development of the commercial organization by new forms of cooperation; third, the rise of modern states in Europe, and their influence on the growth of commerce.
145. Growth of geographical knowledge. Asia.—About the year 1000, to most people in Europe “the world” meant scarcely more than the village in which they lived, so limited were their interests and their knowledge. Pilgrims to the holy places in Palestine brought back with them knowledge of this edge of Asia, but what the Greeks and Romans knew of that continent and of Africa had been forgotten, and even the better educated people thought of the outer parts of the world as mysterious regions, wrapped in darkness or peopled with prodigies, when they thought of them at all. The growth of the Levant trade and the crusades caused an increase in interest and in information. After the year 1200, when a great Mongol or Tartar Empire was established in inner Asia by Genghis Khan, Europeans began to penetrate Asia seeking aid from the Mongols against their enemies the Turks. Ambassadors, missionaries, merchants, and explorers made the journey so frequently that a regular guide-book was written by an Italian soon after 1300; and about the same time the Venetian Marco Polo returned from a long stay in China and described his travels. He had gone by land, through Persia, Turkestan, and Mongolia, and, returning by sea, he could tell also about Japan, the great Malay islands, Burmah, India, etc. Before the invention of printing knowledge spread slowly, but the maps of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries show that the results of these explorations were not lost, and Europe had become conscious that Asia was bounded by a sea on the east.
A MEDIEVAL MAP OF THE WORLD
(The Laurentian Portolano. 1351)
146. Need of a sea route to Asia; means of navigation.—The explorations by land in Asia were of great importance in spreading knowledge of the countries from which the wares of the Levant trade came, but they were of little assistance to traders who sought to develop commerce on the old routes. With the decline of the Mongol power and the spread of the Turks, passage across Asia became constantly more difficult. The available routes finally narrowed to one, that through Egypt, and trade on this route was burdened with very heavy tolls. The European people were urged by powerful economic motives to seek out the sea route to India which was now believed to exist.
The means of navigation were still those of the later Middle Ages. The ships in which some of the most adventurous voyages were taken were of fifty tons or even less. The rig had been improved slightly, so that the ships could be handled more readily than when they bore the old square sails; and instruments for ascertaining the position at sea were also improved. Still, when we add to the actual peril of distant voyages the imagined dangers which the minds of men ascribed to unknown seas, we must admit that the early explorers met a test of courage to which men nowadays are rarely put.
147. The lead in maritime exploration taken by Prince Henry of Portugal.—Italians were, in general, the guides who led Europeans through the seas of darkness to the East. Conditions at home, however, forced them to seek service abroad in realizing their plans, and Portugal was the first of the European countries to effect great oceanic discoveries. The country was small and undeveloped, but it enjoyed in the fifteenth century the guidance of a singularly able line of kings. It had in the person of Prince Henry, “the Navigator,” an enthusiast who devoted practically his whole life and fortune to the cause of discovery. When but twenty-four years old he retired from the world to a promontory at the southern extremity of the country, and there he worked for over forty years, until his death in 1460. Prince Henry combined the commercial motive with missionary zeal and a medieval hostility to the Mohammedans, but the character of his work was entirely modern and business-like. He gave what was most needed for success, organization; he attracted sailors and pilots from all Europe; stimulated development in the science and art of navigation; equipped and inspired expeditions.
148. Exploration of the West Coast of Africa; difficulties, real and imagined.—The great achievement of Portuguese navigation was the discovery of the sea route to India around Africa. The coast of the northwest corner of Africa was well known to sailors of several European countries, and the belief was current in many minds that circumnavigation was possible. Some Genoese sailors had actually attempted to reach India in this way in the thirteenth century, but they had disappeared without leaving a trace. There was all the difference in the world between the theory and the practice of European navigators; the limit of their voyages had practically always been Cape Bojador, far north on the west coast. A strong inshore current and short but furious storms made coasting dangerous. The coast of dreary sand dunes afforded no good anchorage; mist or dust dimmed the air and frightened sailors with the thought that they were actually entering the sea of darkness; Cape Bojador was a forbidding obstacle in that it projected far out beyond the coast line, and was supposed to be extended by perilous reefs. Furthermore, most people submitted to the opinion of ancient philosophers, that the tropics were uninhabitable by reason of the intense heat of a blazing sun, which approached nearer the earth in those regions.
