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54-461: Zurara adopted the career of letters in middle life. He probably entered the royal library as assistant to Fernão Lopes during the reign of King Edward of Portugal (1433–1438), and he had sole charge of it in 1452. His Chronicle of the Siege and Capture of Ceuta , a supplement (third part) to Lopes's Chronicle of King John I , dates from 1449 to 1450, and three years later he completed the first draft of

108-601: A certain "Antonio Cerveira". Alas, no copy of Cerveira's original account has ever been found. Zurara's own chronicle remained in manuscript form and hidden from the public eye for centuries. Indeed, until the publication of João de Barros 's Primeira Década da Ásia in 1552, there were no published works about the Henrican discoveries, save for the two brief memoirs of Alvise Cadamosto (published originally in Italy in 1507). João de Barros claimed to have constructed his 1552 account on

162-548: A misconception. He did employ some cartographers to chart the coast of Mauritania after the voyages he sent there, but there was no center of navigation science or observatory in the modern sense of the word, nor was there an organized navigational center. Referring to Sagres, sixteenth-century Portuguese mathematician and cosmographer Pedro Nunes remarked, "from it our sailors went out well taught and provided with instruments and rules which all map makers and navigators should know." The view that Henry's court rapidly grew into

216-571: A monopoly on tuna fishing in the Algarve . When Edward died eight years later, Henry supported his brother Peter, Duke of Coimbra for the regency during the minority of Edward's son Afonso V , and in return received a confirmation of this levy. Henry functioned as a primary organizer of the disastrous expedition to Tangier in 1437 against Çala Ben Çala, which ended in Henry's younger brother Ferdinand being given as hostage to guarantee Portuguese promises in

270-482: A preface and notes by Manuel Francisco de Macedo Leitão e Carvalhosa (Viscount of Santarém). The publication was a sensation, particularly as Portugal was then engaged in a diplomatic quarrel over recent Anglo-French colonial encroachments in West Africa where questions of priority of discovery were involved (to which Santarém contributed.) A second manuscript copy was found shortly after, in 1845, by J.A. Schmeller in

324-641: A storm while making the volta do mar westward swing to return to Portugal. They found shelter at an island they named Porto Santo . Henry directed that Porto Santo be colonized. The move to claim the Madeiran islands was probably a response to Castile 's efforts to claim the Canary Islands. In 1420, settlers then moved to the nearby island of Madeira . A chart drawn by the Catalan cartographer, Gabriel de Vallseca of Mallorca , has been interpreted to indicate that

378-455: A year collecting materials and studying the scenes of the events he was to describe, and in 1468 he completed the chronicle. Afonso corresponded with Zurara on terms of affectionate intimacy, and no less than three comendas of the order of Christ rewarded his literary services. Zurara had little of the picturesque ingenuousness of Lopes, and he loved to display his erudition by quotations and philosophical reflections, showing that he wrote under

432-573: Is largely unmerited and unjust. Uncontested (written by Fernão Lopes in 1430s & 1440s; original manuscripts lost; first published in 17th and 18th centuries on the basis of draft copies produced in the early 16th century.) Contested: Henry the Navigator Dom Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator ( Portuguese : Infante Dom Henrique, o Navegador ),

486-524: The Sargassum seaweed growing there ( sargaço / sargasso in Portuguese). In 1424 Cape Bojador was the most southerly point known to Europeans on the west coast of Africa. For centuries, superstitious seafarers held that beyond the cape lay sea monsters and the edge of the world. However, Prince Henry was determined to know the truth. He was persistent and sent 15 expeditions over a ten-year period to pass

540-566: The Bay of Arguin in 1443 and built an important "forte-feitoria" (a fort protecting a trading post) on the island of Arguin around the year 1448. Dinis Dias soon came across the Senegal River and rounded the peninsula of Cap-Vert in 1444. By this stage the explorers had passed the southern boundary of the desert, and from then on Henry had one of his wishes fulfilled: the Portuguese had circumvented

594-563: The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea , our authority for the early Portuguese voyages of discovery down the African coast and in the ocean, more especially for those undertaken under the auspices of Prince Henry the Navigator . It contains some account of the life work of that prince, and it has biographical as well as geographical interest. On 6 June 1454, Zurara became chief keeper of

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648-614: The Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek in Munich (Codex Hisp. 27), as part of a collection of miscellaneous accounts of Portuguese expeditions originally compiled in 1508 by a Lisbon-based German printer known as Valentinus Moravus (or in Portuguese, as "Valentim Fernandes"). However, this version contains only much-abridged extracts. Attribution: Zurara's works include: Fern%C3%A3o Lopes Fernão Lopes ( Portuguese pronunciation: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃w ˈlɔpɨʃ] ; c.  1385  – after 1459)

702-486: The University of Lisbon . For other subjects like medicine or philosophy, he ordered that each room should be decorated according to the subject taught. Henry also had other resources. When John I died in 1433, Henry's eldest brother Edward of Portugal became king. He granted Henry all profits from trading within the areas he discovered as well as the sole right to authorize expeditions beyond Cape Bojador . Henry also held

756-602: The Azores were first discovered by Diogo de Silves in 1427. In 1431, Gonçalo Velho was dispatched with orders to determine the location of "islands" first identified by de Silves. Velho apparently got as far as the Formigas , in the eastern archipelago, before having to return to Sagres, probably due to bad weather. By this time the Portuguese navigators had also reached the Sargasso Sea (western North Atlantic region), naming it after

810-685: The Governor of the Military Order of Christ , the Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar , which had its headquarters at Tomar in central Portugal. Henry held this position for the remainder of his life, and the Order was an important source of funds for Henry's ambitious plans, especially his persistent attempts to conquer the Canary Islands , which the Portuguese had claimed to have discovered before

864-565: The Moorish port of Ceuta in northern Morocco . Ceuta had long been a base for Barbary pirates who raided the Portuguese coast, depopulating villages by capturing their inhabitants to be sold in the African slave trade . Following this success, Henry began to explore the coast of Africa, most of which was unknown to Europeans. His objectives included finding the source of the West African gold trade and

918-523: The Muslim land-based trade routes across the western Sahara Desert , and slaves and gold began arriving in Portugal. This rerouting of trade devastated Algiers and Tunis, but made Portugal rich. By 1452, the influx of gold permitted the minting of Portugal's first gold cruzado coins. A cruzado was equal to 400 reis at the time. From 1444 to 1446, as many as forty vessels sailed from Lagos on Henry's behalf, and

972-526: The Navigator repopulated a village that he called Terçanabal (from terça nabal or tercena nabal ). This village was situated in a strategic position for his maritime enterprises and was later called Vila do Infante ("Estate or Town of the Prince"). It is traditionally suggested that Henry gathered at his villa on the Sagres peninsula a school of navigators and map-makers . However modern historians hold this to be

1026-483: The archives and royal chronicler in succession to Lopes. In 1456 King Afonso V commissioned him to write the history of Ceuta , the land-gate of the East, under the governorship of D. Pedro de Menezes , from its capture in 1415 until 1437, and he had it ready in 1463. A year afterwards, the king charged him with writing a history of the deeds of D. Duarte de Menezes , captain of Alcácer-Ceguer . Proceeding to Africa, he spent

1080-460: The basis of a copy of Zurara's manuscript he found scattered in the archives. However, a little over a decade later, Damião de Góis (writing in 1567), announced that the Zurara manuscript had disappeared. A hunt for a copy of the manuscript began, but would turn up nothing for a while. The Spanish cleric Bartolomé de las Casas , writing in the 1540s, suggested he had a copy of Zurara, but that copy too

1134-524: The capture of Ceuta in 1415. Henry was interested in locating the source of the caravans that brought gold to the city. During the reign of his father, John I, João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira were sent to explore along the African coast. Zarco, a knight in service to Prince Henry, had commanded the caravels guarding the coast of Algarve from the incursions of the Moors . He had also been at Ceuta. In 1418, Zarco and Teixeira were blown off-course by

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1188-510: The credit. By 1462, the Portuguese had explored the coast of Africa as far as present-day Sierra Leone . Twenty-eight years later, Bartolomeu Dias proved that Africa could be circumnavigated when he reached the southern tip of the continent, now known as the Cape of Good Hope . In 1498, Vasco da Gama became the first European sailor to reach India by sea. No one used the nickname "Henry the Navigator" to refer to Prince Henry during his lifetime or in

1242-411: The documental proof, and, as he said, on his pages "one cannot find the beauty of words but the nudity of the truth." He was an autodidact . By the time of his death, a new kind of knowledge was arising, a Latinized scholasticism that involved imitations of the classics. It is assumed that he was born between the years 1380 and 1390, with a probable villainous family background. There is a chance that he

1296-425: The dreaded Cape. Each returned unsuccessful. The captains gave various excuses for having failed. Finally, in 1434 Gil Eanes , the commander of one of Henry's expeditions, became the first known European to pass Cape Bojador since Hanno almost two millennium before. Using the new ship type, the expeditions then pushed onwards. Nuno Tristão and Antão Gonçalves reached Cape Blanco in 1441. The Portuguese sighted

1350-416: The election of Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, to the regency; a civil war between Pedro and Afonso V; and the subsequent Battle of Alfarrobeira , where Pedro died. At the end of his life, Lopes witnessed the beginning of Portugal's maritime empire . In 1418, Fernão Lopes was appointed by John I as the head ( guardião-mor ) of the royal archives (' Torre do Tombo '). In 1434, King Edward appointed Fernão Lopes as

1404-651: The first private mercantile expeditions began. Alvise Cadamosto explored the Atlantic coast of Africa and discovered several islands of the Cape Verde archipelago between 1453 and 1456. In his first voyage, which started on 22 March 1455, he visited the Madeira Islands and the Canary Islands. On the second voyage, in 1456, Cadamosto became the first European to reach the Cape Verde Islands. António Noli later claimed

1458-519: The first royal chronicler ( cronista-mor ) of the realm, and commissioned him to write historical accounts of the reigns of the Kings of Portugal . Lopes threw himself into the task. Fernão Lopes is acknowledged as the author of at least three chronicles: of the reign of king Peter I (r.1357-1367), of the reign of Ferdinand I (r.1367-1385) and the first two parts of the reign of John I (1385 up to year 1412, his successor Gomes Eanes de Zurara would produce

1512-417: The following three centuries. The term was coined by two nineteenth-century German historians: Heinrich Schaefer and Gustave de Veer. Later on it was made popular by two British authors who included it in the titles of their biographies of the prince: Henry Major in 1868 and Raymond Beazley in 1895. Contrary to his brothers, Prince Henry was not praised for his intellectual gifts by his contemporaries. It

1566-442: The influence of the first Renaissance . Many leading classical, early Christian and medieval writers figure in his pages; he was acquainted with the notable chronicles and romances of Europe and had studied the best Italian and Spanish authors. In addition, he had mastered the geographical system of the ancients and their astrology. As a historian he is laborious, accurate and conscientious, though his position did not allow him to tell

1620-560: The latter at the Prince's court "probably accounts for the legend of the School of Sagres, which is now discredited." Henry sponsored voyages, collecting a 20% tax ( o quinto ) on profits, the usual practice in the Iberian states at the time. The nearby port of Lagos provided a convenient home port for these expeditions. The voyages were made in very small ships, mostly the caravel , a light and maneuverable vessel equipped by lateen sails. Most of

1674-492: The legendary Christian kingdom of Prester John , and stopping the pirate attacks on the Portuguese coast. At that time, the cargo ships of the Mediterranean were too slow and heavy to undertake such voyages. Under Henry's direction, a new and much lighter ship was developed, the caravel , which could sail farther and faster. Above all, it was highly maneuverable and could sail " into the wind ", making it largely independent of

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1728-506: The opportunity offered by the Saharan trade routes that terminated there, and became fascinated with Africa in general; he was most intrigued by the Christian legend of Prester John and the expansion of Portuguese trade. He is regarded as the patron of Portuguese exploration . Henry was the third surviving son of King John I and his wife Philippa , sister of King Henry IV of England . He

1782-609: The peace agreement. The Portuguese Cortes refused to return Ceuta as ransom for Ferdinand, who remained in captivity until his death six years later. Prince Regent Peter supported Portuguese maritime expansion in the Atlantic Ocean and Africa, and Henry promoted the colonization of the Azores during Peter's regency (1439–1448). For most of the latter part of his life, Henry concentrated on his maritime activities and court politics. According to João de Barros , in Algarve , Prince Henry

1836-443: The period 1434–1448). Commissioned by Henry himself, Zurara's chronicle is openly hagiographic of the prince and reliant on his recollections. As a result, the reliability of Zurara's chronicles is considered suspect by modern historians. Nonetheless, having little else to draw upon, historians have had to rely heavily on Zurara. Zurara claims to have based his account of the expeditions on a more detailed draft manuscript compiled by

1890-483: The prevailing winds. The caravel used the lateen sail , the prevailing rig in Christian Mediterranean navigation since late antiquity. With this ship, Portuguese mariners freely explored uncharted waters around the Atlantic, from rivers and shallow waters to transoceanic voyages. In 1419, Henry's father appointed him governor of the province of the Algarve . On May 25, 1420, Henry gained appointment as

1944-491: The reign of three monarchs: John I, Edward I, and Afonso V , and he also lived during the regency of Peter, Duke of Coimbra . Portugal saw many social and political changes in his time, such as: the growth of the new nobility of the ' Illustrious Generation ' (Ínclita Geração) (the children of John I and Philippa of Lancaster ); the conquest of Ceuta ; the insurrection of Lisbon against the Queen Mother, Leonor of Aragon ;

1998-414: The remaining reigns from draft manuscripts left behind by Fernão Lopes — not merely drawing upon them, but plagiarizing them in whole or in part, to the point that Fernão Lopes is sometimes credited as their joint author. While there is some evidence that Galvão's chronicle of Afonso I might have copied parts from Lopes's manuscripts, historians generally agree that the accusation against Ruy de Pina

2052-521: The returning westerlies in the mid-Atlantic. This was a major step in the history of navigation , when an understanding of oceanic wind patterns was crucial to Atlantic navigation, from Africa and the open ocean to Europe, and enabled the main route between the New World and Europe in the North Atlantic in future voyages of discovery. Although the lateen sail allowed sailing upwind to some extent, it

2106-512: The role of chief guard, Fernão Lopes would still have lived for another five years, dying close to the age of 80. Fernão Lopes was married to an aunt of the shoemaker Diogo Afonso's wife, leaving a son, Master Martinho, who was "physical" (doctor) of the infant D. Fernando. Martinho had a bastard son, Nuno Martins. It has been controversially alleged by some historians (starting with Damião de Góis ) that later 16th-century chroniclers Duarte Galvão and Ruy de Pina composed their chronicles of

2160-412: The technological base for exploration, with a naval arsenal and an observatory, etc., although repeated in popular culture, has never been established. Henry did possess geographical curiosity, and employed cartographers. Jehuda Cresques , a noted cartographer , has been said to have accepted an invitation to come to Portugal to make maps for the infante. Prestage makes the argument that the presence of

2214-449: The third and final part). Fernão Lopes is believed by some modern historians to also be the author of an anonymous history of the constable Nuno Álvares Pereira and, more contentiously, of a summary chronicle of the first several kings of Portugal (of which two drafts exist — one of the first five kings (Porto MS), another of the first seven (Cadaval or '1419' MS). Fernão Lopes held his official positions until around 1454, when he

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2268-412: The voyages sent out by Henry consisted of one or two ships that navigated by following the coast, stopping at night to tie up along some shore. During Prince Henry's time and after, the Portuguese navigators discovered and perfected the North Atlantic volta do mar (the "turn of the sea" or "return from the sea"): the dependable pattern of trade winds blowing largely from the east near the equator and

2322-498: The whole truth about his hero, Prince Henry. The preface to the English version of The Chronicle of Discovery and Conquest of Guinea contains a full account of the life and writings of Azurara and cites all the authorities. Zurara's Crónica dos feitos da Guiné is the principal historical source for modern conception of Prince Henry the Navigator and the Henrican age of Portuguese discoveries (although Zurara only covers part of it,

2376-518: The year 1346. In 1425, his second brother the Infante Peter, Duke of Coimbra , made a diplomatic tour of Europe, with an additional charge from Henry to seek out geographic material. Peter returned with a current world map from Venice. In 1431, Henry donated houses for the Estudo Geral to teach all the sciences—grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, and astronomy—in what would later become

2430-458: Was a Portuguese chronicler appointed by King Edward of Portugal . Fernão Lopes wrote the history of Portugal , but only a part of his work remained. His way of writing was based on oral discourse, and, on every page, it revealed his roots among the common people. He is one of the fathers of the European historiography , or a precursor of the scientific historiography, basing his works always on

2484-558: Was a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15th-century European maritime discoveries and maritime expansion. Through his administrative direction, he is regarded as the main initiator of what would be known as the Age of Discovery . Henry was the fourth child of King John I of Portugal , who founded the House of Aviz . After procuring the new caravel ship, Henry

2538-574: Was baptized in Porto , and may have been born there, probably when the royal couple was living in the city's old mint , now called Casa do Infante (Prince's House), or in the region nearby. Another possibility is that he was born at the Monastery of Leça do Balio, in Leça da Palmeira , during the same period of the royal couple's residence in the city of Porto. Henry was 21 when he, his father and brothers captured

2592-750: Was born and later buried in Alandroal , in Alentejo , based on the inscription of a tombstone, which may have belonged to him, and on the historical links between the village and the Order of Avis . He belonged to the generation that came of age after the war with Castile and the Battle of Aljubarrota . During his life, he knew many of the protagonists of the Castilian crisis , including John I of Portugal , Edward of Portugal , Nuno Álvares Pereira , and Dr. João das Regras . He saw

2646-508: Was forced to retire on account of his advanced age, and was succeeded by Gomes Eanes de Zurara . Lopes died sometime after 1459. The last known information about Fernão Lopes states that he was still living in 1459, when he challenged the rights of an illegitimate grandson to his inheritance. The date of his death is uncertain. According to information in the preface of the Chronica de El-Rei D. Pedro I , written by Luciano Cordeiro, after leaving

2700-478: Was instantly assumed to be the physical image of Prince Henry the Navigator (there were no pictures of Henry before this; the Paris frontispiece became the basis of modern images of the prince, reproduced in countless books, paintings and monuments since). Luís António de Abreu e Lima (Viscount de Carreira), the Portuguese minister to France at the time, arranged for the first publication of Zurara's Cronica in 1841, with

2754-520: Was never tracked down. It was only in 1839 that an intact and splendidly preserved manuscript copy of Zurara's Cronica was rediscovered in the Royal Library of Paris (now the Bibliothèque nationale de France ) by Ferdinand Denis (how it ended up there is a mystery). Significantly, the Paris codex included a frontispiece with a portrait of a man with a thin moustache in a black Burgundian chaperon that

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2808-443: Was only later chroniclers such as João de Barros and Damião de Góis who attributed him a scholarly character and an interest for cosmography . The myth of the " Sagres school " allegedly founded by Prince Henry was created in the 18th century, mainly by Samuel Purchas and Abbé Prévost . In nineteenth-century Portugal, the idealized vision of Prince Henry as a putative pioneer of exploration and science reached its apogee. Henry

2862-673: Was responsible for the early development of Portuguese exploration and maritime trade with other continents through the systematic exploration of Western Africa, the islands of the Atlantic Ocean , and the search for new routes. He encouraged his father to conquer Ceuta (1415), the Muslim port on the North African coast across the Straits of Gibraltar from the Iberian Peninsula . He learned of

2916-581: Was worth even major extensions of course to have a faster and calmer following wind for most of a journey. Portuguese mariners who sailed south and southwest towards the Canary Islands and West Africa would afterwards sail far to the northwest—that is, away from continental Portugal, and seemingly in the wrong direction—before turning northeast near the Azores islands and finally east to Europe in order to have largely following winds for their full journey. Christopher Columbus used this on his transatlantic voyages. The first explorations followed not long after

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