DomHenrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known asPrince Henry the Navigator (Portuguese:Infante Dom Henrique, o Navegador), was a central figure in the early days of thePortuguese Empire and in the 15th-century European maritime discoveries and maritime expansion. Through his administrative direction, he is regarded the main initiator of what would be known as theAge of Discovery. Henry was the fourth child of KingJohn I of Portugal, who founded theHouse of Aviz.[1]
After procuring the newcaravel ship, Henry 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 theAtlantic Ocean, and the search for new routes. He encouraged his father to conquerCeuta (1415), theMuslim port on the North African coast across theStraits of Gibraltar from theIberian Peninsula. He learned of the opportunity offered by theSaharan trade routes that terminated there, and became fascinated withAfrica in general; he was most intrigued by the Christian legend ofPrester John and the expansion of Portuguese trade. He is regarded as the patron ofPortuguese exploration. He is also considered to be one of the most responsible for developing the slave trade in Western Europe.[2] The prince died on 13 November 1460 in Vila do Bispo, Algarve.
Henry was the third surviving son ofKing John I and his wifePhilippa,[3] sister ofKing Henry IV of England. He was baptized inPorto, and may have been born there, probably when the royal couple was living in the city's oldmint, now calledCasa do Infante (Prince's House), or in the region nearby. Another possibility is that he was born at the Monastery of Leça do Balio, inLeça da Palmeira, during the same period of the royal couple's residence in the city of Porto.[4]
Portuguese presence in Africa and Middle East - 1415 1975.[5]
Henry was 21 when he, his father and brotherscaptured the Moorish port of Ceuta in northernMorocco. Ceuta had long been a base forBarbary pirates who raided the Portuguese coast, depopulating villages by capturing their inhabitants to be sold in theAfrican 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 the legendary Christian kingdom ofPrester John, and stopping the pirate attacks on the Portuguese coast.
Arms of Prince Henry.
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, thecaravel, which could sail farther and faster.[6] Above all, it was highly maneuverable and could sail "into the wind", making it largely independent of the prevailing winds. The caravel used thelateen sail, the prevailing rig in Christian Mediterranean navigation since late antiquity.[7]
With this ship, Portuguese mariners freely explored uncharted waters around the Atlantic, from rivers and shallow waters to transoceanic voyages.[8]
In 1419, Henry's father appointed him governor of the province of theAlgarve.
On May 25, 1420, Henry gained appointment as the Governor of theMilitary Order of Christ, the Portuguese successor to theKnights Templar, which had its headquarters atTomar in central Portugal.[9] 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 theCanary Islands, which the Portuguese had claimed to have discovered before the year 1346.
In 1425, his second brother the InfantePeter, 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.[10]
In 1431, Henry donated houses for theEstudo Geral to teach all the sciences—grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, and astronomy—in what would later become theUniversity 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 brotherEdward 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 beyondCape Bojador. Henry also held a monopoly on tuna fishing in theAlgarve. When Edward died eight years later, Henry supported his brotherPeter, Duke of Coimbra for the regency during the minority of Edward's sonAfonso V, and in return received a confirmation of this levy.
Henry functioned as a primary organizer of the disastrousexpedition to Tangier in 1437 against Çala Ben Çala, which ended in Henry's younger brotherFerdinand being given as hostage to guarantee Portuguese promises in the peace agreement. ThePortuguese Cortes refused to returnCeuta 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 theAzores during Peter's regency (1439–1448). For most of the latter part of his life, Henry concentrated on his maritime activities and court politics.[4]
According toJoão de Barros, inAlgarve, Prince Henry the Navigator repopulated a village that he calledTerçanabal (fromterça nabal ortercena nabal).[12] 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 theSagres peninsula a school of navigators andmap-makers. However modern historians hold this to be a misconception. He did employ some cartographers to chart the coast ofMauritania 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.[13]
Referring to Sagres, sixteenth-century Portuguese mathematician and cosmographerPedro Nunes remarked, "from it our sailors went out well taught and provided with instruments and rules which all map makers and navigators should know."[14]
The view that Henry's court rapidly grew into the technological base for exploration, with a naval arsenal and an observatory, etc., although repeated in popular culture, has never been established.[15][16][17] Henry did possess geographical curiosity, and employed cartographers.Jehuda Cresques, a notedcartographer, 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 the latter at the Prince's court "probably accounts for the legend of the School of Sagres, which is now discredited."[9]
Henry sponsored voyages, collecting a 20% tax (o quinto) on profits, the usual practice in the Iberian states at the time. The nearby port ofLagos provided a convenient home port for these expeditions. The voyages were made in very small ships, mostly thecaravel, a light and maneuverable vessel equipped bylateen sails. Most of 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.
Approximate routes of the Portuguese ships under Henry's command.
During Prince Henry's time and after, the Portuguese navigators discovered and perfected the North Atlanticvolta do mar (the "turn of the sea" or "return from the sea"): the dependable pattern oftrade winds blowing largely from the east near the equator and the returningwesterlies in the mid-Atlantic. This was a major step in thehistory of navigation, when an understanding ofoceanic wind patterns was crucial to Atlantic navigation, from Africa and the open ocean to Europe, and enabled the main route between theNew World and Europe in the North Atlantic in future voyages of discovery. Although the lateen sail allowedsailing upwind to some extent, it was worth even major extensions of course to have a faster and calmerfollowing wind for most of a journey. Portuguese mariners who sailed south and southwest towards theCanary 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 theAzores 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 the capture of Ceuta in 1415. Henry was interested in locating the source of thecaravans that brought gold to the city. During the reign of his father, John I,João Gonçalves Zarco andTristão 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 theMoors. He had also been at Ceuta.
In 1418, Zarco and Teixeira were blown off-course by a storm while making thevolta do mar westward swing to return to Portugal. They found shelter at an island they namedPorto Santo. Henry directed that Porto Santo be colonized. The move to claim theMadeiran islands was probably a response toCastile's efforts to claim the Canary Islands.[18] In 1420, settlers then moved to the nearby island ofMadeira.
A chart drawn by theCatalan cartographer,Gabriel de Vallseca ofMallorca, has been interpreted to indicate that the Azores were first discovered byDiogo 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 theFormigas, in the eastern archipelago, before having to return to Sagres, probably due to bad weather.
By this time the Portuguese navigators had also reached theSargasso Sea (western North Atlantic region), naming it after theSargassum seaweed growing there (sargaço /sargasso in Portuguese).[19][20]
In 1424Cape 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 the dreaded Cape. Each returned unsuccessful. The captains gave various excuses for having failed. Finally, in 1434Gil Eanes, the commander of one of Henry's expeditions, became the first known European to pass Cape Bojador sinceHanno almost two millennia before.
Henry the Navigator bronze byLéon-Joseph Chavalliaud (1899), outside the Palm House atSefton Park,Liverpool (appears similar to a sculpture of the beginning of the 16th century, in theJerónimos Monastery, Lisbon, possibly close to a true likeness of Prince Henry)
Using the new ship type, the expeditions then pushed onwards.Nuno Tristão andAntão Gonçalves reachedCape Blanco in 1441. The Portuguese sighted theBay of Arguin in 1443 and built an important "forte-feitoria" (a fort protecting a trading post) on the island ofArguin around the year 1448.Dinis Dias soon came across theSenegal River and rounded the peninsula ofCap-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 the Muslim land-based trade routes across the westernSahara Desert, and slaves and gold began arriving in Portugal. This rerouting of trade devastated Algiers and Tunis, but made Portugal rich.[21] By 1452, the influx of gold permitted the minting of Portugal's first goldcruzado coins. A cruzado was equal to 400 reis at the time. From 1444 to 1446, as many as forty vessels sailed fromLagos on Henry's behalf, and the first private mercantile expeditions began.
Alvise Cadamosto explored the Atlantic coast of Africa and discovered several islands of theCape 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 the credit. By 1462, the Portuguese had explored the coast of Africa as far as present-daySierra 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 theCape 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 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 andRaymond Beazley in 1895.[13]
Contrary to his brothers, Prince Henry was not praised for his intellectual gifts by his contemporaries. It was only later chroniclers such asJoão de Barros andDamião de Góis who attributed him a scholarly character and an interest forcosmography. The myth of the "Sagres school" allegedly founded by Prince Henry was created in the 18th century, mainly bySamuel Purchas andAbbé Prévost. In nineteenth-century Portugal, the idealized vision of Prince Henry as a putative pioneer of exploration and science reached its apogee.[22]
In 1994, the Prince Henry Society in conjunction with the Portuguese government giftedPrince Henry the Navigator Park in New Bedford, Massachusetts.[24]
^abRandles, W.G.L. "The alleged nautical school founded in the fifteenth century at Sagres by Prince Henry of Portugal called the 'Navigator'".Imago Mundi, vol. 45 (1993), pp. 20–28.
^Mark, Hans. "Henry the Navigator and the Early Days of Exploration", American Association for the Advancement of Science, Annual meeting, February 1992
^de Albuquerque, Luís (1990).Dúvidas e Certezas na História dos Descobrimentos Portugueses. Lisboa. pp. 15–27.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe.1492: The Year Our World Began.ISBN1-4088-0950-8
^Rice Jr., Eugene F.; Grafton, Anthony (1994).The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460–1559. W.W. Norton & Company. p. 35.
^Alegria, Maria Fernanda; Daveau, Suzanne; Garcia, Joao Carlos; Relaño, Francesc (2007). "Portuguese Cartography in the Renaissance". In Woodward, David (ed.).Cartography in the European Renaissance(PDF). The History of Cartography. Vol. 3. University of Chicago Press. p. 1002.ISBN978-0-226-90733-8.
^abde Sousa, Antonio Caetano (1735).Historia genealogica da casa real portugueza [Genealogical History of the Royal House of Portugal] (in Portuguese). Vol. 2. Lisboa Occidental. p. 4.
Bradford, Ernle.A Wind from the North: The Life of Henry the Navigator (1960)online orSouthward the Caravels: The Story of Henry the Navigator (UK edition, 1961)
* also an infante of Castile and León, Aragon, Sicily and Naples,§also an infante of Spain and an archduke of Austria,#also an infante of Spain,‡also an imperial prince of Brazil,¶also a prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke in Saxony,◙also a prince of Braganza,¤title removed in 1920 as their parents' marriage was deemed undynastic,ƒclaimant infante
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