Chapter XCVII (1)

In which the Author putteth a final conclusion to his work.

Every work to be perfect requireth to be placed in the ternary number, that is to say, it must have a beginning, a middle, and an end; and for the more perfect understanding of this, it is well we should know that there are three ternaries in the General Universal of the world, and the first of these we call "super-excellent," and we can find no certain name to signify its perfection to us, for it is unknown of sensuality, and common natures cannot understand it; but an obedient faith, with great humility, rendered more lively by the grace of God, placeth in it a steadfast strength. And therefore that philosopher and theologian, Albert the Great,[N223] in the 1st chapter of the _Celestial Hierarchy_, giveth three degrees of understanding by which God may be known.

And the first he compareth to the birds that fly by night, such as bats, owls, and other such, whose sight can in no way endure the sun's brightness; which also the prince of philosophers affirmeth in his _Metaphysics_, saying that our understanding is such (compared to the things that in their essence, as far as Nature runneth, are manifest) as the eye of the owl or bat in comparison with the brightness of the Sun. For such a vision have those who involve themselves in the desires of the earth, placing all their affection in what they receive from the images that are felt, and by this obstruct their understanding, so that it knoweth nothing of the Divine Being. And in the second he maketh comparison of the other birds that have a stronger sense and endure the heat of the Sun, but when they regard its splendour their eyes do constantly tremble; and in this manner do some act, who, withdrawing themselves far from external objects follow after Speculation by Understanding, and removing their minds far from Materiality see the Deity from afar with trembling; but as they desire to understand with human reason, it faileth them frequently and they fall into error, even as fell a part of the great philosophers who were not illumined by the light of Faith. The third vision is possessed by the beauteous eagles, which can gaze with the organ of vision upon the resplendent orb of this Planet, and by these we may principally understand those that read in the book of life and know all things as far as their understanding extendeth without other investigation. And so the men, who in the knowledge of God wish to obtain entire strength, subdue themselves to the Holy Gospel, and taking solace from what they understand, adore with humble and great reverence that which by subtlety they cannot embrace, and faithfully confess with the Doctor Saint Thomas in the ninth article of the 10th question of the book called _De Potentia Dei_, that in God there is one real circle wholly enclosed in a perfect ternary, because He comprehendeth Himself and speaketh and begetteth an Eternal Word in which He vieweth Himself and all things. And from the Father and Son there is breathed forth a tender issue by which the Divine essence is beloved and all that proceedeth from it. And so where was the Commencement of Understanding, there the Loving Will maketh its End. And we have an example of this in ourselves; for, if we consider what we understand, a certain knowledge is generated in the soul, and then the understanding offereth to the will that it may freely take what pleaseth it most; and it, receptive of the tender object, inclineth by affection to that by which the understanding was first moved.

In this manner is finished the circle which is super-spiritual and infinite in height, and in itself cannot proceed beyond the ternary in which it endeth. The second circular ternary is that of nature which includeth in it all the creatures, and it may be imagined in this wise: let us take some fountain that never faileth, from which a certain river taketh its birth, and following its course according to the vigour that it received in the commencement, it returneth to that fount at last from which it originally proceeded. And so all things have their commencement in the Lord God, the general cause and continuing in the Life they receive from Him, they have their last end in that from which they had their first beginning.

And by this ternary (which is in them of beginning, middle, and final end), saith the Philosopher, in the book that he made in which he discoursed of the Heaven and the World, that the ternary is the number in everything, and that it encloseth in itself the like perfection and middle and certain end, and that from it no creature is exempt. And on this account it was anciently established that God should be praised as a ternary.

The third ternary circle we call Moral, and it belongeth to the works that are done by us, the which commence in the credit that the Lord God willeth to give them, for He doeth them chiefly, and we are instruments set in the midst, which He useth at His pleasure, working His will and accomplishing them as He pleaseth; and for the confirming of this it is written in the Gospel of St. Luke that if we do all that is commanded of us, we may know that we are unprofitable servants, for we only perform that to which we are constrained. And of a certainty all that we can do is vanity, since it can be accomplished without us, and we deserve nothing in it except as far as it pleaseth the Creator to grant us of His mercy, by doing us the excellent favour of making use of us in His actions, and willing that we be instruments in some of the things that He doeth. And this pleaseth His goodness, because He findeth in us some work of His by which we may earn a good reward. And therefore wise men perceiving this infinite mercy, that maketh them to be what they are, and understanding that all good works proceed from Him by His imperial pleasure, confess that they deserve nothing for what they may do; and they labour to fulfil this circle, so that their every act may terminate in that beginning where it commenced.

* * * * *

And because you, most high and excellent Prince, among mortals, and according to my thinking, most virtuous lord, chiefly for the sake of thanksgiving didst order me, Gomez Eannes de Azurara, your servant and creature, and through your munificence, Knight and Commander in the Order of Christ, to compose this book, with good reason it seemeth fit that in thanksgiving I should make an end of it. And since the Apostle Saint Paul teacheth us in all things to give thanks to God, as is contained in the Epistle which he sent to the men of Thessalonica; so, making the circle of my work, I put the final term in that Helper who was invoked by my will in the commencement; and I offer to the Infinite Personal Ternary whatsoever thanks I can, for I have not the power to give as many as I owe: firstly, to the Father super-essential, from whom universally proceed all things, to Him I give thanks for the talent he gave me to commence this work; and then to the Son super-spiritual, who had no commencement of being, to Him I give thanks for the help He bestowed on me to continue what I had commenced; and then to the Holy Spirit super-natural, from whom we have all good things by His benevolence, to Him I give thanks for the inspiration by which He moved your Highness to lay this command upon me and not on any other of your countrymen and subjects, of whom you could have had many. And jointly to all the Three Persons who compose the Ineffable Trinity and Super-essential Unity, our one only true Lord God, I offer thanks for the ending, because all things have concluded better than I thought before.

* * * * *

And this work was finished in the Library that this King Don Affonso made in Lisbon, on the 18th day of February, being written in this first volume by John Gonçalvez, Esquire and Scrivener of the books of the said Lord King. And to this lord may the most infinite, benign, and merciful God ever grant increase of good works and virtues better and better all the days and years of his life, and give him the fruit of His blessing that he may ever render Him thanks and praise, because He is his Maker and Creator. In the year of Jesus Christ 1453.

DEO GRACIAS.

NOTES.

[_N.B.--The page references are to the Hakluyt Society's translation_].

[Endnote 1: (p. 2). _St. Thomas, who was the most clear teacher among the Doctors of Theology_, i.e., St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest of the Schoolmen ("Doctor Angelicus"); born at Rocca Secca, near Aquino, 1225 (according to some 1227); Professor of Theology at Cologne 1248, at Paris 1253 and 1269, at Rome 1261, etc., at Naples 1272 (Doctor of Theology, 1257). Died at Fossa Nuova, in the diocese of Terracino, 1274; canonised 1323; declared a Doctor of the Church, 1567; author, among many other writings, of the _Summa Theologiae_, the greatest monument of Roman divinity. Aquinas completed the fusion of the re-discovered Aristotelian philosophy with church doctrine, which in the earlier Middle Ages had been hampered by the imperfect knowledge of Aristotelian texts in the Latin world, but which had for some time been preparing, _e.g._, in the work of Peter Lombard (d. 1164), and even earlier. Aquinas also marks the temporary intellectual victory of the Church, in the thirteenth century, over the free-thinking and disruptive tendencies which had shown themselves so threatening in the twelfth. See K. Werner, _Thomas von Aquino_, Regensburg, 1858-59; Feugueray, _Essai sur les doctrines politiques de St. T. d'A._, Paris, 1857; De Liechty, _Albert le grand et St. T. d'A._, Paris, 1880. Encken, _Die Philosophie des T. von A._, Halle, 1886.]

[Endnote 2: (p. 3). _When the King John ... went to take Ceuta_, viz., in 1415, in company with his sons, Edward (Duarte), Pedro, and Henry, and a force of 50,000 soldiers. See especially Oliveira Martins, _Os Filhos de D. João I_ (1891), ch. ii; Azurara's _Chronica de Ceuta_; Mat. Pisano, _De bello Septensi_; Major's _Henry Navigator_, 1868 ed., pp. 26-43; "Life" of the same, in _Heroes of the Nations Series_, ch. viii.]

[Endnote 3: (p. 4). _Duke John, Lord of Lançam._--On this Santarem has the following: [The Duke of whom our author speaks was probably John of Lançon, one of the Paladins of Charles the Great, concerning whose deeds there exists a MS. poem of the thirteenth century in the Collection of MSS. in the Royal Library of Paris (No. 8; 203). This reference cannot be to John I, Duke of Alençon, seeing that it does not appear that any history of his deeds was ever written].--S.]

[Endnote 4: (p. 4). _Deeds of the Cid Ruy Diaz._--[Here our author probably refers to the poem of the Cid, copies of which were spread through Spain from the twelfth century (see the _Coleccion de Poesias castellanas anteriores al siglo_ XV, Madrid, 1779-90). In the time of Azurara there was no _one_ chronicle of the Cid's deeds; see Herder, _Der Cid nach Spanischen Romanzen besungen_ 1857(-59), who translates eighty romances published on this subject; Southey's _Chronicle of the Cid_, London, 1808].--S. See also _The Cid_ (H. B. Clarke) in _Heroes of the Nations Series_; R. P. A. Dozy, _Hist. Pol-Litt. d'Espagne, Moyen-âge_, i, 320-706; _Le Cid ... Nouveaux Documents_, 1860; J. Cornu, _Etudes_, 1881 (_Romania_, x, 75-99); Canton Zalazar, _Los restos del Cid_, 1883.]

[Endnote 5: (p. 4). _The Count Nunalvarez Pereira._--The "Holy Constable," one of the Portuguese leaders in the Nationalist rising of 1383-5, which set the House of Aviz on the Portuguese throne. Azurara is credited with the (doubtful) authorship of a work on the miracles of the Holy Constable. See the Introduction to vol. i of this Edition, pp. liii-liv, and Oliveira Martins' _Vida de Nun'Alvares_, Lisbon 1893; also the latter's _Os Filhos de D. João I_, chs. i, ii; Major's _Henry Navigator_, pp. 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 21, 78.]

[Endnote 6: (p. 5). _Pillars of Hercules_, or Straits of Gibraltar; called by some Arabic geographers (_e.g._, Mas'udi) the Strait of the Idols of Copper. The conquest of Ceuta in 1415 gave Portugal a great hold over this "narrow passage," and in 1418 Prince Henry aspired to seize Gibraltar, which would have made his country complete master of the same, but his project was discountenanced by his father's government. We may refer to Galvano's story of a Portuguese ship starting from here, shortly after 1447 (?), being driven out to certain islands in the Atlantic; to the Infant's settlement at Sagres being in tolerable proximity; and to Azurara's (and others') reckoning of distances along new-discovered coasts from the same. See Azurara, _Guinea_, ch. v.]

[Endnote 7: (p. 5). _The Church of Santiago_, i.e., St. James of Compostella, in Galicia.--[In this passage our author refers to the celebrated diploma of King D. Ramiro about the battle of Clavijo, though he does not cite that document, and also to the _Chronicle of Sampiro_. On these two documents the reader can consult Masdeu, _Historia Critica de España_, tom. xii, p. 214, etc.; tom. xiii, 390; and tom. xvi--Voto de S. Thiago Suppl. 1.].--S.]

[Endnote 8: (p. 7). _Sentences of St. Thomas and St. Gregory_, i.e., of St. Thomas Aquinas and Pope (St.) Gregory the Great (A.D. 590-604).]

[Endnote 9: (p. 7). _Garamantes_, _etc._--Properly the inhabitants of Fezzan--"Garama," or "Phazania" in classical language. Γαράμαντεσ ... ἔθνοσ μέγα ἰσχυρῶσ [Garamantes ... ethnos mega ischyrôs] says Herodotus (iv, 183). Yet like the Nasamones and other nations of this part, they are apparently conceived of by H. as a people confined to a single oasis of the desert. The Garamantes' land, H. adds, is thirty days' journey from the Lotos Eaters on the North coast of Africa, which is about the true distance from Mourzuk, in Fezzan, to Tripoli (see the journeys of Captain Lyon in 1820, and of Colonel Monteil in 1892). The oasis, ten days' journey beyond the Garamantes, inhabited by the Atarantes or Atlantes, may be the Herodotean conception of Tibesti.

Compare the story, in Herodotus, ii, 32, 33, of five Nasamonians, from the shore of the Great Syrtes, crossing the deserts to the south of Libya to an inhabited region, far west of their home, with fruit trees, extensive marshes, a city inhabited by Black People of small stature, a river flowing from west to east containing crocodiles: probably either the modern Bornu or one of the Negro states on the Middle Niger.

Pliny (_Hist Nat._, v, 5, §36) records the conquest of the Garamantes by Cornelius Balbus in B.C. 20, when the Romans captured Cydamus (Ghadames in south-west Tripoli) and Garama ("clarissimum oppidum," the Germa of the present day, whence the name "Garamantes").

In the time of Vespasian the more direct route from Œa or Tripoli to Phazania was discovered (Pliny, _l. c._). In the reign of Tiberius, during the revolt of Tacfarinas in Numidia, the Garamantes supported the rebel, and after his defeat sent to Rome to sue for pardon, an unusual embassy, as Tacitus remarks ("Garamantum legati, raro in urbe visi"). From Fezzan, in later days (about time of Trajan?) started the remarkable expeditions of Septimius Flaccus and Julius Maternus to the "Ethiopian land" (Sudan) and Agisymba (Region of Lake Chad?) in the south, which reached inhabited country after a march of three and four months respectively across the desert (see Ptolemy, i, 8, §5, from Marinus of Tyre, now lost except in Pt.'s citations). The original conquest by Balbus is probably referred to in Virgil's _Æneid VI_, 795, in the prophecy of Augustus' triumphs:--

"Super et Garamantes et Indos Proferet imperium."

_The Ethiopians ... under the Shadow of Mount Caucasus_ is an extreme instance of the mediæval geography met with so frequently in Azurara, as no African "Mt. Caucasus" has ever been identified, even as a barbarous misnomer for one of the African ranges; while Ethiopia, however confused the reference, always starts from the ancient knowledge of the Sudan, and especially the Eastern or Egyptian Sudan (see below).

The Caucasus, here used, perhaps, like "Taurus," or "Alps," in the general sense of "lofty mountains," was a great centre of mediæval myth. Here was situated, according to most authorities, the wall of Alexander, when with an iron rampart he shut up Gog and Magog, and "twenty-two nations of evil men" from invading the fertile countries of the south (see _Koran_, chs. xv, xviii; the Arabic record of "Sallam the interpreter," sent to the Caucasus about 840 by the Caliph Wathek-Billah; Ibn Khordadbeh, c. 880; St. Jerome _On Genesis_, x, 2, and _On Ezekiel_, xxxviii-ix; St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, xx, 11; St. Ambrose, _De Fide ad Gratianum_, ii, 4; St. Isidore, _Origines_, ix, 2; xiv, 3; and the _Commentaries_ of Andrew and Aretes of Caesarea _On the Apocalypse_ of A.D. _c._ 400 and _c._ 540; _Dawn of Modern Geography_, pp. 335-8, 425-434).]

[Endnote 10: (p. 7). _Indians of Greater and Lesser India_ is a regular mediæval term for the inhabitants of India proper and of south-western Asia, sometimes including Abyssinia. Another frequent division was threefold: India Prima, Secunda, Tertia, or Greater, Lesser, and Middle, as in Marco Polo, Bk. III, chs. i, xxxviii-xxxix. Most commonly, Greater India means India west of Ganges; Lesser India corresponds to the classical _India extra Gangem_, or Assam, Burma, Siam, etc.; and Middle India stands for Abyssinia, and perhaps for some parts of the Arabian coast, as far as the Persian Gulf. On this passage we must also notice the following MS. notes:--

[α. _Garamantes, Ethiopians and Indians._--It must be understood that these are three peoples, as saith Isidore in his sixth book [_i.e._, _of the Etymologies_ or _Origins of St. Isidore of Seville_, _written c. A.D. 600_], to wit, the Asperi, Garamantes and Indians. The Asperi are in the west, the Garamantes in the middle, the Indians in the east. He reckoned with the Garamantes, the Tregodites [_Troglodytes or Trogodites_] because they are their neighbours. Alfargano [_Mohammed Alfergani, or of Ferghanah on the Upper Oxus, a great Mohammedan geographer of the ninth century, author of a "Book of Celestial Movements" translated into Hebrew and from Hebrew into Latin, which also described the chief towns and countries of the world_] placed Meroe, which is Queen of the Nations, between the Nubians and the Indians. The Garamantes are so called from Garama, which is the capital of their Kingdom, and the castle of which standeth between Inenense and Ethiopia, where is a fountain which cooleth with the heat of the day, and groweth hot with the cold of the night. Ethiopia is over against Egypt and Africa, on the southern part thereof; from the east it stretcheth over against the west even to the Ethiopian Sea. And because much of the people of these three nations are Christians, and because they desired to see the world, they came to these parts of Spain, where they received great gifts from the Infant, on account of which the author hath given this description in his chapter thereupon.

β. _Caucasus._--This mount is so called from Candor, the which stretcheth from India to Taurus, in its length, through various peoples and tongues, and therefore is variously named. Some say that Mt. Caucasus and Mt. Taurus are all one, but Orosius reproveth this opinion.] On the fountain of Garama, cf. Solinus, xxx, i.]

[Endnote 11: (p. 7). _To visit the Apostle_, viz., St. James of Compostella, patron saint of Spain, and traditionally the "Apostle" of that country. Santiago de Compostella was once the capital of Galicia; it lies 55 kilometres south of Coruña, on the north bank, and near the source, of the River Sar, which flows into the Ulla. The town is built round the Cathedral, which claims to possess the body of St. James. A star was said to have originally shown the place of this relic, hence "Compostella" (Campus stellae). The body of the great church was commenced in 1082 and completed in 1128; the cloisters were finished in 1533. An earlier church of the later ninth century had been destroyed in 997 by the Arabs under the famous "hagib" Almanzor, who also restored Barcelona to the Western Caliphate, and nearly crushed all the Christian kingdoms of Spain. For centuries Compostella was the most famous and fashionable place of pilgrimage, next to Rome, in Europe. It is referred to in Chaucer, Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_, l. 466, in the description of the "Wife of Bath:"

"At Rome she haddé been, and at Boloyne
In Galice at Saint Jame, and at Coloyne."]

[Endnote 12: (p. 8). _Ancient and venerable city of Thebes._--Here we have again a MS. note.

[We must understand that there are two cities of Thebes--the one in Egypt and the other in Greece. That in Greece was the selfsame which in the time of Pharaoh Nicrao (_Necho_, _see Herodotus, ii_, _158-9: Josephus Antiq. Jud._) was called Jersem, as saith Marco Polo, whence came the Kings of Thebes who reigned in Egypt C I R (_190_) years. And this was one of the places which were given to Jacob, by the countenance of his son Joseph, when by the needs of hunger he went with his eleven sons to Egypt, as it is writ in Genesis. And Saint Isidore saith in his xvth book (_of Origins_) that Cadmus built Thebes in Egypt, and that he, passing into Greece, founded the other and Grecian Thebes, in the province of Acaya (_Achaia_), the which is now called the land of the Prince of the Amoreans.]

It is not necessary to dwell on the additional confusion furnished by this "explanation"--Thebes given to the Israelites (as part of Goshen?), Cadmus building the Egyptian Thebes, Achaia for Bœotia, and so forth; but the point really noticeable is that in Azurara's text the "dwellers on the Nile who possess Thebes" came in here as "wearing the Prince's livery:" _i.e._, the negroes of the Senegal are supposed to live on the western branch of the Nile, which mediæval conceptions obstinately brought from Egypt or Nubia to the Atlantic, and which Prince Henry's seamen thought they had discovered when they reached the Senegal; just as later in the Gambia, the Niger, and the Congo, other equivalents were imagined for the Negro Nile of Edrisi, and the West African river-courses of Pliny and Ptolemy. Cf. chs. xxx, xxxi, lx-lxii, of this Chronicle.]

[Endnote 13: (p. 8). _Wisdom of the Italians ... labyrinth._--Here we have another original MS. note. [Labyrinth is so much as to say anything into which a man having entered cannot go out again (_so Prince Henry, in Azurara, vol. i, p. 8 (ch. ii), has "entered a labyrinth of Glory"_). And therefore, saith Ovid, in his _Metamorphoses_, that Pasiphaë, wife of Minos, king of Crete, conceived the Minotaur, who was half man and half bull. The which was imprisoned by Daedalus in the Labyrinth into which whatsoever entered knew not how to come out, and whosoever was without knew not how to enter. And of this Labyrinth speaketh Seneca in the _Tragedy_, where he treated of the matter of Hippolytus and Phedra].

Azurara's reference to the distinctive virtues of the four great peoples here noticed is interesting, especially from the fact that Prince Henry's mother was an Englishwoman; that the Emperor (now a purely German sovereign, though still in name "holy and Roman"), invited him to enter his service (see ch. vi); that the Pope (like Henry VI (?) King of England) made him similar offers; that his scientific and practical connections with Italy were very important; and that his sister Isabel was married to the Duke of Burgundy. "The wisdom of the Italians" was nowhere more conspicuous at that time than in geography. Italians initiated the great mediæval and renaissance movement of discovery both by land and sea (cf. John de Plano Carpini, Marco, Nicolo, and Matteo Polo, Malocello, Tedisio Dorio, the Vivaldi, the Genoese captains and pilots of 1341, precursors of Varthema, the Cabots, Verrazano, and Columbus). Italians also constructed the first scientific maps or Portolani (existing specimens from 1300 show out of 498 examples 413 of Italian origin, including all the more famous and perfect). Lastly, Italians probably brought the use of the magnet to higher efficiency; though they did not "invent" the same, it is likely that they were the first to fit the magnet into a box and connect it with a compass-card. "Prima dedit nautis _usum_ magnetis Amalphis."

Also, we may recall that the Infant Don Pedro, Henry's brother, brought home from Venice in 1428 a map illustrating a copy of Marco Polo (see p. liv of the Introduction to this volume), and that the most important map-draughtsmen of the Prince's lifetime were Andrea Bianco, Fra Mauro, and Gratiosus Benincasa. From 1317, when King Diniz appointed the Genoese Emmanuele Pesagno Admiral of Portugal, and contracted for a regular supply of Genoese pilots and captains, down to the Infant's earlier years, when the Genoese tried to secure a "lease" of Sagres promontory as a naval station, and even to the time when the Venetian Cadamosto sailed in his service (1455-6), and Antoniotto Uso di Mare and Antonio de Noli were to be found in the same employment, the connection between Portuguese and Italian seamanship was very close--a relationship almost of daughter and mother.]

[Endnote 14: (p. 9). _From the islands thou didst people in the Ocean_, etc. ... _wood from those parts._

Here Azurara gives some references to the products raised in the newly-colonised groups of "African Islands"--corn, honey, wax, and especially wood, on which Santarem remarks:--

[This interesting detail shows that the wood (Madeira) transported to Portugal from the islands newly discovered by the Infant D. Henrique, chiefly from the isle of Madeira, was in such quantity as to cause a change in the system of construction of houses in towns, by increasing the number of storeys, and raising the height of the houses, thus bringing in a new style of building instead of the Roman and Arabic systems then probably followed. This probability acquires more weight in view of the system of lighting at Lisbon ordered by King Ferdinand, as appears from a document in the Archives of the Municipality of Lisbon. So this detail related by Azurara is a very curious one for the history of our architecture.]--S.]

[Endnote 15: (p. 9). _Dwellers in the Algarve_ (_Alfagher_), i.e., the extreme southern portion of Portugal, including Cape St. Vincent, the cities of Lagos, Faro and Tavira, and Sagres (off C. St. V.), the special residence of the Prince himself. Later, the plural title "Algarves" was applied to this Province, in conjunction with the possessions of Portugal on the North African coast immediately fronting the Spanish peninsula, viz., Ceuta, "Alcacer Seguer," Anafe, Tangier, Arzila, etc.]

[Endnote 16: (p. 10). _Moors ... on this side the Straits and also beyond._--Moors who on "this side the Straits" had "died" from Prince Henry's lance might be difficult to find; but of "those beyond" the reference is more particularly to the conquest of Ceuta, 1415; the relief of the same, 1418; the abortive attempt on Tangier, 1437; and the raids upon the Azanegue Moors between Cape Bojador and the Senegal, _c._ 1441-1450. The African campaign of 1458, which resulted in the capture of Alcacer the Little, cannot, of course, be included here.]

[Endnote 17: (p. 10). _That false schismatic Mohammed._--In the ordinary style of mediæval reference, as followed by Father Maracci and the older European school of Arabic learning. The progress of the Moslem faith in North Africa was rapid in the Mediterranean coast zone, but comparatively slow in the Sahara and Sudan. See Introduction to vol. ii, pp. xliii-lix, and W. T. Arnold, _Missions of Islam_.]

[Endnote 18: (p. 11). _Duchess of Burgundy._--The Infanta Isabel, Prince Henry's sister, was niece of a King of England, viz., as Santarem says, of Henry IV, son of John, Duke of Lancaster. [By this connection our Infant was a great-grandson of Edward III, and at the same time a descendant of the last kings of the Capetian house, and likewise allied to the family of Valois. The Infanta Donna Philippa was married to the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, on January 10th, 1429. She was not only endowed with very eminent qualities, but was also of rare beauty. She had great influence on public affairs. The Duke, her husband, instituted the celebrated order of the Golden Fleece to celebrate this marriage. This princess died at Dijon, December 17th, 1472. From this alliance came many descendants. She was equally beloved by her brothers, and especially by King D. Edward (Duarte), who, in his _Leal Conselheiro_ (ch. xliv, "Da Amizade"), speaks of the great affection and regret which he felt for her. The festivities which took place at Bruges on her arrival were among the most sumptuous of the Middle Ages].--S.]

[Endnote 19: (p. 12). _The Philosopher_, i.e., Aristotle, in Azurara's day regarded among Christians as the "master of them that knew." The transformation of Aristotle into a storehouse of Christian theology was a long process, which was perhaps most completely successful in the hands of Thomas Aquinas.]

[Endnote 20: (p. 14). _As in his Chronicle_, i.e., _The Chronicle of the Reign of Affonso V, the African_, attributed by Barros and Goes to Azurara himself, and perhaps embodied (partially) in Ruy de Pina's existing chronicle of the monarch. (See Azurara, Hakluyt Soc. ed., vol. i, Introduction, pp. lxi-lxiii.) We must notice that a little earlier (p. 13, top of our version), on Azurara's reference to Prince Henry as an "uncrowned prince" (cf. Azurara, vol. ii, Introduction, p. xix). Santarem remarks:

[This detail, recorded by Azurara, a contemporary writer, shows the error into which Fr. Luiz de Souza fell in his _Historia de S. Domingos_, liv. vi, fol. 331, by saying that the Infant was elected King of Cyprus: an error which José Soares da Silva repeated in his _Memorias d'El Rei D. João I_; whereas if the words of Azurara were not sufficient to demonstrate the contrary, the dates and facts of history would prove the errors of those authors. As a matter of fact, the kingdom of Cyprus, which Richard, King of England, took from the Greeks in 1191, was immediately ceded by that Prince to Guy of Lusignan, whose posterity reigned in that kingdom till 1487; and as our Infant was born in 1394 and died in 1460, it was not possible for him to be elected sovereign of a kingdom ruled by a legitimate line of monarchs. Besides this, in the list of the Latin or Frank Kings of Cyprus, the name of D. Henry is not found. It is to be presumed that Fr. Luiz de Souza confounded Henry, Prince of Galilee, son of James I, King of Cyprus, with our Infant D. Henry.]--S.

Also, on the words _Atlas the Giant_ (middle of p. 13 in our version), there is another original MS. note:

[Atlas was king of the land in the west of Europe and of that in the west of Africa, brother of Prometheus, that great wise man and philosopher descended from Japhet, the giant. And this Atlas was considered the greatest astrologer living in the world at his time. And his knowledge of the stars made him give such true forecasts of matters which were fated to happen, that men said in his time that he sustained the heaven upon his shoulders. And as Lucas saith, he was the first who invented the art of painting in the city of Corinth, which is in Greece.]

On this Santarem remarks:--

[Here our author mixes up all the historical and mythological traditions from Greek and Latin authors relative to Atlas. Diodorus Siculus and Plato are not cited by Azurara, who, however, relates that Atlas was king of the West of Europe and of the West of Africa; but he forgets to say that he reigned over the Atlantes, as Herodotus says, and confounds Prometheus with "Japhet," whose son he was, viz., according to Apollodorus, Diodorus Siculus, and all the ancient writers. Diodorus says in effect that Atlas had taught astronomy to Hercules, but our author confounds the three princes of this name, and made a mistake in citing Lucas de Tuy (continuer of the _Chronicle_ of Isidore of Seville) as saying that Atlas was the first who invented the art of painting in the city of Corinth. The origin of this art was unknown to the ancients. It is true that Sicyon and Corinth disputed the glory of the discovery, but the discoverer according to most of the ancient authors was Cleanthes of Corinth and not Atlas, as Azurara says. According to others, the discovery was due to Philocles the Egyptian.]--S.

The Atlas chain of N. Africa has been the subject of persistent exaggeration. The Greek pillar of heaven (derived from Carthaginian? seamen) probably referred to Teneriffe. No summit in the Atlas range answers to the legend. Though Miltsin rises to 11,400 feet, neither this nor any other peak can be supposed to represent the idea of towering height embodied in the story. We may notice the enormous over-proportion of the Atlas in some of the most important maps which Prince Henry and his seamen had to consult (_e.g._, Dulcert of 1339, the Catalan of 1375). See Introduction, vol. ii, pp. cxxiii-iv, cxxvi.]

[Endnote 21: (p. 14). _Tangier ... the most perilous affair in which he ever stood before or after_, viz., in 1437. The conquest of Ceuta (aided perhaps by the earlier discoveries of Prince Henry's seamen) had made some in Portugal eager for more African conquests, and in 1433 King Duarte (Edward) on his accession was induced by his brothers Henry and Ferdinand, against the opinion of his next brother Pedro, to take up the project of an attack on Tangier. The Papal Court gave only a very doubtful approval to the war, but on August 22, 1437, an expedition sailed for Ceuta. Tetuan was captured, and on September 23 Prince Henry began the siege of Tangier, but his attacks on the town were repulsed; the Portuguese were surrounded by overwhelming forces which had come down from Marocco, Fez, and Tafilet for the relief of the city; and on October 25 the assailants surrendered with the honours of war, on condition that Ceuta should be given up with all the Moorish prisoners then in Portuguese hands, and that the Portuguese should abstain for 100 years from any further attack upon the Moors of this part of Barbary. Prince Ferdinand was left with twelve nobles as hostages for the performance of the treaty. The convention was repudiated in Portugal, and Ferdinand, the "constant Prince," died in his captivity June 3, 1443. Like Regulus in Roman tradition, he advised his countrymen against the enemy's terms of ransom,

"Lest bought with price of Ceita's potent town
To public welfare be preferred his own."

Camöens: _Lusiads_, iv, 52 (Burton).]

[Endnote 22: (p. 14). _Because Tully commandeth._--It is characteristic of Azurara's school and time that he should declare his preference for truthful writing because a great classic recommended the same.]

[Endnote 23: (p. 15). _College of Celestial virtues._--Contrasted with the previous reference, this gives a good idea of Azurara's mental outlook--on one side towards Greek and Latin antiquity, on another to the Catholic theology. The Christian side of the Mediæval Renaissance had not, in Portugal, been overpowered by the Pagan. We may remember, as to the context here, that on the capture of Ceuta the chief mosque was at once turned into the Cathedral.]

[Endnote 24: (p. 16). _Districts of the Beira ... and Entre Douro e Minho._ The three northern provinces of Portugal:--The Beira, comprising most of the land between the Tagus and the Douro (except the S.W. portion); the Tral (or Traz) os Montes, the N.E. extremity; and the Entre Douro e Minho, the N.W. extremity of the Kingdom. Here was the cradle of the state--for the principality granted in 1095 by Alfonso VI of Leon to the free-lance, Henry of Burgundy, was entirely within the limits of these provinces, and was at first almost entirely confined to lands North of the Mondego, being composed of the counties of Coimbra and Oporto.]

[Endnote 25: (p. 16). _The two cities_, viz., The citadel and the lower town of Ceuta, which together covered the neck of a long peninsula running out some three miles eastward from the African mainland, and broadening again beyond the eastern wall of Ceuta into a hilly square of country. The citadel covered the isthmus which joined the peninsula to the mainland. East of the citadel was Almina, containing "the outer and larger division of the city, as well as the seven hills from which Ceuta derived its name," the highest of which was in the middle of the peninsula, and was called El Acho, from the fortress on its summit. "On the north side of the peninsula, from the citadel to the foot of this last-mentioned hill, the city was protected by another lofty wall." According to some, the old name of _Septa_ was derived from the town's seven hills; it was ancient, being repaired, enlarged and re-fortified by Justinian in the course of his restoration of the Roman Empire in the Western Mediterranean.]

[Endnote 26: (p. 17). _A duke ... in the Algarve_, viz., Duke of Viseu and Lord of Covilham. His investiture took place at Tavira in the Algarve, immediately on the return of the Ceuta expedition. Together with his elder brother Pedro, whom King John at the same time made Duke of Coimbra, Henry was the first of Portuguese dukes. This title was introduced into England as early as 1337, and the Infant's mother was the daughter of one of the first English dukes, "old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster."]

[Endnote 27: (p. 17). _The people of Fez ... of Bugya._--This Moslem league of 1418 against Portuguese Ceuta comprised nearly all the neighbouring Islamic states (1) Fez--the centre of Moslem culture in Western "Barbary," a very troublesome state, politically, to the great ruling dynasties in N.W. Africa--contained two towns at this time, called respectively the town of the Andalusi, or Spaniards--from the European (Moslem) emigrants who lived there--and the town of the Kairwani, from Kairwan ("Cairoan"), the holy city of Tunis. The founder of the greatness of Fez was Idris, whose dynasty reigned there A.D. 788-985. It was captured by Abd-el-Mumen ben Ali, the Almohade, in 1145. It was also besieged in 960, 979, 1045, 1048, 1069, 1248, 1250. See Leo Africanus (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), pp. 143-5, 393, 416-486, 589-606. (2) _Granada_ was still a Moslem Kingdom, as it remained till its capture by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. It was now (1418) ruled by the successors of Mohammed-al-Hamar, who in 1236 gathered the relics of the western Caliphate into the Kingdom of Granada. In 1340 the Granadine attempt, in alliance with Berber help from Africa, to recover southern Spain for Islam, had been defeated in the great battle of the Tarifa, or Salado (one of the first engagements where cannon were used); but Granada still (in the fifteenth century) retained considerable strength. (3) _Tunis._--Leo Africanus mentions its capture by Okba (Akbah) in the seventh century A.D., by the Almoravides in the eleventh century, and by Abd-el Mumen ben Ali, the Almohade, in the twelfth century. It was unsuccessfully attacked at times by those states whose trade with it was most important, _e.g._, by Louis IX of France in his crusade of 1270; by the Genoese, 1388-90; by the Kings of Sicily, 1289-1335; and by other foreign states; but remained for the most part independent, from the breakup of the Almohade empire till its capture by Barbarossa for the Ottomans in 1531. See Leo Africanus, pp. 699, 716, 753. (4) _Marocco._--The city of Marocco was founded, A.D. 1070-2 according to some, 1062-3 according to others (A.H. 454), by Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, the Almoravide. Under both Almoravides and Almohades its greatness steadily increased. Abd-el-Mumen ben Ali took it for the latter, and under his grandson, Yakub Almansor, it became the Almohade capital (A.D. 1189-90). The Beni-Merini succeeding to power in these parts in the thirteenth century, removed the seat of government to Fez (1269-1470). See Leo Africanus, pp. 262-272, 351-359. Early in the sixteenth century the Portuguese, under Nuno Fernandez d'Ataide, Governor of Safi, attacked Marocco without success. A district called Marocco was much older than the city. "Marakiyah," in Masudi (iii, p. 241, Meynard and Courteille), is used of a district to which the Berbers emigrated. (5) _Bugia_, _Bougie_, anciently also _Bujaïa_ and _Bejaïa_, a very ancient city. Carthage had a settlement here; Augustus established a Roman colony with the title of Colonia Julia Augusta Saldantum ("Saldaa"). It fell into the power of the Vandals in the fifth, of the Arabs in the sixth, century; and during the earlier Caliphate it carried on a considerable trade, especially with the Christian states of the Western Mediterranean. This trade continued to flourish during the later Middle Ages; and we may instance, not only the favourable descriptions of Edrisi (_c._ 1154) and of Leo Africanus (1494-1552), but also the Pisan commerce (of about 1250-64) both in merchandise and in learning, with this city, as well as the Aragonese treaties of 1309 and 1314, and the Pisan embassy of 1378, as a few examples out of many. In 1068, En-Naser having restored and embellished the town, made it his capital, re-naming it En-Naseria; Abd-el-Mumen ben Ali subjected it to the Almohade empire in 1152; in 1509 Count Peter of Navarre seized it, and the Spaniards held it till 1555. From 1833 it has been a French possession. See Edrisi (Jaubert), vol. i, pp. 202, 236-8, 241, 245-6, 258, 269; Leo Africanus, Hakluyt Soc. edn. pp. 126, 143-4, 699, 700, 745, 932.]

[Endnote 28: (p. 17). _Chance of taking Gibraltar ... did not offer itself to him._--This project is especially notable in the light of later history, as of the years 1704, 1729, 1779-82, and of earlier times, _e.g._, 710. Prince Henry seems to have been one of the few men who valued aright (before quite modern times) the position from which the Arabs advanced to the Conquest of Spain, and from which the English obtained so great a hold over the Mediterranean. It was only in the later sixteenth century that one can discover anything like a widespread perception of Gibraltar's importance.]

[Endnote 29: (p. 18). _Canary Islands._--Here Azurara probably refers to the projects of 1424-5, though his words may apply to Henry's efforts in 1418, or in 1445-6, to acquire the Canaries for Portugal (see Introduction to vol. ii, p. xcvi-xcviii).

The "great Armada ... to shew the natives the way of the holy faith" is very characteristic of Azurara.]

[Endnote 30: (p. 18). _Governed Ceuta ... left the government to King Affonso at the beginning of his reign._--On this, Santarem has the following note:--

[The 35 years during which the Infant governed Ceuta must be understood in the sense that during the reigns of his father and brother and nephew (till Affonso V reached his majority) he directed the affairs of Ceuta, but not that he governed that place by residing there. The dates and facts recorded show that we must understand what is here said in this sense, seeing that the Infant, after the capture of that city (Ceuta) in August 1415, returned to the Kingdom (of Portugal); and there was left as Governor of Ceuta D. Pedro de Menezes, who held this command for twenty-two years (_D. N. do Leão_, cap. 97). The Infant returned to Africa in 1437 for the unfortunate campaign of Tangier. After this expedition he fell ill in Ceuta and stayed there only five months, and thence again returned to Portugal, and spent the greater part of his time in the Algarve, occupied with his maritime expeditions. He went back for the third time to Africa with King D. Affonso V for the campaign of Alcacer in 1456, returning immediately afterwards to Sagres.

Beyond this, it should be noticed that the sons of King D. John I had charge of the presidency and direction of various branches of State administration. D. Duarte (Edward) was, in the life of the King his father, entrusted with the presidency of the Supreme Court of Judicature and with the duty of despatching business in Council, as is recorded by him in detail in ch. xxx of the _Leal Conselheiro_. The Infant D. Henry had charge of all African business, and so by implication of everything relating to Ceuta.

Finally, the sublime words of King D. Duarte to D. Duarte de Menezes, when he said, "If I am not deceived in you, not even to give it to a son of mine will I deprive you of the captaincy of Ceuta" (Azurara, _Chronica de D. Duarte_, ch. xliii), show that the Infant D. Henry was not then properly Governor of Ceuta; although he was formally appointed to that post on July 5th, 1450, he never actually occupied it (see Souza, prov. of Bk. v, No. 51).]--S.]

[Endnote 31: (p. 18). _The fear of his vessels kept in security ... the merchants who traded between East and West._--This important detail has not been noticed sufficiently in lives of D. Henry. If Azurara really means that the Infant's fleet preserved the coasts of Spain from all fear of the piracy which then, as later, endangered the commerce of the Western Mediterranean, we can only regret that no further details have come down to us about this point. For such a task the Prince must have maintained a pretty large navy: though it is noticeable that piracy seems to have been worse on the so-called Christian side in the mediæval period; and not till after the fifteenth century, and the establishment of Turkish suzerainty, was it as bad on the Moslem side (see Mas Latrie, _Relations de l'Afrique Septentrionale avec les Chrétiens au Moyen Age_, passim, and especially pp. 4, 5, 61-2, 117, 128-30, 161-208, 340-5, 453, 469, 534). The forbearance of the Barbary States with Christian freebooting from the eleventh century to the sixteenth, their tolerance of Christian colonies in their midst, and the special favours constantly shown to individual Christians, would surprise those who think only of Algerine, Tunisian, or Maroccan piracy and "Salee rovers." Roger II of Sicily is a striking exception to this disgraceful rule. In the earlier Middle Ages, some of the Christian Republics of Italy even joined Moslems in slave-raiding upon other Christians (see _Dawn of Modern Geography_, pp. 203-4).]

[Endnote 32: (p. 18). _Peopled five Islands ... especially Madeira_ (see Introduction to vol. ii, pp. xcviii-cii).]

[Endnote 33: (p. 19). _Alfarrobeira, where ... Don Pedro was ... defeated._--D. Pedro, the eldest of the uncrowned sons of King John I, was famous for his journeys in Europe, ending in 1428, when he returned from Venice with many treasures, among others a MS. copy of Marco Polo, and a map of the traveller's route (see Introduction to vol. ii, p. liv). He was still more famous for his wise government of Portugal as Regent for his young nephew, Affonso V, 1439-47. He took part in the campaign of Ceuta, 1415; advised vainly against the Tangier campaign of 1437; married his daughter Isabel to the King in 1447 (May); was worried into a semblance of rebellion, 1448-9, and was killed in a battle at the rivulet of Alfarrobeira, between Aljubarrota and Lisbon, in May 1449.

On his companion, the Count of Avranches ("Dabranxes" in Azurara), Santarem has a note remarking that he, D. Alvaro Vaz d'Almada, was [made a Count (of Avranches) in Normandy, by gift of the King of England (Henry V), after the battle of Azincourt, when he was also created a knight of the Order of the Garter.]

He was sometimes called, in the affected Renaissance fashion of the time, the "Spanish Hercules;" but he also had fallen into disfavour with Affonso V. He escaped from imprisonment at Cintra, joined D. Pedro in Coimbra (the latter's dukedom), and marched with him to his death (see Introduction to vol. ii, pp. xvi-xviii).]

[Endnote 34: (p. 19). _Order of Christ ... Mother-convent ... Sacred uses._--Prince Henry was Grand Master of the Order of Christ, founded by King Diniz in 1319, in place of the Templars, whose property in great measure it inherited (see Introduction to vol. ii, p. xviii-xix).

The mother-convent of the Order of Christ was at Thomar, in the (Portuguese) province of Estremadura, 45 kilometres N.N.E. of Santarem, or a little N.W. of Abrantes, and is noticeable for its sumptuous architecture. It was founded originally as a house of the Templars by Donna Theresa, mother of Affonso Henriques, first King of Portugal; it was enlarged and rebuilt in 1180 and 1320. At the latter date it passed, with the reconstitution of Diniz, from the Templars to the Order of Christ.]

[Endnote 35: (p. 19). _St. Mary of Belem ... Pombal ... Soure ... Chair of Theology ... St. Mary of Victory ... yearly revenue_ (and see next sentence of text).--This is the _locus classicus_ on the benefactions of the Prince (see Introduction to vol. ii, pp. cvi-cix).

St. Mary of Belem, "near the sea at Restello," a chapel where the Infant's mariners could pay their devotions the last thing before putting out to sea from Lisbon, or return thanks after a voyage, was superseded by the more sumptuous edifice of Kings Emanuel and John III, known as the Jeronymos, and named "the Lusiads in stone," which, with the exception of Batalha, is the noblest of Portuguese buildings. Da Gama, however, when starting for and returning from India, had only Prince Henry's little chapel available.

Pombal, in Estremadura, and Soure, in Beira, are both a little S.W. of Coimbra: Pombal being further in the direction of Leiria.]

[Endnote 36: (p. 20). _Ready to go to Ceuta ... desisted._--This abortive African expedition belongs to the reign of Affonso V, and apparently to the years immediately subsequent to the Tangier disaster of 1437 (see Introduction to vol. ii. pp. xvi-xvii).]

[Endnote 37: (p. 21). _The Infant's town ... So named ... by writing._--The settlement at Sagres. On this Santarem has the following notes:--

[α. We see by our author's account what was the state in 1453 of the town of which the Infant had laid the foundations in 1416, and to which at first was given the name of "Tercena Naval" (Naval Arsenal), from the Venetian word "Darcena," an arsenal for the construction and docking of galleys; it afterwards received the name of Villa do Infante (the Infant's town), and later on that of Sagres--derived from Sagro, Sacrum, the famous Promontorium Sacrum of the ancients, according to D. Francisco Manoel, _Epanaphoras_, p. 310. It should be noted that the celebrated Cadamosto, who had speech with the Infant in 1455, at Cape St. Vincent, does not give the name of the town, though he speaks of the interview which he had with him (Henry) at Rapozeira].

[β. In writing "Callez" for "Cadiz" in this paragraph, our author follows the corrupt nomenclature of the authors and MSS. of the Middle Ages, which altered the name of that city from the Gades of Pliny (v, 19), Macrobius, Silius Italicus (xvi, 468), Columella (viii, ch. xvi), a form more like the primitive Gadir (a hedge) in the Phœnician or Punic language. The corrupt terms Calles, Callis, etc., are, however, met with even in documents of the sixteenth century. See the letters of Vespucci in the edition of Gruninger (1509)].