Before Columbus Exploration and Colonisation from the

Mediterranean to the Atlantic 1229-1492

NEW STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL HISTORY

General Editor: Maurice Keen

Chris Wickham, Ear{)' Medieval Ita{)':

Central Power and Local Society 400-1 ()()()

J. K. Hyde, Society and Politics in Medieval Ita{)':

The Evolution of the Civil Life 1000-1350

Roger Collins, Ear{)' Medieval Spain:

Unity in Diversity 400-1()()()

Angus McKay, Spain in the Middle Ages:

From Frontier to Empire 1000-1500

Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades:

The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier 1100-1525

Edward james, The Origins of France:

From Clovis to the Capetians 500-1()()()

Henrietta Leyser, Hermits and the New Monasticism:

A Stut{y of Religious Communities in Western

Europe 1000-1150

Michael Haren, Medieval Thought:

The Western Intellectual Tradition from Antiquity

to the Thirteenth Century

Lynette R. Muir, Literature and Society in Medieval France:

The Mirror and the Image 1100-1500

Felipe Femandez-Armesto, Before Columbus:

Exploration and Colonisation from the

Mediterranean to the Atlantic 1229-1492

Others titles are in preparation

Before Columbus Exploration and Colonisation from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic 1229-1492

FELIPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO

New Studies in Medieval History

MAURICE KEEN

M MACMILLAN EDUCATION

© Felipe Fernandez-Annesto 1987 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1 st edition 1987 978-0-333-40382-2

All rights reserved_ No reproduction, copy or transmission

of this publication may be made without written permission.

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or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

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civil claims for damages.

First published 1987

Published by

MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS

and London

Companies and representatives

throughout the world

Typeset by Wessex Typesetters

(Division of The Eastern Press Ltd)

Frome, Somerset

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe

Before Columbus: exploration and

colonisation from the Mediterranean to the

Atlantic, 1229-1492. - (New studies in

medieval history)

I. Colonization - History

I. Title II. Series

909 JVI15

ISBN 978-0-333-40383-9 ISBN 978-1-349-18856-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-18856-7

Contents

Preface A Note on Names List of Maps INTRODUCTION

Problems and Approaches

PART ONE: FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN

Vll

ix X

THE IsLAND CoNQUEsTs oF THE HousE oF BARCELONA 11 Majorca, 'The Kingdom in the Sea' 13 lbiza and Formentera 31 'Proceeding Eastwards': Minorca and Sardinia 33 Aragon's Dynastic 'Empire' 41

2 THE FIRST 'ATLANTIC' EMPIRE: ANDALUSIA AND ITS ENVIRONS 43 The Conquest of Upper Andalusia 45 The Conquest of Seville 51 The Fate of the Moors 55 The Nature of Settlement 60

3 A MEDITERRANEAN LAND EMPIRE: SHARQ AL ANDALUS 70 Valencia and Northern Murcia: Conquest and Division 72 Colonial Society in Valencia 84 Southern Murcia 89 An Imperial Formation 93

4 THE GENOESE MEDITERRANEAN 96 The 'Absence' of the State 97 The Sovereign Colonies 101 'Ambivalence': Typical Genoese Colonisation and Trade 105 The Transmission of Genoese Influence 116

5 THE RIM OF AFRICA 121 The Condition of the Maghrib 121 The Aragonese Protectorate 126 The Merchant Colonists 134 The Lure of the Gold Trade 140

Vl CONTENTS

PART TWO: ... TO THE ATLANTIC

6 MAPPING THE EASTERN ATLANTIC 151 The Early Phases of Atlantic Navigation 151 The Exploration of the Canaries 153 The Mapping of the Archipelagoes 159 The 'Unknown Pilots' 166

7 THE ATLANTIC CRUCIBLE 169 Fourteenth-century Beginnings 171 Bethencourt, La Salle and the Peraza 175 The Islands of the Infantes 185 The Rounding of Africa's Bulge 192 The Portuguese Colonies 195

8 FROM THE CANARIES TO THE NEW WORLD 203 The Context of Columbus 203 The Last Canarian Conquests 207 Granada, the Canaries and America 212 The 'Rise' of Portugal and Castile 217

9 THE MENTAL HoRIZON 223 The 'Discovery of Man' 223 The Image of the World 245

References 253 Further Reading 267 Index 276

Preface

Nowadays there are international conferences on Mediterranean history, and in the University of Oxford, in very recent years, seminars have been dedicated to it. 'Atlantic studies' have spawned books and articles with increasing frequency for nearly 40 years and, since 1955, a distinguished Spanish periodical has been devoted to them. This book is an attempt to explore some of the more promising possible connections between the two subjects. Part One gives an account of late medieval theatres of expansion in the western Mediterranean. Part Two sketches the beginnings of exploration and colonisation in the Atlantic. Throughout, the main quest is for elements of continuity or discontinuity between the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds and for approaches to an answer to Horace's question:

... quid terras alio calentis sole mutamus?

- which I would paraphrase, 'Why do some of us bother with alien climes?' At the cost of some cross-references and summary repetitions, I have tried to make each chapter .independent of the others, as many readers find this convenient. A few pages of introduction are devoted to a conspectus of the problems which afflict students and absorb historians. Conclusions, which are intended to address these problems, are advanced chapter by chapter, as I go along. If I try to suggest new arguments wherever they occur to me, this is not out of contrariness or 'revisionism' but simply because, in an adult life largely given to teaching, I have come to value books which seek to be stimulating at the risk of being wrong. In any case, I like the subject too much to see it fossilised in rocks of orthodoxy.

Much of the material, including the whole of Chapter 9, was accumulated with the aid of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship: I take pleasure and pride in acknowledging the kindness of the Trustees. A travel grant from the Trustees of the Arnold Historical Essay Fund allowed me to do some research in the Canary Islands. Chapter 5 is based on lectures given in the Modern History Faculty

vii

Vlll PREFACE

of the University of Oxford in 1984 and Chapter 6 on a lecture to the External Studies Department of the University of Manchester in the same year. I am grateful for these opportunities and sources of stimulation. The book in its present form was the work of the vacations of 1985 and the spring and early summer of 1986. The unerring eye of Mr Christopher Butcher saved me from many infelicities of style, the careful scrutiny of Dr Maurice Keen from errors of fact and judgement. To the wise talk and scholarly examples of Professors Edmund Fryde and Peter Russell the book owes more, I fear, than they may care to acknowledge. Defects of my own devising remain. I owe a further debt to the Warden and Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford, who have let me pursue a subject only marginally relevant to the collective interests of the College, and who, with the other members and staff, make it an ideal place for learning and teaching.

F.F.-A. Oxford, 7 July 1986

A Note on Names

For personal names transliterated from Arabic, I followed standard practice, but place names follow the guidelines of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names: this results in some inconsistencies, but enables readers to check the places named in a widely available and comprehensive gazetteer. Where other forms are current in books in English, I give them in brackets at the first mention of the place concerned.

Other names are given in English wherever there is a well­established form, but otherwise in the national language. I make an exception in the case of the Infante Dom Henrique of Portugal for reasons explained on p.l85. The names of monarchs of the House of Barcelona are given in Aragonese (and here I prefer the form, 'Jaime' to the archaising 'Jayme') if they were kings of Aragon, or in Catalan if only kings of Majorca, or in Italian if only kings of Sicily. This has the merit, for instance, of distinguishing Jaime II of Aragon from J aume II of Majorca. Catalan place names are given in Castilian, where well-established equivalents exist (e.g. Lt~rida, Gerona) in the absence of established English forms, because this is the practice of most atlases which readers are likely to consult.

ix

List of Maps

Map 1 The Balearics, Sardinia, Corsica and the Catalo-Proven<;al and North-West Italian Coasts 10

Map 2 Majorca 20 Map 3 Andalusia 44 Map 4 Valencia and Northern Murcia 71 Map 5 North-West Africa and the Canary Islands 122 Map 6 West Africa and Cape Verde 145

X