Prince Henry the Navigator (4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), was a Portuguese prince, a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and often credited as one of the main initiators of the Age of Discovery. Henry was the third child of King John I of Portugal, who founded the House of Aviz.Ivana Elbl, "Man of His Time (and Peers): A New Look at Henry the Navigator." Luso-Brazilian Review 28.2 (1991): 73–89.
Utilising the new caravel ship, Henry directed 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 supported his father in the 1415 conquest of Ceuta, a Muslim port on the North African coast across the Straits of Gibraltar from the Iberian Peninsula. Regarded as the patron of Portuguese discoveries, he died on 13 November 1460 in Vila do Bispo in the Algarve.
Early life
Henry was the third surviving son of King John I and his wife Philippa, sister of King Henry IV of England. He 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.Bradford, 1960.
As early as 1410 or 1412, Henry had commissioned his captains to explore the coasts beyond Cape Non, which was considered the limit of the known and charted world in Europe together with Cape Bojador.Beazley, 1923, pp. 147-148. Little is known of these expeditions, however.
The conquest of Ceuta, 1415
Henry was 21 when he participated in an expedition to capture the Moorish port city of Ceuta in northern Morocco. Henry was made responsible for recruiting troops and ships in northern Portugal and assemble them at Porto before joining the main fleet en route to Ceuta. At Ceuta, he anchored his ships off the lower part of the town, and on the 15th of August king John rowed through the fleet to inspect it as the attack was to take place the following morning.Beazley, 1923, p. 151. Henry was said to have claimed and been granted the right to be the first to land. The quays were expected to be devoid of defenders as the main force would be brought up against the citadel to divert the defenders.
The following morning a number of volunteers rushed ashore, one Ruy Gonçalves being recorded as the first to land, and Henry followed along with Edward. After a struggle the Muslims were driven from the landing grounds to the city walls. The Portuguese breached into Ceuta but Henry did not allow his squadron of men to rush inside.Beazley, 1923, p. 152. He kept them by the gates and sent for reinforcements, which were quickly brought up led by Fernandes de Ataíde, who cheered them on. He advanced into urban combat in narrow streets, but eventually the Muslims were routed. The Portuguese scattered for plunder, risked losing the city in a counterattack. Henry's squadron broke a Muslim rally twice, and with seventeen men held a gate on the inner wall between the lower town and the high citadel. Contact was lost between Henry, Peter and the main Portuguese force, and they were reported dead to King John I, though both were found alive towards the evening. Henry held a council with his brothers Edward and Peter, all deciding to assault the citadel the following morning, but after sunset scouts reported that almost all defenders had already evacuated, and the citadel surrendered.C. Raymond Beazley: Prince Henry the Navigator, 1923, London & New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, p. 153.
Henry was knighted at Ceuta along with his two brothers by King John, who also made them dukes, the first time this title was employed in Portugal.Frederick Charles Danvers: The Portuguese in India, volume I, 1894, London: W. H. Allen & Co. Limited, p. 19. Henry was made Duke of Viseu, appointed governor of the Order of Christ, and made responsible for the provisioning of the newly captured city. Henry became renowned throughout Europe after the capture of Ceuta, and he was invited by the Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor and the kings of Castile and England to command their armies.
Following this success, in 1416 Prince Peter left for a grand tour across Europe, and his travels were instrumental in stimulating the efforts of his brother Henry.Danvers, 1894, p. 20. His first destination was the Holy Land. From there Pedro proceeded to the Ottoman court, Babylon, where he was afforded a grand reception, and from there moved on to Rome, where he met Pope Martin V. He also visited Hungary, Denmark and Venice, where he was gifted by the republic a copy of the Travels of Marco Polo, together with a map thought to have been made by Polo himself. He then travelled to England, where he was elected Knight of the Garter on the 22nd of April 1427, and returned to Portugal the following year.
Relief of Ceuta, 1418
Three years after the conquest of Ceuta, the emir of Granada and the sultan of Fez joined forces to besiege Ceuta by land and sea.Beazley, 1923, pp. 155-156. The ruler of Granada sent seventy four ships, while the forces of Fez managed to breach into the lower town. The governor of Ceuta Dom Pedro de Meneses dispatched to Portugal a request for aid and Henry was sent to organize a relief expedition from Lisbon, while Edward and Pedro prepared to follow him from Lagos and the rest of the Algarve if need be. The Muslims secured Almina while the galleys of Granada closed in upon the port in the meantime. As the relief fleet commanded by Henry crossed the Straits of Gibraltar it received news of the dire situation in the city. However the sight of the approaching fleet caused panic among the besiegers and by the time it finally reached Ceuta most of the Muslims had already withdrawn.
Henry remained at Ceuta with his forces for two months.Beazley, 1923, p. 156. While there he planned an attack on Gibraltar on the way to Portugal, but a storm scattered the fleet and the attack was called off. Both expeditions to Ceuta in 1415 and 1418 allowed Henry to gather intelligence on the lands to the south, obtained mainly from Muslim prisoners.Beazley, 1923, pp. 157-158. They included "news of the passage of merchants from the coasts of Tunis to Timbuctoo and to Cantor on the Gambia, which inspired him to seek the lands by the way of the sea" but also information of "certain tall palms growing at the mouth of the Senegal", obtained from Sanhaja, referred to as "tawny moors" or Azenegues by the Portuguese.
In 1419, Henry's father appointed him governor of the province of the Algarve.
Resources and income
On May 25, 1420, Henry gained appointment as the administrator of the Order of Christ, the Portuguese successor to the Knights Templar, which had its headquarters at Tomar in central Portugal.Prestage, Edgar. "Prince Henry the Navigator." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 23 May 2015 Henry held this position for the remainder of his life, and the Order was an important source of funds for his ambitious plans, especially his persistent attempts to conquer the Canary Islands, which the Portuguese had claimed to have discovered before the year 1346.
Prince Peter, Duke of Coimbra, had set out on a diplomatic tour of Europe, with an additional charge from Henry to seek out geographic material. Peter returned in 1426 with a 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 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 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 was the main organizer of the disastrous expedition to Tangier in 1437 against Salah Ben Salah, which ended in Henry's younger brother Ferdinand being given as hostage to guarantee Portuguese promises in 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. 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.
Vila do Infante and Portuguese exploration
According to João de Barros, in Algarve, Prince Henry 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 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.Randles, 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.
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."Mark, Hans. "Henry the Navigator and the Early Days of Exploration", American Association for the Advancement of Science, Annual meeting, February 1992
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., p. 52 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 the latter at the Prince's court "probably accounts for the legend of the School of Sagres, which is now discredited."
Henry's explorations
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 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. A companion to the PBS Series The Genius That Was China Above all, it was highly maneuverable and could sail "into the wind", making it largely independent of 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.