Maritime Pride and Arrogance? The French-Portuguese Clashes and the Emergence of Notions of “National” Pride

The French-Portuguese maritime and overseas rivalry experienced several significant episodes during the 16th century. Prior to the major dispute between the French and the Portuguese in Brazil, known as France Antarctique (1555-1560), an earlier episode demonstrates the emerging feelings of nationhood alongside overseas voyages. In 1528-29, the Parmentier brothers, sponsored by the French ship owner and corsair Jean Ango (1480-1551), embarked on a French expedition to Asia. Their objective was to reach the Gold Islands, believed to be located in modern Indonesia. The voyage ended in disaster, with the two brothers dying and several Frenchmen being captured and imprisoned by the Portuguese. However, the French traveller and cosmographer Pierre Crignon (?-1540) survived and returned to Dieppe, where he attempted to persuade the French Crown to continue supporting overseas voyages in opposition to the Portuguese. In 1539, Crignon wrote in his famous work the Discours de la Navigation de Jean et Raoul Parmentier [see both illustrations], later reprinted in Italian by Giovanni Baptista Ramussio’s famous account, the following statement about the Portuguese:

Even though they [the Portuguese] are the smallest people in the world, it does not seem big enough to satisfy their greed. I think they must have drunk of the dust of King Alexander’s heart to be stirred by such inordinate ambition. They believe they hold in their clenched fist what they could not embrace with both hands. And I believe that they are convinced that God made the sea and the land for them alone and that the other nations are not worthy of sailing. Certainly, if it were in their power to close the seas from Cape Finisterre to Ireland, they would have done so long ago.

Crignon viewed the traditional Portuguese Mare Clausum rhetoric—particularly evident in the speeches of Portuguese diplomats in France, Spain, England, and Rome—as necessitating a clear public rebuttal. He found it absurd that “tiny” Portugal aspired to control all the seas, given the power of “larger” and “mighty” France. In making this claim, he acknowledged that Portugal was failing in this endeavor, a statement he believed to be accurate. Nonetheless, he also recognized that the Portuguese behaved in this manner because they perceived themselves as superior to the French, relying on their “superior” nautical science to build and sustain a global maritime empire that spanned the Americas, Africa, and Asia, thus encompassing the globe. Crignon regarded this Portuguese pride as excessive and their behavior as arrogantly overbearing.

The sense of “national” pride that Crignon identified in Portuguese behavior was something he explicitly sought to challenge. By writing in this manner, Crignon aimed to contribute to the development of French maritime pride. He was not alone in this endeavor in 16th century France. Similar processes of “national identity” formation, as a reaction to maritime and overseas rivalries with the Portuguese, also unfolded in Spain, England, and the Dutch Republic during the 16th century. These examples illuminate how overseas rivalries contributed to the gradual emergence of notions of the “nation-state” throughout the early modern period. [Nuno Vila-Santa]

No Country for Mercator’s Charts

It is well known that Mercator charts took a long time to become a common instrument in the nautical panoply of Early Modern pilots. Gerard Mercator (1512-1594) published his Ad Usum Navigatium—the earliest Mercator projection chart—in 1569, and Edward Wright (1561-1615) his Certain errors in Navigation—containing the relevant mathematical tools for constructing such charts—in 1599, but it was still almost two centuries before European Early Modern pilots decided that they were worth using. Cosmographers and mathematicians of the time blamed this decision on the conservatism and scientific illiteracy of the pilots, a representative case being that of the famous Royal Astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742). In the preface to his Atlas Maritimus et Commercialis (1728) one can read:

It is well known that many of our sailors, and some that would be accounted artists are at this day obstinate in the use of the Plain Chart […]. And many of our masters that teach navigation teach what they call plain sailing (and many times that only) to such as are designed to take charge of ships […]. And this they do for no other reason but because they think they can measure distances thereon by a scale of equal parts, rejecting the truly Nautical Chart, commonly called Mercator, because one single scale cannot be fitted to all its parts.

Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio
ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata, Gerard Mercator (1569)

Historians of navigation and nautical science have echoed such view on this issue until our days. The pilots’ decisions on which charts to use, however, have nothing to do with any kind of “conservatism” or “scientific obscurantism”, but with more complex particularities of their epistemological reality. Stay tuned for more news on this subject soon! [José María Moreno Madrid]

The Unexpected Role of a 16th-century Widow

In 1578, Diego Hernández underwent his pilot’s examination at the Casa de la Contratación in Seville. This otherwise mundane event deserves special attention because Hernández was originally from Tavira, Portugal. Within the context of a highly hierarchical and regulated institution, securing an examination for a foreigner aspiring to the position of pilot posed a formidable challenge. While it is important to note that this was not unprecedented, complications did arise due to the substantial responsibility associated with the role of a ship’s pilot.

Hernández requested to undergo a pilot examination at the Casa de la Contratación. In addition to meeting the standard requirements, he faced additional criteria due to his foreign status. He needed to substantiate, with witnesses, that he had been married to a Spanish woman for over fourteen years in a union recognized by the Church. Furthermore, he had to prove that they had resided in Spain throughout that period, thereby asserting his eligibility for the examination. Additionally, other witnesses were required to affirm their acquaintance with him since childhood, vouching for knowledge of his parents and grandparents. They were to confirm that these familial connections were legitimate, recognized by the Church as valid marriages, and that all involved were individuals of reputable conduct.

These were referred to as ”testimonios de naturaleza,” serving as evidence of the purity of the candidate’s lineage. Within the records and documents of these examinations, one can find the names of the witnesses, along with their occupations and places of origin. In this particular case, three testimonios de naturaleza were called:
The first was Juan López, seaman, from Tavira.
The second, Gómez Álvarez, sailor, from Tavira.
The third, Constança López, widow, from Tavira.

It’s intriguing to observe the inclusion of a woman among these witnesses, and particularly to note her occupation, which may appear unusual to those with a more anachronistic perspective. [Carmo Lacerda]

Have you ever thought about coconuts?

The work Asia written by the fifteenth-century chronist João de Barros can prove to be a mine of information. Not only does the reader come across stories about the Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean there, but also comments and descriptions of places and objects that caught the attention of the author. We mentioned chess some months ago, for example.

There is a chapter in the third Decade of Asia where Captain João Gomes is sent to the Maldives by the Governor Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. The episode gives João de Barros the opportunity to describe the islands and, this time, it is the palm trees that fascinate him – “not the ones that give dates, but rather a round fruit the size of a men’s head, which consist of two layers before one gets to its kernel. Just like chestnuts”.

Now, coconuts did not grow in Portugal. It is in fact unlikely that Portuguese people in general had been acquainted with them before sailors started moving down the West coast of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. That was probably the reason that led the chronist to dedicate nearly four pages to this fruit and the ways in which its parts could be used.

The work stars with the first external layer, which the book describes as apparently smooth. Once one gets past this smooth part, the pulp of the coconut is so fibrous that all of India uses ropes made with it. “Especially in sailing ropes, for the ones made with this thread are much safer and long-lasting at sea than any sort of flax.” The author then reminds us how Indian Ocean ships were not nailed, but sewn with such ropes.

The second inner layer is very hard. “It is the peel through which the fruit receives its vegetable nutriment. It has a sharp end, which wants to resemble a nose put in the middle of two eyes.” The description was alluding to what nowadays are called the two plugged and the one functional pore. According to the author, the Portuguese term “coco” to designate coconuts derives from this shape:

“[for] it is a name given by women to anything with which they want to scare the children. A name that stuck to [the fruit] to such an extent that no one knows of another. The one that the Malabari give it is Tenga and the Canarijs, Narle.”

Inside this second layer is the kernel. It is said to be “oilier than that of hazelnuts, inside of which there is very sweet water.” When coconuts start to germinate, they form a mass which the work claims to be thick as cream, soft and tasty. The author then concludes, as he approaches the end of his description:

“This round fruit and the palm tree which provides it seem to be among the most profitable things that God has given man, for both his substance and necessary use. Because, besides serving for that which we have already mentioned, from coconut are also made honey, vinegar, oil and wine. Besides, it is a very substantial provision in itself, mixed with rice, and by other ways the Indians serve it in their meals.”

The value attributed to coconuts nowadays has only increased, especially due to its nutritional health benefits. People around the Indian Ocean have used these fruits and explored the ways in which it could be used for centuries. When the Portuguese started sailing there, they started being disseminated worldwide via Europe. [Inês Bénard]

The Birth Date of Camões and the Eclipse of Science and Literature

The Mother of many waters, the Moon, standing between the Sun and the Earth, hindered the way of the light to the place where a woman was about to give birth to the Portuguese Bard, Luís Vaz de Camões (1524-1580). In the lunar shadow of the 23rd of January 1524, these luminaries aligned, a solar eclipse drew an astonishing ring of fire in the dim heavens, and Camões took his first breath on the planet he came to sing so remarkably. Unaware of the crown of literary glory that History of Literature would place upon him, given his eventful and somewhat star-crossed life, Camões wrote a biographical sonnet where the solar corona of this eclipse cast a darkness over him since the day he was born:

“Let the day I was born die and be gone
Forever from all time that is or was.
Let it never return or, if it does,
Let an eclipse bear down upon the sun.

Let it black out and light go on the run,
The world show signs of being about to die,
And monsters spawn and blood rain from the sky,
And mother be a stranger to her son.

Then let the people, ignorant and dazed,
Face pale in tears, ghastliness in the heart,
Reckon the world already come apart.

O timid creatures, do not be amazed
That this day of all days beheld the birth
Of the most cursèd wretch upon the earth.”

This mysterious day of light and shadow was elusive until Luciano Pereira da Silva’s historiographical gesture of searching for Camões’ specific date of birth in scientific early modern artifacts. In A Astronomia d’ Os Lusíadas (1915), Silva used early modern astronomical tables – such as those in the Almanach Perpetuum (1496), by Abraham Zacuto, and Cosmographia (1524), by Petrus Apianus – to unravel this biographical mystery. By listing the apparent positions of celestial bodies in the heavens at regular intervals, and the dates corresponding to the calculated positions of these bodies, these texts allowed astronomers to track the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets over time, and predict celestial events such as eclipses. By crossing the information in these texts with a hermeneutic analysis of the sonnet, these texts allow historians to answer old questions such as the date of birth of Camões.

Placing the gaze of historians of science on the flickering interstice between science and literature, the conjunct reading of scientific and literary texts gives access to ideas and ways of knowing the world of a given era. Five-hundred years after the birth of Camões, it is no mystery that his opus magnum, Os Lusíadas, displays a poetic image of the scientific idea of the “machine of the world”, the intricate celestial machinery that governs the movements of the heavenly bodies according to the Ptolemaic cosmology that was then accepted. An era when cosmology and poetry were equally good ways of making sense of the universe.

Five-hundred years after, it is time to celebrate the poet, the eclipse, and the historiographical light that shines when science and literature join forces. This longstanding relation between peers is sometimes overshadowed in History, and sometimes distorted by well-meaning but misguided attempts at restoring an essential connection. [Joana Lima]

Another Documental Surprise: A Portuguese Nautical Treatise at Greenwich

The British National Maritime Museum in Greenwich houses an important Portuguese nautical treatise from the late 16th century under the shelfmark NVT/7. It was acquired in 1933, as the final page indicates, but before its coming to the Museum it went through the hands of other owners. As the first page indicates, it was in the possession of the British historian Charles Boxer (1904-2000), who devoted several works to the Portuguese overseas empire in the early modern period. Prior to its acquisition by the Museum and by Boxer, the Portuguese historian Francisco Marques de Sousa Viterbo (1845-1910) had already described this manuscript in his famous work Trabalhos Naúticos dos Portugueses nos Séculos XV e XVI (The Nautical Works of the Portuguese in the 15th and 16th centuries). But, why is this particular manuscript worth mentioning?

© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

The manuscript is believed to be a copy of one of the most important works by the Jesuit Father Francisco da Costa (1567-1604), a highly influential figure in Portugal’s transition to the 17th century in terms of nautical matters. He was born in central Portugal in 1567 and studied at the Jesuit colleges of Coimbra and Lisbon in the 1580s. At the start of the 1590s, Costa’s scientific and intellectual skills in teaching nautical science were recognised, leading to his appointment as assistant professor to Father João Delgado, who held the influential “Aula da Esfera” (Chair of the Sphere) at the Jesuit college of Santo Antão in Lisbon. In 1602, two years before his death, Costa succeeded Father Delgado as the chair holder.

© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Perfectly aware of the need to train and teach Portuguese pilots in oceanic routes, especially in a challenging period when the Dutch, the English and the French started to launch serious overseas enterprises against the Portuguese Mare Clausum, Father Costa did more than simply give classes. Thinking on his students, he composed works on astrology, cosmology, cosmography, nautical science and mathematics. His Tratado da Hydrografia e Arte de Navegar (Treatise on Hydrography and Art of Navigation) written in the last years of the 16th century, is considered one of the most significant works of Portuguese nautical science. For the first time, Father Costa described, in Portuguese, how to build nautical charts and globes. It is precisely a copy of this original text that any researcher can check in the manuscript at Greenwich. Although, the manuscript’s elegant hand-writing suggests that it was commissioned by someone and copied during the 17th century from an original, it is still a very important version. It is worth comparing it with extant versions of Costa’s works held at the British Library and at the Portuguese Library of Ajuda. The Greenwich manuscript also includes in the end Costa’s translation of the Dutch Adriaen Veen’s treatise published just some years before Costa wrote his own work.

© National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Thus, Costa’s manuscript is a lively testimony of the intensity of nautical knowledge exchanges between Portugal and England, but also between Portugal and the Dutch Republic in the transition to the 17th century. [Nuno Vila-Santa]

The RUTTER team at the Medea-Chart exhibition “What is a nautical chart, really?”

Medea-Chart: The Medieval and Early Modern Nautical Chart: Birth, Evolution, and Use (ERC-2016-STG/714033) is a research project on the History of Nautical Cartography, funded by the European Research Council. The project started in June 2017 and ended in May 2022 under the lead of the Principal Investigator Dr Joaquim Alves Gaspar at the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT), Faculty of Science of the Universidade de Lisboa.

Medea Chart addressed longstanding inquiries that have baffled cartographic historians for an extended period, employing innovative approaches such as cartometric analysis, numerical modelling, and multispectral analysis of manuscript charts. These questions revolve around the origin, technological progression, and usage of nautical charts in the Middle Ages and Early Modern era. More details about the project and its notable results can be found on their dedicated website. In particular, we strongly suggest having a look at the MEDEA-CHART Database, an online free-of-charge information system dedicated to old nautical charts.

On 15th December, the RUTTER team had the pleasure of attending a tour to the Medea-Chart final exhibition at the Instituto Hidrográfico da Marinha. The thought-provoking title “What is a nautical chart really?” concisely captures the essence of the exhibition hosted in one of the most beautiful spaces in Lisbon, the Convento das Trinas do Mocambo. This architectural conventual gem, echoing a sense of distant lands, transforms the exposition into an engaging interpretative journey. The exposition aims to address and successfully answer technical questions about the production of nautical charts, exploring their evolution with the emergence of oceanic astronomic navigation. Additionally, it provides intricate insights into the sophisticated art of chart-making, delving into the roles of a diverse community of practitioners —pilots, cartographers, and cosmographers— in resolving the inconsistencies found in medieval charts. This evolution is vividly brought to life through captivating representations that guide the visitors. The journey culminates in a practical demonstration of the MEDEA CHART database's functionality—an unparalleled repository of nautical charts worldwide.

We warmly thank Joaquim Gaspar, Šima Krtalić and Bruno Almeida for the explanations and hope that the exhibition will find another location in the next future! [Silvana Munzi & Luana Giurgevich]