Iberian Conquest : 133 



the Crusades, Europe had been extending its geographic knowledge. 

 Part of this knowledge was due to the Crusades themselves that had 

 brought both the royal leaders of the Crusades and many common 

 people in touch with powerful and far-reaching organizations of 

 Islam. 



Part of the knowledge had come because Europe had for centuries 

 been surrounded by powerful Asiatic empires. The great growth of 

 the Mongol Empire had brought to northern and eastern Europe a 

 terrifying realization of the strength and danger that lay in the Ori- 

 ent. Travelers like Carpini, Rubruck and Marco Polo, as well as other 

 priests, missionaries and traders had from time to time lifted the cur- 

 tain on the vast drama of Far Eastern civilization. Despite the wars 

 and the conquests and the difference of philosophies and ethnic hos- 

 tilities, articles of trade such as spices, drugs, silks and other textiles 

 continued to flow into Europe from the Orient. The channels by 

 which they flowed were both northern and southern land routes 

 across Asia and also by sea through the Near East and into the Med- 

 iterranean. When the Mongol Empire broke up into a number of 

 independent states, the Ottoman Empire arose as another hostile 

 threat to Europe. Trade was interrupted but it did not cease. The 

 trouble was that it was carried out with irregularity, with great risk 

 and with interposition of countless intermediary agencies, all of 

 which resulted in multiple charges and high cost. The parts of 

 Europe that chiefly received and benefited by this trade were the east- 

 ern European countries nearest to the trade routes and city-states in 

 the Mediterranean, such as Venice and Genoa. The last European 

 nations to be reached by such a flow of trade were Spain and Portu- 

 gal and Spain was relatively cut off from the rest of Europe and Por- 

 tugal was cut off from Spain. In addition both countries, while they 

 may have gained in knowledge, had suffered in national pride under 

 the Moorish rule from which they had only gradually Uberated them- 

 selves. 



Perhaps in such a position it was natural and inevitable that they 

 should begin to look to the ocean. The trouble was that the knowl- 

 edge of their time told them that the Atlantic Ocean, which they 

 fronted, was at its best void and profitless and at its worst full of 

 mythical shapes and unknown dangers. 



Ignoring for the moment prehistoric travel, for at least 600 years 

 of the historic period the northern sailors had been fearlessly crossing 

 seas and oceans. The Irish monks had sailed to Iceland. The Norse 

 had traveled quite regularly between the Scandinavian countries and 



