ABSTRACT
The process by which European countries explored and claimed lands in other continents began during the period of the Renaissance and the two movements have been associated by many historians (for example, J.R.Hale (1)). There are obvious links to be made between the spirit of curiosity and questioning which animated the thinkers of the Renaissance and the journeys of travellers to distant parts of the world. Exploration was stimulated by the discovery and interpretation of classical texts about the world. The new scientific ideas of the Renaissance informed and were affected by these explorations, and the doubts already expressed about the teachings of the Church were strengthened when the world patently was not as those teachings had always claimed. At the same time, however, the Catholic Church used the new lands as an opportunity to rejuvenate their message. One of the important developments of the Catholic Reformation, the formation of the Society of Jesus, was the result of St Ignatius Loyola’s determination to convert all the nations of the world. New economic and political developments, and the status of rulers, were also affected by the amount of territory they held or claimed, whether far away or not, as can be seen in the extraordinary rise of Portugal. While these links are clear, at the same time, the voyages of exploration were the product of much older processes, and arose from motives which do not share the supposed values of the Renaissance.
