ABSTRACT
I t is a co mmonplace that the 'closure' of the eaStern l\'lediterranea.n world in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in due course provided the stimulus for the opening up of other frontiers, eventually resulting in the spectacular 'discovery' of the New World in 1492. This is almost by definition an economic interpretation, yet it is dear from the history of the explorations and discoveries that political interest and will was also necessary if they were to be translated into something permanent. Long-distance travel and exploration were hardly new phenomena; Vikings had reached North America centuries before (though colonies were not sustained beyond Greenland), while the many eastward journeys of Italian and other merchants and missionaries, epitomised above all in the Trll/lt/s of Atilt'(() Polo, are ample evidence of curiosity and appetite for trade and souls. Nor were such activities limited to particular countries; the Atlantic, indeed, was being explored, fished and colonised by Danes, Icelanders, Basques, Castilians, Portuguese, English, Flemish and French, sometimes in co-operation and often with multinational financial support. The tnmsformation of this free-for-all into a world of imperial powers had a more than purely economic explanation. This chapter focuses on the country whose initiatives were to prepare the world for the idea of maritime empires based in the Atlantic, even if like so many pioneers it was not destined to become the greatest beneficiary of that effort.
