Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/444

 394 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE peans until the nineteenth century. He left Venice with his father and uncle in 127 1 and did not return until 1295. Three years later he was captured by the Genoese in a sea fight and while in prison dictated the story of his travels. In 1291 John of Monte Corvino went as a missionary to India, whence he sent back a description of the Deccan, or southern part of the peninsula, and its people. He then proceeded to China of which the pope made him archbishop and sent others out to serve under him. He died in 1328, "not only the first but also seemingly the last effective European bishop in the Peking of the Middle Ages." Other envoys, missionaries, and traders penetrated yet other parts of Asia and have left records of their travels. Besides this overland penetration of the vast continent of Asia, there were westward voyages of discovery to the Westward Canary, Madeira, and Azores Islands, and other Ho! voyages along the west coast of Africa in an effort to circumnavigate that continent and so reach the Indies. Deep-sea sailing had been assisted by the invention of the mariner's compass. We are apt to associate such enter- prises with the later period of Prince Henry the Navigator and of Columbus, but the age of discovery had really begun by the late thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth century. Indeed, Edrisi tells us of eight explorers who sailed west from Lisbon in the early twelfth century in a vain effort to find the limits of the western ocean. About 1270 Lancelot Malocello went with Genoese vessels to the Cana- ries, and in 1291 two Genoese galleys tried to establish a direct sea trade with India by circumnavigating Africa, but never returned. In 1341 a Portuguese fleet explored the Canaries and found only natives there. But a Spanish geography written at about the same time lists the Madeiras, nine of the Canaries, and eight of the Azores, while a map of 1 35 1 indicates accurately the location and contours of the three groups. Apparently they had been known for some time. Yet the Azores are seven hundred and fifty miles from the nearest point on the Portuguese coast, and one third of the way from Gibraltar to New York on a modem .