Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

19. See Tryggi J. Oleson, Early Voyages and Northern Approaches 1000–1632, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press/McClelland Stewart, 1964, pages 100ff, for other ‘mythical’ voyages.

20. Noble Wilford, Op. cit., page 38.

21. Parker, Op. cit., page 62.

22. Ibid., page 63.

23. Oleson, Op. cit., page 101, says that Brendan ‘probably’ reached the St Lawrence.

24. Ibid., chapter 6, for the Skraelings. Phillips, The Medieval Expansion of Europe, Op. cit., pages 166–179, for the medieval discovery of America. The Vinland Map, at Yale University, purportedly made about 1440, but very probably a forgery, shows that these ‘western isles’ were still (fairly accurately) in the mind of the mapmaker and that they constituted a traditional part of the idea of the north Atlantic.

25. Parker, Op. cit., page 83. Phillips, Op. cit., page 192 for the Prester John/Alexander the Great legend.

26. Bodmer, Op. cit., pages 13–14. And Phillips, Op. cit., page 69.

27. Parker, Op. cit., page 89.

28. Bodmer, Op. cit., page 15.

29. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 188, for Polo’s other (Christian) adventures.

30. Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986/1989. Phillips, Op. cit., page 113, for Rustichello of Pisa.

31. Flint, Op. cit., page 3.

32. Ibid., page 7.

33. This position also implied an arduous uphill journey to reach it, which accorded well with the moral preoccupations of the time.

34. Flint, Op. cit., page 9.

35. Ibid., page 10.

36. Ibid., page 26.

37. Ibid., page 36.

38. Bodmer, Op. cit., page 13.

39. Flint, Op. cit., page 40 and ref. Samuel Morison, Christopher Columbus: Mariner, maps by Erwin Raisz, London: Faber, 1956, page 103.

40. Flint, Op. cit., page 42.

41. Bodmer, Op. cit., page 15.

42. Flint, Op. cit., page 53.

43. He would actually set up a council to govern the first island he discovered, based on his reading. Joachim G. Leithäuser, World Beyond the Horizon, translated by Hugh Merrick, New York: Knopf, 1955, page 73.

44. Ibid., page 44.

45. Bodmer, Op. cit., chapter 4, which includes a discussion of ‘models’, ways to understand the new world and its social arrangements.

46. Flint, Op. cit., page 95.

47. Ibid., page 96.

48. J. D. Bernal, The Extension of Man: The History of Physics Before the Modern Age, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1954, pages 124–127.

49. J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1963, pages 100ff. See also: Edson, Op. cit., especially chapter 1; and Noble Wilford, Op. cit., chapters 4 and 5, pages 34–72.

50. Parry, Op. cit., page 103.

51. Ibid., page 105.

52. Ibid., page 106.

53. Noble Wilford, Op. cit., pages 71ff.

54. Parry, Op. cit., page 112.

55. Noble Wilford, Op. cit., page 75.

56. At night the so-called ‘guards’ of the Pole Star describe a complete circle around the pole every twenty-four hours. ‘A nocturnal’ consisted of a circular disc with a central hole for sighting Polaris and a rotating pointer to be aligned on Kochab. Around the edge of the disc were a series of marks indicating the angle for midnight on various dates of the year. This gave a crude measure of midnight for every day of the year. Noble Wilford, Op. cit., page 77.

57. Ibid., page 79.

58. Ibid., page 82.

59. Tidal races were also much more important in the Atlantic, where the tides rose and fell many feet, than in the Mediterranean, where they did not, and where the only dangerous tidal race was in the Straits of Messina. The relation of the tides to the moon now came into sharper focus, since they often affected access to Atlantic ports. Noble Wilford, Op. cit., page 85.

60. Parry, Op. cit., page 98. Phillips, Op. cit., page 194, for the implications of the disappearance of the Pole Star.

61. Parry, Op. cit., page 63.

62. Ibid.

63. For a vivid description of travel aboard a galley see: Chatterton, Op. cit., page 139.

64. Parry, Op. cit., page 58. See Chatterton, Op. cit., page 144, for a description of the development of lateen rigging and the highpoint of its use at the battle of Lepanto in 1571. The format allowed a ship to sail ‘two points nearer the wind’. And see the illustration facing page 142.

65. Ronald J. Watkins, Unknown Seas: How Vasco da Gama Opened the East, London: John Murray, 2003, page 118.

66. Parry, Op. cit., page 140.