rt of
this kind was called a Portulano, as giving information of the
best routes from port to port, and Baron Nordenskiold has recently
shown how all these _portulani_ are derived from a single Catalan
map which has been lost, but must have been compiled between 1266
and 1291. And yet there were some of the learned who were not above
taking instruction from the practical knowledge of the seamen.
In 1339, one Angelico Dulcert, of Majorca, made an elaborate map
of the world on the principle of the portulano, giving the coast
line--at least of the Mediterranean--with remarkable accuracy. A
little later, in 1375, a Jew of the same island, named Cresquez,
made an improvement on this by introducing into the eastern parts
of the map the recently acquired knowledge of Cathay, or China,
due to the great traveller Marco Polo. His map (generally known as
the Catalan Map, from the language of the inscriptions plentifully
scattered over it) is divided into eight horizontal strips, and on
the preceding page will be found a reduced reproduction, showing how
very accurately the coast line of the Mediterranean was reproduced
in these portulanos.

With the portulanos, geographical knowledge once more came back to
the lines of progress, by reverting to the representation of fact,
and, by giving an accurate representation of the coast line, enabled
mariners to adventure more fearlessly and to return more safely,
while they gave the means for recording any further knowledge. As
we shall see, they aided Prince Henry the Navigator to start that
series of geographical investigation which led to the discoveries
that close the Middle Ages. With them we may fairly close the history
of mediaeval geography, so far as it professed to be a systematic
branch of knowledge.

We must now turn back and briefly sum up the additions to knowledge
made by travellers, pilgrims, and merchants, and recorded in literary
shape in the form of travels.

[_Authorities:_ Lelewel, _Geographie du Moyen Age_, 4 vols. and
atlas, 1852; C. R. Beazley, _Dawn of Geography_, 1897, and Introduction
to _Prince Henry the Navigator_, 1895; Nordenskiold, _Periplus_,
1897.]

CHAPTER IV

MEDIAEVAL TRAVELS

In the Middle Ages--that is, in the thousand years between the
irruption of the barbarians into the Roman Empire in the fifth
century and the discovery of the New World in the fifteenth--the
chief stages of history which affect the extension of men's knowledge
of t