eographical development of Europe and
Christendom down to the end of Prince Henry's age. These are, it is
believed, the first English reproductions in any accessible form of
several of the great charts of the Middle Ages, and taken together they
will give, it is hoped, the best view of Western or Christian map-making
before the time of Columbus that is to be found in any English book,
outside the great historical atlases.

In the same way the text of this volume, especially in the earlier
chapters, tries to supply a want--which is believed to exist--of a
connected account from the originals known to us, of the expansion of
Europe through geographical enterprise, from the conversion of the
Empire to the period of those discoveries which mark most clearly the
transition from the Middle Ages to the Modern World.

* * * * *

The chief authorities have been:

For the Introductory chapter: (1) Reinaud's account of the Arabic
geographers and their theories in connection with the Greek, in his
edition of Abulfeda, Paris, 1848; (2) Sprenger's Massoudy, 1841; (3)
Edrisi, translated by Amedee Jaubert; (4) Ibn-Batuta (abridgment),
translated by S. Lee, London, 1829; (5) Abulfeda, edited and translated
by Reinaud; (6) Abyrouny's _India_, specially chapters i., 10-14; xvii.,
18-31; (7) texts of Strabo and Ptolemy; (8) Wappaeus' _Heinrich der
Seefahrer_, part 1.

I. For Chapter I. (Early Christian Pilgrims): (1) _Itinera et
Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae_, vols. i. and ii., published by the Societe
de l'Orient, Latin, Geneva, 1877 and 1885, which give the original texts
of nearly all the Palestine Pilgrims' memoirs to the death of Bernard
the Wise; (2) the Publications of the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society;
(3) Thomas Wright's _Early Travels in Palestine_ (Bohn); (4) Avezac's
_Recueil pour Servir a l'histoire de la geographie_; (5) some recent
German studies on the early pilgrim records, _e.g._, Gildemeister on
Antoninus of Placentia.

II. For Chapter II. (The Vikings): (1) Snorro Sturleson's _Heimskringla_
or Sagas of the Norse Kings; (2) Dozy's essays; (3) the, possibly
spurious, _Voyages of the Zeni_, with the Journey of Ivan Bardsen, in
the Hakluyt Society's Publications.

III. For Chapter III. (The Crusades and Land Travel): (1) Publication of
the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society; (2) Avezac's edition of the
originals in his _Recueil pour Sevir a l'histoire de la geographie_; (3)
Yule's _Ca