The words “descobrimentos Henriquinos, ” meaning the discoveries commonly associated with Henry the Navigator, are used for the readers’ convenience, because the famous prince is considerably reduced in stature by Magalhães Godinho. He is somewhat deprived of his scholarly intellectual rating and loses rank as a crusader. Instead he becomes largely the spokesman of the new Portuguese nobility created after Aljubarrota by the prince’s father and brother, Kings João I and Duarte. This latter-day peerage, striving to acquire fiefs and having no chance to do so in small Portugal, strove with Henry’s help to remedy this lack in Morocco and adjacent lands. The new nobles supported such enterprises as the attacks on Ceuta and Tangier and opposed ventures south of Cape Bojador.

Magalhães distinguishes another line of Portuguese thought; that of the bourgeoisie merchants who disliked imperialism as such but welcomed distant exploration because of the trade opportunities it promised. He names Henry’s brother, Prince Pedro, as the champion of this point of view, a thesis suggested by the present reviewer in the HAHR. in 1948 and more fully enunciated by Francis Rogers in his recent Travels of the Infante Dom Pedro.

The belief that the Turkish capture of Constantinople had much bearing on the expansion of Portugal is knocked in the head again by Magalhães, who makes considerable use of the Lybyer thesis that the Ottoman threat had no noticeable effect on the prices of Asiatic products in Europe. Considerable emphasis is placed on the search for gold and other valuables that by the 15th century could be definitely located in the southern Sahara. The author doubts that in Henry’s time the idea of rounding Africa and reaching India existed in any clarified way.

There is no doubt in the reviewer’s mind that Magalhães is on the right track.