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 mediæval 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, _Géographie 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

MEDIÆVAL 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