What Stimulated The European Explorations?
by Prior to age of exploration and discovery, Europeans had scant knowledge about the great globe on which they lived. China and Japan, which few European merchants traded, were like a far-off dreamed land. The Atlantic Ocean had no known boundary on the west, and Africa stretched on southward beyond all human knowledge.
Late in the 13th century, Europe was partly awakened by the book of the Italian traveler Marco Polo. As a boy, Marco Polo had accompanied his father to the kingdom of Cathay (China), where they stayed for more than 20 years. On his return to Europe, he wrote a book describing the wonders of the Far East. Marco Polo’s book aroused the Europeans into studying geography and exploring the unknown.
Tin the 15th and 16th centuries, a combination of factors awakened the desire of the Europeans to explore and discover new lands beyond the seas
Scientific and technological improvements stimulated exploration. In this period, an instrument known as the astrolabe enabled European sea pilots to find the relative height of stars and thus determine a ship’s latitude. The ancient Greeks had developed the concept of the astrolabe, and the Arabs had known its value for centuries.
The adoption in the West of the magnetic compass, which had been invented by the Chinese as early as the 11th century, enabled navigators to keep their ships on course without the aid of the sun or stars.
The improvement on ship building design solved the inadequacy of medieval ships for long voyages. By the mid-1400’s, the Spaniards and the Portuguese had developed three-masted sailing ships that were capable of surviving the high seas for long periods of time.
The Renaissance, being a period of fresh ideas, new attitudes, and creative activity, radiacally changed the European life following the Middle Ages. The Renaissance spirit awakened an intense curiosity about other lands and other peoples. This, in turn, stimulated overseas exploration.
Fierce competition between new nations and the Italian cities spurred the former to seek alternative sea routes by exploration, since the Italian cities already dominated overland commerce with the East. Portugal, Spain, England, France and the Netherlands soon competed with the one another for the rich markets and resources of foreign lands.
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