A Little History of the World (29 page)

This is why the German emperor who was ruling around 1500 is known as the Last Knight. His name was Maximilian, and he was a member of the Habsburg family, whose might and wealth had grown steadily since the time of King Rudolf. Since 1438 their power had spread beyond their own country of Austria, and such was their influence that all the German emperors who had been elected since then had been Habsburgs. Nevertheless, the German noblemen and princes gave most of them a good deal of trouble, and Maximilian the Last Knight was no exception. They exercised almost unlimited power over their fiefdoms and had become increasingly reluctant to accompany their emperor into battle when he commanded them to do so.

With the arrival of money and cities and gunpowder, the granting of land with bonded peasants in return for military service had become as outdated as chivalry. Which is why, when Maximilian went to fight the French king for his Italian possessions, he took paid soldiers instead of his vassals. Soldiers like these were called mercenaries. They were rough, rapacious brutes who strutted about in outlandish costumes and thought of little but plunder. And since they fought for money rather than for their country, they went to the person who paid them most. This cost the emperor a great deal of money that he didn’t have, so he was forced to borrow from rich merchants in the towns. And this in its turn meant that he had to keep on good terms with the towns, which upset the knights who felt increasingly unwanted and unneeded.

Such problems gave Maximilian a headache. Like the knights of old he would far rather have ridden in tournaments and composed fine verses about his adventures to present to his beloved. He was a strange mixture of the old and the new. For he was very taken with the new art, and was always asking the great German painter, Albrecht Dürer – who had learnt a lot from the Italians, but had taught himself even more – to make paintings and engravings in his honour. Through these wonderful portrait paintings by the first of the new German artists, we can actually see what the Last Knight looked like. These works, together with the paintings and buildings of the great Italian artists, are in fact the ‘heralds’ who cried: ‘Attention please! A new age has begun!’ And if we called the Middle Ages a starry night, we should look upon this new, wide-awake time, which began in Florence, as a bright, new dawn.

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What until now we have called the history of the world is in fact the history of no more than half the world. Most of the events took place around the Mediterranean – in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Spain and North Africa. Or not far from there: in Germany, France and England. We have cast the odd glance eastwards, towards China’s well-defended empire, and towards India, which, during the period that now concerns us, was ruled by a Muslim royal family. But we haven’t bothered with what lies to the west of old Europe, beyond Britain. No one bothered with it. A handful of northern seafarers on their raids once glimpsed an inhospitable land, far out in the west, but they soon turned back, for there was nothing there worth taking. Intrepid mariners like the Vikings were few, and in any case, who would dare set out across the unknown, and possibly never-ending ocean, leaving behind them the coasts of England, France and Spain?

This hazardous enterprise only became possible with a new invention. This, too – and I nearly added ‘of course’! – came from China. It was the discovery that a piece of magnetised iron hanging freely always turns towards the north. You will have guessed what it is: a compass. The Chinese had long used compasses in their journeys across deserts, and now news of this magical instrument leaked out via the Arabs and eventually reached Europe during the Crusades, in about 1200. But at that time the compass was rarely used. People were puzzled and frightened by it. But gradually their fear gave way to curiosity – and something more than curiosity. For in those far-off lands there might be treasures, undiscovered riches there for the taking. Yet no one dared set out across the western ocean. It was too immense and too unknown. And what might lie on the other side?

It so happened that a penniless but adventurous and ambitious Italian from Genoa, called Columbus, who had spent much time poring over ancient books of geography, was obsessed with this idea. Where indeed might you end up if you kept on sailing westwards? Why, you would end up in the east! For wasn’t the earth round, shaped like a sphere? It said so in several of the writings of antiquity. And if by sailing westwards you went half way round the world and then landed in the east, you would be in China, in the fabulous Indies, lands rich in gold and ivory and rare spices. And, with the help of a compass, how much simpler it would be to sail across the ocean than to make a long and arduous journey across deserts and over fearsome mountain ranges as Alexander had once done, and as the trading caravans still did when they brought silks from China to Europe. With this new route, thought Columbus, the Indies were only days away, rather than months by land. Everywhere he went he told people about his plan, but they just laughed and called him a fool. Still he persisted: ‘Give me ships! Give me just
one
ship and I’ll bring you gold from the fabulous east!’

He turned to Spain. There, in 1479, the rulers of two Christian kingdoms had been united by marriage and were engaged in a merciless campaign to expel the Arabs – who, as you know, had ruled in Spain for more than seven hundred years – not only from their wonderful capital, Granada, but from their kingdom altogether. Neither the royal court of Portugal nor that of Spain showed much enthusiasm for Columbus’s plan, but it was put to the learned men and mariners of the famous University of Salamanca for their consideration. After four more years of desperate waiting and pleading, Columbus learned that the university had rejected his plan. He resolved to leave Spain and try his luck in France. On the way he chanced to meet a monk who was none other than the confessor of Queen Isabella of Castile. Fired with enthusiasm for Columbus’s project, the monk persuaded the queen to grant him a second audience. But Columbus nearly spoiled it all again. The reward he demanded, if his plan were to succeed, was no small thing: he was to be knighted, appointed Grand Admiral and Viceroy (king’s representative) of all the lands he discovered, and he would keep a tenth of all taxes levied there, and more besides. When the monarchs turned down his request he left Spain immediately for France. If he discovered any lands, these would now belong to the French king. This frightened Spain. The monarchs gave in and Columbus was recalled. All his demands were met. He was given two sailing ships in poor condition – it would be no great loss if they sank. And he rented a third himself.

And so he set sail across the ocean towards the west, on and on, always westwards, determined to reach the East Indies. He had left Spain on 3 August 1492 and was delayed for a long time on an island repairing one of his ships. Then on they went again, further and further towards the west. But still no sight of the Indies! His men grew restless. Their impatience turned to despair and they wanted to turn back. Rather than tell them how far they were from home, Columbus lied to them. At last, on 11 October 1492, at two o’clock in the morning, a cannon fired from one of the ships signalled ‘Land ahoy!’

Columbus was filled with pride and joy. The Indies at last! The friendly people on the shore must be Indians, or, as the Spanish sailors called them, ‘Indios!’ Now, of course, you know that he was wrong. Columbus was nowhere near India, but on an island off America. Thanks to his mistake we still call the original inhabitants of America ‘Indians’ and the islands where Columbus landed the ‘West Indies’. The real India (or East Indies) was still an interminable distance away. Much further than Spain was behind them. Columbus would have needed to sail on for at least another two months, and it is likely that he would have perished miserably with all his men and never reached his goal. But at the time he thought he was in the Indies, so he took possession of the island in the name of the Spanish Crown. During his later voyages he continued to maintain that the lands he had discovered were the Indies. He couldn’t bring himself to admit that his grand idea was a mistake, that the earth was much bigger than he had imagined. The land route to the Indies was far shorter than the voyage across the whole of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. He could only think of being Viceroy of the Indies, the lands of his dreams.

You may know that it is from this date, 1492 – the year in which that fanciful adventurer Christopher Columbus accidentally discovered America only because it was in his way, as it were – that the Modern Age is said to begin. The date chosen to mark the beginning of the Middle Ages, 476, might seem a more obvious choice. For that was the year when the Roman Empire of the West fell, together with its last emperor – the one with the curious name: Romulus Augustulus. But in 1492 absolutely no one, not even Columbus, had any idea that this voyage might mean more than a new source of gold from unknown lands.

Of course, on his return Columbus was given a hero’s welcome, but during his later voyages his pride and his ambition, his greed and his wild imaginings made him so unpopular that the king had his own viceroy and admiral arrested and brought home from the West Indies in chains. Columbus kept those chains for the rest of his life, even after he was returned to royal favour, honour and riches. It was an insult he could neither forget nor forgive.

The first Spanish ships carrying Columbus and his companions had discovered only islands, whose simple and good-natured inhabitants had little to offer them. All that interested the Spanish adventurers was the source of the gold rings that some of them wore through their noses. The islanders gestured towards the west, and so America was discovered. For the Spaniards were actually in search of the fabled land of Eldorado. Convinced of its existence, they had visions of whole cities roofed with gold. These conquistadores, as they were called, who left Spain in search of new lands to conquer for their king and to enrich themselves with loot, were rough fellows, little better than pirates. Driven by their insatiable greed into ever more crazy adventures, they exploited and deceived the natives at every turn. Nothing could deter them and no means were too foul wherever gold was concerned. They were indescribably brave and indescribably cruel. And the saddest thing of all is that, not only did these men call themselves Christians, but they always maintained that all the atrocities they committed against heathens were done for Christendom.