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Portugal, the Mamluks, and the Age of Discovery

For the Portuguese empire to rise, an old world had to give way. Rivals in Europe’s lucrative spice trade, how much did they know about the powerful Mamluk sultanate? A small Portuguese fleet of three vessels captained by Vasco da Gama arrived in Kerala in May 1498 having sailed around the Cape of Good Hope.

I would like you to write me a description of the whole region of the Maghreb – including its distant as well as its near parts, its mountains and its rivers, its villages and its cities – in such a detailed manner that it’s as if I can see it with my own eyes.’ It leaves one wondering whether, having reached the eastern Mediterranean, Timur’s ambitions might eventually have extended as far as Morocco. In the latter half of the 14th century the power and naval strength of the Berber Muslim Marinid dynasty distinctly weakened, a situation that eventually allowed the Portuguese to launch a successful assault on Ceuta in August 1415 after assembling a sizeable fleet at Lisbon. The vagaries of this mission – Paiva died in Cairo, and Covilhã was detained until his death by the Christian rulers of Ethiopia who saw him as a useful agent in their own foreign relations – meant that it was unable to fulfil its task, leaving Vasco da Gama poorly informed in 1498 as to the real political geography of Asia and East Africa.

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