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CHAPTER XII.

VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES, 1399–1485.

H. W. Wilson.

Trade with Spain—Pirates—Voyages to the Baltic—Relations with Prussia—Voyages to the Mediterranean—Trade with the North—Voyages to Iceland—Depredations of the English there—English ships forbidden to visit Iceland—Further depredations—‘Libel of English Policie’—Search for O’Brazil—English Consul at Pisa.

DURING the fifteenth century, on the eve of the great Spanish and Portuguese discoveries, or indeed whilst these were actually being made, the records of English voyages are provokingly slight. From the allusions in the ‘Libel of English Policie,’ we know that there must have been considerable trade with Spain and Portugal; but our seas appear to have been very insecure till Henry VII. came to the throne. The Paston Letters contain more than one allusion to pirates, who landed and swept the vicinity of the coasts of valuables and kidnapped men. Under Henry VI. there existed an organised band of pirates who called themselves “Rovers of the Sea.” London and Norwich even had to defend themselves against such attacks by booms and chains. Ships sailed in large companies to protect one another, and the whole convoy was usually under one selected captain. So great were the English losses that an Act was passed in Henry VI.’s reign directed expressly against the neutrals who were stealing the English trade.

Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth-century voyages to Norway and the Baltic appear to have been common.^[1] In 1361 the English merchants had factories at the now strangely decayed town of Wisby in the island of Gotland. In 1388 there was a treaty of reciprocity with the Grand Master of Prussia, whose territories then

1. From the number of letters, treaties, etc., in Rymer’s ‘Fœdera’ (q.v. for these years), the volume of trade to the Baltic must have been considerable.