56 Chronica do Conde D. Duarte de Menezes (Ineditos, vol. iii), ch. 1. It would almost seem as though Azurara accompanied the King in his first expedition in 1458, when Alcacer was taken.—Ibid., ch. 34.
57 Ibid., ch. 1.
58 Ibid., ch. 2.
59 Ibid., ch, 2.
60 Ibid., ch. 60.
61 Azurara seems to have corresponded frequently with Affonso V; cf. Chronica de Guiné, ch. 7.
62 The letter is printed in the Ineditos, vol. iii, p. 3. According to Meyrelles, there are two copies of it in MS. No. 495 of the Coimbra University Library.—Vide Instituto, vol. ix.
63 Opusculos, vol. v, p. 14. Lisbon, 1886.
64 Maço 7 de Foraes Antigos, No. 3. Torre do Tombo.
65 Maço 3 de Foraes Antigos, No. 5. Torre do Tombo.
66 Maço 1 de Foraes Antigos, No. 11. Torre do Tombo.
67 Armario 17, Maço 6, No. 5. Torre do Tombo. It is worthy of note that the Eytor de Sousa, here referred to, is the same person that appears in the judgment of the Casa de Supplicacão of January 19th, 1479, as representing the Order of Christ.
68 Memorias Authenticas, p. 21.
69 Chronica de D. Manoel, quarta parte, ch. 38.
70 Memorias Authenticas, p. 21.
71 Padre José Bayam, in p. 5 of his Prologue to the Chronica del Rey D. Pedro I of Fernão Lopes (Lisbon, 1761), states that Azurara obtained the position of Disembargador da Casa do Civel, or Judge of Appeal of the Civil Court, on the authority of ch. 54 of Pina's Chronica de D. Affonso V, which mentions a certain Gomez Eanes as holding the office in question and being sent on an embassy to Africa; but João Pedro Ribeiro, in vol. iv, part 2, of his Dissertações Chronologicas e Criticas, Dissertação XVI, proves conclusively that Bayam is in error, and that the Judge had no connection with his namesake the Chronicler.
72 The word "Spanish" is here used, in its correct sense, to include all the peoples of the Peninsula. So the Archbishop of Braga bears the title "Primaz das Hespanhas", denoting his primacy over both Spain and Portugal.
73 No portrait of Azurara exists, and his signatures form the only relic of him that we possess.
Critical Remarks.
Azurara belongs to the line of Portuguese Chroniclers who rendered illustrious the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a line that began with Fernão Lopes and culminated in Damião de Goes and João de Barros, both of whom were almost historians in the modern sense of the term, and at the same time masters of prose style. He is indeed the connecting link between the chronicler and the historian, between the Mediæval writers and those of the Renaissance; for, while he possesses much of the sympathetic ingenuousness of Lopes, yet he cannot resist displaying his erudition and talents by quotations and philosophical reflections, as quaint as they are often unnecessary, proving that he wrote under the influence of that wave of foreign literature which had swept in with the new monarchy.
Three literary tendencies may be said to have prevailed in Portugal during the fifteenth century—firstly, a monomania for classical learning; secondly, an increased taste for the mediæval Epics and prose Romances, due to the English influence that had entered with Queen Philippa, daughter of timeserving Lancaster, though it must be remembered that Amadis de Gaula, the most famous romance of the Middle Ages, was compiled in the preceding century and by a Portuguese hand; and lastly, an admiration for Spanish poetry, which had made wonderful strides since the great Italians, Dante and Petrarch, had become known in the Peninsula. In philosophy, Aristotle, as expounded by Averroes, was the chief authority—Azurara calls him "the Philosopher"—and following him Egidius and Pedro Hispano, the Portuguese Pope and scholar, enjoyed the widest influence. Platonic philosophy was introduced at a much later period, chiefly through the medium of Italian poetry, and it never took root.
To the reader of Azurara's writings, it often seems as though the author were overburdened by his knowledge, which was in truth very extensive, if at times somewhat superficial; and the Chronicles bear witness to the fact that Portugal had not remained foreign to the literary impulse of the Renaissance. Besides citations from many books of the Bible, the following classical writers appear in his pages:—Herodotus, Homer, Hesiod, Aristotle, Cæsar, Livy, Cicero, Sallust, Valerius Maximus, Pliny, Lucan, the two Senecas, Vegetius, Ovid, Josephus and Ptolemy. Among early Christian and mediæval authors he mentions Orosius, St. Gregory, Isidore of Seville, Lucas of Tuy, the Arabic astronomer Alfragan, Gualter, Marco Polo, Roderick of Toledo, Egidius, St. Jerome, Albertus Magnus, St. Bernard, St. Chrysostom, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and Peter Lombard; while he has heard the legend of the voyages of St. Brandan and knows the author of the Amadis de Gaula. He was acquainted with the Chronicles and Romances of the chief European nations,74 and had studied the best Italian and Spanish authors. Added to this, he had mastered the geographical system of the Ancients,75 together with their astrology, and his knowledge of the latter probably came from the pg xlviiifamous Opus Quadripartitum of Ptolemy. Although he obtained his education in the time of D. Duarte, or early in the reign of Affonso V, an age which had ceased to believe in sidereal influences, as appears from the Leal Conselheiro, his writings show that he possessed a fervent faith in astrology as explaining the character and acts, as well as governing the destinies, of man.76 Various opinions have been emitted about his style; for, while such a good judge as Goes condemns his "antiquated words and prolix reasoning, full of metaphors or figures that are out of place in the historical style", Barros speaks of his "clear style" that, together with his diligence, rendered him worthy of the office he held.77 But perhaps the most perspicuous criticism thereon is that of Corrêa da Serra, who declares, with reference to the opinions just cited:—"Both may well be right, for the style of Gomes Eannes is not uniform, and seems the work of two different men. As a rule his narrative is simple, full of sound sense, and not without elegance; but, from time to time, he remembers the rude rhetoric he had learnt so late in life, and writes (if I may say so) in a falsetto style. The first was what nature had bestowed upon him, the last came from his immature studies. But these very defects are of interest