1
A Pointless New Biography of Prince Henry of Portugal
(called 'the Navigator')1
In 2000 Sir Peter Russell, the late distinguished Hispanic scholar of Oxford
University, published a biography that he had been writing, off and on, for over forty
years. His book, entitled Prince Henry 'the Navigator' A Life,2 was greeted with high
praise almost everywhere. For example Frank McLynn writing in The New Statesman
called it "an outstanding volume that will take decades to supersede", while Simon
Heffer in Country Life opined the book "magisterial…a first-class work of scholarship by
a life-long expert in the field. It is hard to imagine it ever being surpassed." These
opinions, however, appear not to have been shared, or at least did not deter, João
Paulo Oliveira e Costa, an historian at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, from now
some nine years later undertaking to write (in Portuguese of course) another biography
of Prince Henry. How well has he succeeded?
One of the singular virtues of Russell was that it completely swept away all the
ideological rubbish that had for years overlaid Henry (like repeated layers of varnish on
an antique painting), much of which emitted from Portuguese fascist historians of the
1
João Paulo Oliveira e Costa, Henrique O Infante (Esfera; Lisbon, 2009)
Peter Russell, Prince Henry 'the Navigator', A Life (New Haven and London, 2000). Hereafter simply
"Russell".
2
2
period of the New State. It was only after Russell had cleared the way, so to speak, that
it became possible to approach Henry on a more objective basis. Costa however gives
Russell no credit whatsoever for this accomplishment, and indeed Portuguese
historiography in general has followed suit. Sadly enough Russell's "magisterial"
biography has received little attention, in fact almost none at all, in Portugal. Its
appearance has been greeted in Portugal by a very mysterious silence. Truth to tell, I
am not aware of the existence of a single review of it in a Portuguese historical journal
at the time it first appeared or since.3 It was translated into Portuguese in 2004, but that
translation, as far as I know, has also never been reviewed in Portugal in any
publication, serious or otherwise, either. In short in Portugal Russell's magisterial
biography has been essentially a non-book. All this is very strange. Here we have the
most extensive and elaborate biography ever written of the figure that argues to be the
most iconic Portuguese of all and it is utterly ignored in Portugal itself! The reasons for
this I will suggest later, but the snub administered to Russell by the Portuguese
historiographical establishment is clear and obvious.4
3
The only review that ever appeared in Portugal that I know of was written by me in 2000 and published
in the local English language weekly, the Anglo-Portuguese News It is reprinted with some changes in
my volume of essays, Camponeses e Colonizadores: Estudos de Historia Luso-Brasileira (Lisbon,
Estampa, 2002), 283-286. In it I praised Russell's achievement and pointed out how he had debunked
many of the current myths about Henry that were commonplace in Portuguese culture. This brought
about a series of attacks on Russell, on me, and on my review by the Duke of Braganza and others in
subsequent issues of the newspaper. I have written an article about the whole affair, yet to be published,
entitled "Storm over Sagres; or How a Book Review Caused a Duke to Lose his Cool". It can be viewed
on the Internet however at http://www.virginia.edu/history/user/82. I did find a couple of tributes by
Portuguese historians to Russell, but neither is a review of his book: Joao Gouveia Monteiro, "Sir Peter E.
Russell-the 20th Century in the Palm of His Hand," e-JPH, Vol. 5:1(2007); and Maria Cristina Pimenta,
"Sir Peter Russell: The Story of a Great Passion," e-JPH (same issue). Isabel Morgado S. E. Silva wrote
a review in English published by the (non-Portuguese) Journal of World History, 14:3 (2003), 411-414..
4
Russell's earliest work on Henry was also not much appreciated. He gave a brief lecture on Henry in
London in 1960, [under Portuguese government auspices, if memory serves], in which he mentioned
Henry's involvement in the African slave trade. This caused the organizers of the event to attempt to buy
up all copies of his lecture to prevent this dangerous information from falling into the hands of the public.
3
Now, in his new biography Costa does deign to mention Russell occasionally and
lists his translated biography in his bibliography but his remarks about the book are odd
and very out of focus. He says in his Introduction:
"These opposing theses [he refers here to the idea that Henry was
motivated almost entirely by the idea of Crusade versus the idea that he was
motivated by the search for wealth and power], both inappropriate, have…their
champions in Peter Russell, defender of the complete dominance of crusading
ideas, who completely ignores Dom Pedro, and in Godinho who explains Henry's
activities as predominately economically motivated…."5
Thus right at the beginning of his new biography Costa goes off the rails very badly.
First, he chooses to put Russell and Godinho at opposite ends of an interpretive
spectrum: Godinho being exaggeratedly economic in his view while Russell is
characterized as exaggeratedly religious. While this may be a valid criticism of Godinho
it is a travesty of Russell's position. Indeed if he wanted to set up a dichotomy between
a biographer who explains Henry's motivations as almost exclusively those of crusade
he should have chosen a couple of earlier Portuguese biographers, Costa Brochado6 or
Joaquim Bensaude7 who made Henry into nothing but a Crusader.8 To put Russell in
the camp of authors like Brochado and Bensaúde is ridiculous and insulting. In fact it
raises the question of whether Costa might have been unable to read Russell in the
original English.9 Russell, a specialist in the history of western Europe (not just
5
Costa, 23
Costa Brochado, Dom Henrique O Navegador (Lisbon, 1960)
7
Joaquim Bensaúde, A Cruzada do Infante D. Henrique (Lisbon, Agência Geral das Colonías, 1942)
8
Costa doesn't even list the work of these historians in his bibliography.
9
Costa references only the Portuguese translation of Russell in the few notes there are and the
translation may well not convey the subtlety of Russell's treatment of various topics.
6
4
Portugal) in the late Middle Ages, understood and wrote from the intellectual
perspective of Henry, something Costa is unable to do. Henry did not think in modern
economic terms, rather his outlook was summed up in the traditional duo of "honor and
profit" (honra e proveito). That is to say, he was always greedy for income and eager to
increase his financial resources for the power these gave him but he was not
economically minded in the modern sense and that is how Russell presents him. In fact
Russell calibrates the balance between Henry's crusading zeal (always his term) and
his financial interests very carefully contrary to what Costa maintains. He presents
Henry's decisions (and this is one of the great merits of his biography) from the point of
view and the mentality of Henry that he has penetrated profoundly through his
unmatched ability to draw out the meaning and implications of documents,10 something
Costa seems unable to do. And when Costa says that Russell is "totalmente omisso
acerca de Dom Pedro" that is also clearly not the case. Russell discusses the question
of Dom Pedro's involvement in Henry's activities in some detail but concludes, in
contrast to Vitorino M Godinho, that there is no evidence at all that Pedro, not Henry,
began the discoveries for which Henry then fraudulently took credit.11 Since Russell has
clearly combed through the entirely of the evidence during his many years of study,
Costa's accusation is ridiculous but very much in tune with his evident attempt to
minimize Russell's work and accomplishment.
10
One suspects Russell's unique ability to understand the sense of the documents he discusses comes
at least in part from the fact that he was also an expert in late medieval Iberian literature, which Costa is
not.
11
This can be verified by a mere glance at Russell's Index (something sadly lacking in Costa biography)
where there are a very large number of references to Dom Pedro. See also Russell, 373, n. 2 where he
agrees with the assessment of Léon Bourdon, ed.. Chronique de Guinée (Paris, 1994), 28, that the idea
that Pedro, not Henry, began the discoveries "ne repose malheureusement sur rien."
5
In short, Costa avoids giving much credit, if any, to Russell's great biography.12 A
Portuguese historian might have been excused for doing this during the period of the
fascist Salazar regime when praise for a "warts and all" study of Henry would have
violated the myths used to prop up the regime,13 but now that Salazarist demons have
supposedly been exorcised from Portuguese intellectual life this is more puzzling. One
has to wonder if Costa's minimization of Russell might have something to do with
possibly having borrowed ideas from him or even mined his work's elaborate end notes
for references to documents that he could then present as his own discoveries. Of
course we cannot know for sure; all that can be said with certainty is that prior to
Russell's biography of the year 2000, Portuguese historiography was markedly barren
with respect to any detailed study of Prince Henry using all the available documentation.
But, mirabile dictu, not long after a Portuguese translation of Russell's work with its
copious notes appeared (2004), we suddenly have Costa's book, the first reasonably
comprehensive biography of Henry written by a Portuguese historian in decades, if not
ever.14
Now to get a better idea of what Costa may have added to what Russell
accomplished let us take a look at the way each historian presents (1) the captivity of
the Infante Fernando (1437); and (2) Henry's seafaring expeditions down the
Mauritanian coast to capture slaves (1443-1448).
12
This is also clear from the fact that at the conclusion of his book, Costa lauds the industrious
documentarian and transcriber, A. J. Dias Dinis without pointing out that these documents lay largely
unused for years until Russell took them and gave them life in his biography. Nor is there, among all his
"agradecimentos", a single mention of Russell in his "Nota Prévia."
13
See footnote 2.
14
In his Guia do Estudante de História Medieval Portuguesa (1964), Oliveira Marques could only cite
one thin little biography of Henry by Vitorino Nemésio. Nothing of any importance by a Portuguese
historian has appeared since then until this biography by Costa.
6
First, the Captivity of Fernando15
To begin let us give Costa the credit he deserves for making clear the
inexcusable behavior of Henry, indeed his moral depravity, with regard to the
redemption of his brother held hostage in Morocco.16 But in reading Costa one gets the
impression he is the first biographer to adequately point out the cold heartlessness of
Henry's behavior with regard to his brother's sufferings in captivity and his central role in
bringing them about. Completely passed over is Russell's priority in this matter and all
that he wrote about it nine years earlier in his biography. Instead Costa simply takes
credit for ideas that first appeared in Russell almost a decade before. Further, Costa
seems almost apologetic about what he has to say, evidencing a painful reluctance to
admit Henry's vile behavior (which he downplays) as well as his ensuing lying and
smarmy maneuvering in an attempt to cover his rear. Much of Henry's more
contemptible wigglings, as detailed by Russell, he simply omits to tell. And he definitely
fails to point out that Henry's betrayal of Fernando was a clear precursor to his later
betrayal of his brother Pedro at the time of Alfarrobeira whom he pretended to support
while negotiating with his enemies behind his back. When Henry had gotten what he
wanted from them, he abruptly and expediently abandoned his brother. In this regard,
Costa is clearly inferior in all respects to Russell and adds nothing whatsoever to his
account.17
15
Russell, 167-194 and Costa, 213-242.
The expedition was an abject failure and in order to permit the Portuguese to withdraw their troops
Henry negotiated an agreement with Salah ben Salah in which his brother, Fernando, was turned over as
hostage to insure compliance with the terms.
17
Another interesting omission in Costa is his failure to mention Henry's parecer outlining his reasoning in
favor of the Tangier expedition (Monumenta Henricina (ed. A. J. Dias Dinis (Coimbra, 1960-1974), V, no.
101).Hereafter simply "MH". Russell terms it "incoherent." and it reveals Henry to be so emotively eager
to wage war on Muslims that the urge seems to addle his brain. As Russell dryly remarks, the document
"does little to enhance Henry's intellectual reputation" (Russell, 156).
16
7
Second, Henry's Expeditions Down the coast of Africa18
Here what immediately strikes the reader, above all, is the degree to which Costa
downplays Henry's slaving activities. He has, of course, to admit that Henry's forays
down the coast brought back quite a few slaves, but he makes sure to treat them as
"just one" of the commodities in which Henry trafficked by repeatedly mentioning the
seals ("lobos marinhos") that were slaughtered, the gold dust obtained, not to mention
the "ovos de ema", etc. In fact, reading Costa one is left with the impression that Henry
was much more eager to obtain seals and other things than human slaves when of
course exactly the opposite is true. Likewise, Costa's account attributes far more
importance to Henry's zeal for the "guerra santa" than to his greed for slaves as
emphasized by Russell.19 To present Henry's glorious "explorations" down the
Mauritanian coast as primarily motivated by slave raiding would not do. In short, Costa's
whole attitude is to distract readers as much as possible from Henry's role as the prime
mover, essentially the creator, of the Afro-Atlantic slave trade that became a virtual
Portuguese monopoly in the following century. And although Costa notes that Henry's
expeditions down the coast of Mauretania petered out when the area of Guinea Bissau
was reached because the natives there were better able to defend themselves from
seizure and attack and thus the possibility of slave capture plummeted, he fails to see
that this fact makes it uncomfortably clear that Henry's expeditions had slaving as their
prime goal, not any geographical curiosity or capture of seals.20 Thus it is Russell, not
18
Russell, 239-263 and Costa, 275-311.
Thus contradicting completely his initial charge that Russell's biography exaggerated Henry's crusading
motivations. See footnote 4.
20
Costa, 288
19
8
Costa, who shows that economic motivations and greed for the "proveito" of slave
raiding were Henry's principal motivations in sponsoring these voyages and that
conversion and crusade served primarily as rationalizations for this. Certainly one will
not find in Costa any lapidary insight about the inate hypocrisy involved in this slave
trading such as Russell's witty comment that "in Henryspeak enslavement and
conversion were interchangeable terms."21 Instead Costa adheres to the tedious
traditional presentation of Henry as a "visionary"22 with a "revolutionary character"23
whose African voyages "ripped open new horizons" thus "changing the world
irreversibly" and "set off the Geographical Revolution" [capitals his]24, in short he simply
reiterates the old nationalistic, reactionary/fascist "hype" of Henry as the greatest
discoverer ever, the geographical "revolutionary/visionary" who ushered in the modern
world, no less.25
**********
The one area in which Costa might well have improved on Russell and given us
something new he utterly ignored. What is definitely missing in Russell is a discussion
of Henry's sexuality. Instead Russell merely restates the conventional view that he was
"chaste" and virginal. Here, if he had had the courage, Costa might have added
something to Russell and made a genuine contribution to Henry's life story but sadly
enough, he has done nothing in this regard. One cannot be sure but one suspects this
may be due to the deepseated Portuguese tradition of homophobia that Costa
21
Cite Russell, 84; also 214-216.
Costa, 133
23
Costa, 276
24
Costa, 276-277
25
Russell's claim in the Taylorian Special Lecture of 1960 that Henry was the object of a massive
personality cult obviously did not endear him to the fascist historians fo the Salazar period.
22
9
apparently shares.26 In fact he gives the subject the briefest sideways glance, as if it
were a live wire that might intellectually electrocute him if he touched it. Starting off from
a premise that is wildly incorrect and completely contradicted by the sources, he flatly
claims that: "…during his 66 years of life [Henry] left no evidence of any affectionate
relationship with any other human being…the insinuations to the contrary have no
documentary basis."27 This assertion is resoundingly contradicted by the testimony of
one of O Infante's companions in battle at Ceuta, a Frenchman, Antoine de la Salle.
Because of its pertinence it deserves quotation in full:
And we shall recount the sorrow, the sighs and the tears that day and
night the noble Lord Henry expressed over the death of his good servant who
had raised him with such loving care and most honorably…and in particular [we
will speak] of the aforementioned Lord Henry who despite the insistence of his
father, his brothers or anyone else did not put aside his deep mourning. And
when anyone sought to comfort him, he replied, to the king, his brothers and
everyone else, "Ah sir! Ah! my brothers, Ah! all of your, my friends, how could
any heart not be heavy at the loss of one so good, so loyal, so valiant, for such a
good friend and servant as this one was to me, who day and night guided me"
Whereupon his tears, cries and profound affliction would begin anew, and he
remained in that state several days, for never was seen such sorrow as this. And
to show how much he loved him and was beholden to him, after the year of
26
It would seem that the only Portuguese in history who were homosexual were gays who got arrested by
the Inquisition, thus leaving evidence that cannot be denied. It is obviously to the Inquisition's credit that it
managed to find all the gays that there were in Portugal, leaving no others to be found.
27
Costa, 68. Costa doesn't tell us where he found the "insinuations" he refers to, but one suspects he
has in mind the essay of Harold B. Johnson, "À Descoberta do Carácter do Infante D. Henrique: Uma
Abordagem Freudiana," in Dois Estudos Polémicos (Fenestra:Tucson, 2004), 11-43, a study he never
mentions either in footnotes or in his bibliography.
10
mourning he had observed for his mother the queen, he wore black for three
months more, paying no attention to his beard or hair.
In fact his grief seemed so excessive that Henry was finally reproved by his
deceased friend's mother who told him "Ha!, Lord, what is all this? Where is your royal
virtue, your dignity and your youth, to thus weep and mourn like a woman? This is very
improper of you."28
Subsequent to this blunder, Costa goes on to miss (or purposely ignore?) an
entire series of indications of Henry's emotional and sexual interest in other men.
Nonetheless there is an abundance of circumstantial evidence clearly pointing in that
direction, evidence detailed in a recent study of the topic that was readily available to
Costa but that he chose to ignore.29
Here is some of the evidence.30
1. There is the admonition to him from his brother, King Duarte, that he should not give
pleasure to men beyond what can be done with virtue and that he should not displease
God to please another creature.
2. Costa completely passes over Zurara's statement in the introduction to the chronicle
of Guiné that Henry had unnamed "vices". Zurara makes it clear that he would prefer
not to describe them, but adds that because he is an historian he has a professional
duty to tell the truth. So instead of revealing precisely what these vices are he wiggles
28
Antoine de la Salle, Le Reconfort de Madame de Fresne, ed. Ian Hill (University of Exeter, 1979), 2932. Costa does not list this source in his bibliography and seems completely ignorant of it.
29
I.e., Johnson, unless his oblique reference to"insinuations" refers to Johnson. See note 24.
30
Here as background to the argument I make, it should be made clear that there was no legal
impediment to Henry's being married since his status as administrator of the Order of Christ was that of a
layman. Nor was there any physical impediment as is shown by the papal dispensations secured by his
father that presume his marriageability. One therefore has to conclude that his rejection of any intimate
female contact was entirely a personal choice.
11
out of his dilemma by giving hints, such as when he compares Henry to a known bisexual, Caesar, or when he cites John Chrysostom's statement that no man is without
vices, doubtless expecting his more cultivated readers to be aware that Chrysostom
was obsessed with the subject of homosexuality and wrote a vast amount about it.
3. Costa, indeed, never points out the fact that Henry was extremely eager to craft his
public image to his liking (as Russell makes clear), and that to do so, he very likely got
rid of a chronicle (by Cerveira) that may have revealed things about him he did not want
known. Instead he collaborated with the royal historian Zurara to retell his life story in a
chronicle whose composition he closely supervised. This makes it hardly surprising then
that there is no explicit evidence (i.e., "smoking gun") in the record that openly states
that Henry was homosexual.31 Indeed, how could anyone expect any such thing when
homosexuality at the time was a crime meriting the death penalty?32
4. When Henry opined about what causes unhappiness in life he mentioned a long list
of things including the company of women, marriage, as well as drinking, sleeping,
singing, looking, listening, telling jokes, but, significantly enough, nowhere did Henry
express any objection to the company of men. In fact quite the contrary. As an expert on
Henry's personal living arrangements has written: "…accustomed to abandoning rules
of excessive decorum that were usually characteristic of an important feudal lord,
[Henry] with a rich establishment, as well as being a bachelor without children, was
31
One needs, I think, to see the question of homosexuality in personages of the highest rank during the
Middle Ages as being rather like that among movie stars today. Quite a few are gay, but they manage to
disguise the fact very well. Is Costa naïve enough to think that Henry, who so closely controlled his
image, would have permitted written evidence of his sexuality to appear? Exactly the contrary.
32
Need one mention what happened to an English king (Edward II) publicly outted as an homosexual?
12
habituated to the gay and spontaneous conviviality of his (male) servants. He was much
attached to them and a great number of them lived with him."33
5. In this regard one might mention in addition that Costa fails to note the constant
presence of a large number of young houseboys ("criados") around Henry and whom
Zurara describes as having been "brought up in his bedchamber"34.
6. In addition he seems blind to the (homo)sexual symbolism of Henry's divisa with its
proliferation of acorns, a well-known classic symbol for the penis35 as well as to the fact
that,
7. Henry fits perfectly into the classic psychoanalytical category of a "phallic-narcicist"
whose relationship with women is typically disturbed by attitudes of depreciation of the
feminine sex. Sex for such types often involves fellatio as well as a maternal attitude
toward younger men. While one cannot expect a Portuguese historian to have had the
advantage of having undergone psychoanalysis, one would think that any historian with
a modern mentality would have some familiarity with Freudian psychology and
concepts; and when confronted by a man who stayed unmarried throughout his life and
who at age 42 openly sneered at the "company of women", would immediately have to
suspect homosexual inclinations or at least want to investigate the matter.
8. To try to explain, as does Costa, that Henry didn't get married because "the holy war
was more important him than the possibility of marriage" is simply laughable since being
married would not have prevented him from pursuing "the holy war" in the least. Henry
had plenty of time on his hands to devote to "the holy war" as revealed by his brother's
33
Joao Silva de Sousa, A Casa Senhorial do Infante D. Henrique (Lisbon, 1991), 315: " Com os moços
da câmara, de ordinário criados em sua Casa, eis que surgem seus familiares, comensais, e colaços…"
34
See Johnson, 31, fn. 59, for details.
35
Johnson, 38-40.
13
complaint that he wasted most of his day eating, sleeping, and saying mass. Apparently
Costa decided it was best to ignore the subject completely and not go into a topic that is
very "touchy" in a society where attitudes toward homosexuality are supremely
hypocritical.36
9. In short everything about Henry's affective or emotional life is banished from his
biography as unfit to mention and what haunts this book is the old ghost of the
fascist/reactionary image of the "chaste", sexless, and ever-virginal Henry so beloved
by the Estado Novo.37
In conclusion one can say that although Russell's work is somewhat longer and
more detailed than Costa's, the extra time it demands of the reader will be rewarded by
the incomparably more subtle, nuanced and well documented account of Prince Henry's
life that his biography provides, not to mention his sensitivity of style as well as his
refreshing wit and irony. Russell was well equipped to give us the real Henry, warts and
all, completely freed from the fascist/reactionary myths so long prevalent and without
the traditional deference to Portuguese nationalistic preoccupations. Only with regard to
Henry's sexuality does Russell disappoint and Costa has done nothing whatsoever to
remedy that.
Harold B. Johnson
University of Virginia
36
As anyone who has lived in Portugal for much time can testify, homosexuality is widespread in fact but
seldom if ever discussed in public. Rather it is swept under the rug, as was the pedophilic abuse of
orphan boys at the Casa Pia for so many years.
37
Even the eminent Portuguese historian, V. M. Godinho, could not help but express doubt that Henry
remained a virgin all his life although he seems not to have picked up on the homoeroticism in the
evidence. Of course Godinho was an historian at odds with the Salazar regime and thus didn't feel
obliged to adhere to the "chaste and virginal" line of interpretation. See Vitorino M. Godinho, Documentos
Sobre a Expansao Portuguesa (Lisbon, 1965), III, 365-366: "…é fortemente improvável que o Infante se
conservasse vírgem toda a vida…."
14