Jesuit in China The first attempt by Jesuits to reach China was made in 1552 by St. Francis Xavier, Navarrese priest and missionary and founding member of the Society. Xavier, however, died the same year on the Chinese island of Shangchuan, without having reached the mainland. Three decades later, in 1582, led by several figures including […]
The Catholic Church during the Age of Discovery inaugurated a major effort to spread Christianity in the New World and to convert the Native Americans and other indigenous people. The evangelical effort was a major part of, and a justification for the military conquests of European powers such as Spain, France and Portugal. Christian Missions […]
Initially, the line of demarcation did not encircle the Earth. Instead, Spain and Portugal could conquer any new lands they were the first to discover, Spain to the west and Portugal to the east, even if they passed each other on the other side of the globe. But Portugal’s discovery of the highly valued Moluccas in […]
The Treaty of Tordesillas signed at Tordesillas (now in Valladolid province, Spain) on 7 June 1494 and authenticated at Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe betweenPortugal and Castile along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands (off the west coast of Africa). This line of demarcation was about halfway between the Cape […]
The Conquest of Ceuta (22 August, 1415) by the Portuguese had its roots in the earliest years of the House of Aviz dynasty of Portugal. Both the Battle of Ceuta and, in a larger sense, the era of European expansion were influenced by Henry the Navigator. Born in 1394, Henry was the third son of […]