History Is i n the Air at Sa9res by Joseph F. Callo
agres is as much a feeling as a place. This tiny Portuguese village is perched at the most southwestern point of Europe and is the site of some of history's greatest maritime adventures. It was here, for example, that Prince Henry, son of Portugal 's King John I, established a school for navigators in the mid-1400s. And just off Sagres's rugged shore, a significant number of major sea battles were fought. Probably the most noteworthy was the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, a defining event in Horatio Nelson's career. Sagres 's setting has a wild aspect. The landscape is austere, stripped of frivolity by countless Atlantic storms and the relentless scrubbing by salt air and sun. Where Sagres meets the sea, a series of rugged, heart-stopping cliffs-more than 100 feet high-are interrupted by small bays. The shoreline is washed by a normally robust surf that can, during the worst storms, hurl its crests over the tops of those cliffs. As Sagres 's setting contributes to its aura, so does its name, derived from the Latin "sacris ," meaning sacred or awesome. In 350 AD, the Roman geographer Avienus wrote evocatively of the area: "The ever-changing cape, where the starry light fades, rises lofty and is Europe's last outpost, losing itself in the salty waters of the monster-filled ocean." Sagres 's special mood provided an appropriate backdrop for Prince Henry, and a local hi story of the area alludes to thi s: "And here, until his death in 1460, he was able to develop a mystical awareness cultivated throughout an austere and devout life." The overreaching, historic importance of Henry 's work atSagres was captured by the sailor-writer Alan Villiers, who wrote that "at Sagres lived the man . .. who first coaxed cautious Europe onto the broad highway of the sea." At Sagres, Henry gathered astronomers, shipwrights, knights, priests and others to study nautical sciences-such as they were at the time-and to plan the daring voyages of the 1400s that began the transformation of the oceans from barriers to bridges. And it was nearby that Henry supervised the secret building of the first caravels-the basic vehicles of the Age of Discovery. These ships were a particularly significant technological advancement, because their fore-and-aft lateen sails, combined with fine-lined hulls , made them capable of sailing closer to the wind-and farther from home-than the lumbering, single-masted, square-rigged cogs and naos that plied Europe's coasts at the time. A number of important vestiges of the early di scoverers remain in the area, including a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Grace and described in correspondence between Prince Henry and Pope Pius II in 1459. Within yards of the chapel is a square cistern tower that's believed to date from Henry 's time and which many believe to be the oldest standing building in Sagres . Perhaps the most unusual remainder from the early history of Sagres is the large, circular pattern marked out on the ground in small stones. The circle, roughly 140 feet in diameter, is divided into 48 wedge-shaped sections (as opposed to 32 on the traditional compass) and is commonly
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referred to as the "wind rose." It was discovered in the 1700s and is thought to date from Henry 's school of navigation. Surrounding the chape l, cistern tower and wind rose are the walls of Sagres Fortaleza. The original fortress was built during Henry's time, and it served-with varying degrees of success-as protection against raiding pirates, Moors, French and British naval forces. The latter included a successful attack by Sir Francis Drake in 1587. During thi s rai d, Drake demonstrated a surpri sing sensibility for the local inhabitants , but did not hes itate to raze their series of forts in the area, including those at Baleeira, Sagres, Beliche and Cape St. Portuguese fisherme n from the Sag res area still practice their ancient trade in boats that have changed little over the centuries.
SEA HISTORY 80, WINTER 1996-97