Roger Crowley

But it's difficult for us to comprehend the kind of magnetic hold

that this paradise of perfume, of gorgeous things, the spice trade conjured up and that they just sniffed at a very expensive price.

You're right.

There are two things going on here.

One is just getting the stuff.

And this is going to make us all extraordinarily wealthy.

But Manuel II, king of Portugal, had a messianic mission behind this, was that by outflanking Islam, going back to the beginning here, the idea that Europe was being throttled by Islam, by the Ottomans along North Africa and so on, by outflanking Islam,

Manuel had the idea that they could sail up the Red Sea, capture the body of the Prophet Muhammad, hold it to ransom, and recapture Jerusalem.

So there is a mixture of trade and crusading going on here.

And the Portuguese were nuts about crusading.

Their other hobby, apart from sailing, was crusading in Morocco.

which eventually will lead to the total wiping out of the whole of the Portuguese nobility and including the king at the end of the 15th century.

So there are two things, and they're definitely linked together.

But generally, on the whole, the average Joseph going out there wasn't terribly interested in crusading.

They were much more interested in getting some stuff.

And I think the royal geo-strategy was confined pretty much to the...

Well, not entirely, but there are certainly some horrible acts of violence by the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean against Muslim ships and people.

So the two go hand in hand.

There is an element, certainly of empire.

I tend to think of the Indian Ocean as a much nicer place before the Portuguese came along.