Sea cavalry: the persistence of the knightly imaginary in chronic narratives
on the way of driving war in portuguese imperial expansion - xv and xvi centures
Imperial Expansion. War. Chivalry.
During the wars to conquer the marine Portuguese empire, its own troops, when marching on land and sea or when sieging the enemies’ strongholds, bravelly fought led by anachronistic chivalrous imaginary. It’s said that at that period the process of military modernization of major European powers hadn’t had plated their seeds in the Portuguese soil. Both castes of worriors and conquerors from Portugal became the lords of a great portion of the world, they fought as if they didn’t know or as if they had a studied scorn by the modern methods of war, perhaps because they considered those methods as a synonym of dishonor. The chivalrous imaginary impelled all the major and all the small stages of the campain of the Portuguese military domain over the three target continents. This study was based on a corpus by quattrocentist and cinquencentist cronists. Zurara; Rui de Pina; João de Barros; Lopes de Castanheda; Gaspar Correia.