Exploration and discovery

Factors promoting exploration

Expanding trade

• english merchants needed new trading opportunities as war with Spain and Netherlands had severely damaged wool and cloth trades

Adventure

• published accounts of other voyages of discovery persuaded others to pursue their own for treasure and riches

Private investment

• funded many of the voyages of discovery
• rewards could be enormous
• increased incomes of the crown and the nobility

New technology

• navigation increasingly precise
• development of nautical devices, e.g astrolabes, made voyages safer and faster, leading to more exploration and trade

Improvements in ship design

• bigger sails made of lateen: faster, more manoeuvrable and stronger
• possessed great firepower
• more stable and could take on more supplies, encouraging longer voyages

Development of standardised maps

• Mercator map: grave sailors greater confidence in direction…