In 1452 and 1456 the Portuguese received papal license to “invade, conquer, fight [and] subjugate the Saracens and pagans, and other infidels and other enemies of Christ,” to conquer their lands and “to lead their persons in perpetual servitude.”36 Conflating the heightened anti-Islamic mood of the mid-fifteenth century with the spirit of adventure and conquest over unbelievers far away from the holy lands did not demand a huge leap of imagination. But it gave valuable godly sanction to a military-economic project of the sort that had not been seen since the creation of the crusader states in
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