So Columbus being funded in pursuit of a better route to profit is the same as searching for something that may or may not even exist because . . ..
Colombus was being funded in pursuit of a better route that may or may not exist. This is not dissimilar from searching for other routes to profitable things that may or may not exist.
I'm responding to this part alone because I am quite at a loss as to the basis of your attitude that medieval Europeans are just going to throw money away - either kings (or powerful nobles), or merchants that have even less reason to be quixotic..
That is because you are misrepresenting me. I am not saying that medieval Europeans are just going to throw money away.
My point is that people then were just as likly to make mistakes, be taken in by conmen or charismatic nutters as people are today. Also, if a monarch got a bad idea in his head, society had fewer political circuitbreakers to stop that idea from being translated into action. Sometimes, projects that seem sensible at the start turn out to be money thrown away in hindsight. Then and now.
Further, people back then had a different set of basic assumptions about things like geography and religon, which could lead to decisions that seem strange to us today, but perfectly sensible in their setting.
I honestly don't see why this is a point of contention. It is fairly basic.
Could it happen? Sure. People do stupid things. But it would take a pretty good argument (by someone at the time) to justify it, which is about all this has in common with Columbus.
How many good arguments do you think were made to kings in Europe over a, say 200 years period?
I mean, its not like Colombus expedition was the only one. King Magnus of Norway and Sweden comissoned an expedition to America 150 years before Colombus were funded. In this case, to pursue Greenlanders from the Western Settlement, who were presumend to have reverted to paganism and fled.
200 years before that, Bishop Gnupsson set out for Vinland on his own initiative, for religous reasons.
It did happen occasionally. Colombus got massive interest for his landing because he massivly overreported and published the amount of gold he found.
Now that would be interesting, although I'm not sure why it would be particularly appealing to sail to - and stay in -Greenland as opposed to somewhere considerably more fortune-producing.
I mean, you could have them spin a story of cities with streets paved with gold, but what happens when no such cities are found?
The d'Hautevilles were a lot of things, but not quixotic.
I think the point is that if we have an expedition (sent for whatever reason) that returns with tales of available land futher south, this might catch some interest. For example, if our POD is that Bishop Eirik Gnupsson survives his trip to Vinland in 1121, he may report pleasant climes further sout in Vinland (he was bishop of Greenland, his idea of a pleasant climate would probably have been a low bar), and lots of pagan skrællings.
Converting pagans appeals to clerics, and land appeals to nobility. Some of both may have found the conditions more interesting than fighting Moors in the Crusades. Less sieges and boiling oil, better land, more converts. Less plunder and a more dangerous trip. Might work for some.
Columbus wasn't a moron, he was basing his assumptions on the Ptolemaic universe, which was widely beleived it then, it's anachronistic to say an idea is stupid just because it has since been disproven. Was everyone stupid before Newton proved gravity??.
I am not sure what you are trying to say?
During Colombus time, educated people had a pretty good idea of the circumference of the Earth from Eratosthenes, Posidonius, and even El Ma'muns calculations. Which is why Colombus initially were refused.
Colombus, however, had his own figure. He though the circumfrence was half that or so. And that Asia extended a lot further east. He was wrong and everybody else was right. If he hadn't lucked into something else in the middle of the ocean, he'd have died out there.
What does the Ptolemaic/Copernican etc models have to do with it?
The basque and Viking explorations are perfect examples of what would not create lasting contact because they didn't. The reason Columbus' voyage created a lasting link was because it was funded by a powerful and expansionistic royal European government who had a vested interest in getting around a powerful enemy.
Which...they didn't find there, so that was no reason to go back. Contact lasted because Colombus massivly overreported the amount of gold he found. A con job. Which tends not to be remembered because lots of gold were actually found later.
Nobody's being very clear about this, and Umbral seems to be ill-informed of it, so I'll state this for those who don't know:.
I know of it, but what is the relevance? Isabella had a reason to look for a sea alternative to the silk road. People tend to have reasons, even when they make errors or look in the wrong place.
He was not sent because Isabella had money to burn. His plan was insane, which is why nobody funded it until the city fell and the issue of finding a new route to the East became urgent.
Well, strictly speaking it was funded just after the reconquista ended, so there was probably excess funds available to turn to other purposes.
speaking of the Norse... maybe someone gets intrigued by the tales of Vinland and gets royal sponsorship to go find it again? Not sure just how that would come about, but stranger things have happened...
Vinland wasn't, stricly speaking, lost. People know of it, but badly underestimated the size of it, and how far south it extended. What would be needed would be some kind of discovery or development that made it attractive.