Abstract
References are often made of the 15th and 16th century as 'The Age of Discovery'. It has been named like that because at that time, Europeans really started to discover and trade with the world overseas. Indeed, it was during this period that they expanded to areas all over the world as diverse as America, Africa and to Asia as well. When you look at this process, one important question comes to your mind. What were the motivations that led them to go so far overseas during this period? It makes us wonder about the reasons lying behind this expansion process, its extent and its impact. One argument regularly invoked is the economical one, the importance of trade and the wealth it brought to Europeans. But can European expansion during this period only be explained by economic concerns?
