flourished c. 1340–1415
Poitevin adventurer who, with Jean de Béthencourt, began the conquest of the Canary Islands.
Gadifer was born to a minor noble family of Poitou in what is now France. He took part in a crusade of the Teutonic Order to Prussia in 1378 and later won renown in the French campaigns against England during the Hundred Years’ War. Gadifer enlisted in a crusading expedition to Tunis, in North Africa, in 1390. It was probably during that venture that he planned with Béthencourt to explore the Canary Islands; they began their voyage under French patronage in 1402. In that year Gadifer occupied Lanzarote, the northernmost inhabited island of the Canaries, and explored the archipelago while Béthencourt left for Castile, where he procured reinforcements in exchange for homage sworn to Henry III, king of Castile. Gadifer, who objected to the change of allegiance, returned to France.
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