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All these countries, " Helluland," " Markland," and "Vinland" have the same relative position to Greenland; and follow in the same series in which they are given in the old reports on the discoveries of the Northmen. That they have a much higher latitude than is at present given to them,-for instance, Helluland, the latitude of southern Nor- way; Vinland, the latitude of southern England,-ought not to astonish us; because Stephanius, the author of the map, could not gain much
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Nom.
-
GRONGANDI.t.
Biarma
land
Grimise
cp anganaes
Huart
gatio
Vetus
Jrontheini
Plavigationlear
dor fumanier
Esterol
Humana.
Frij Tano
Hetland
M Bergen
Ginnunga Gap
Erações 0
Pars Americae erhema Perfus Grón. lanciam.
Scotia
Cfutla no
Eftotelandia.
Germaniac pars
Galliae
pars
The North = Atlantic by the Jeelander Gudbrandus Torlacius in the near 1606.
Norvegia
STEGSA
V Grenlandia inSplandiam.
promontorium
D'
109
CHARTS OF THE NORTHMEN.
light on the latitudes from the old Icelandic reports. On some of the old Icelandic maps, "Terra Florida" has the latitude of northern France. Nor should the colossal dimensions, given on our map to the point "Promontorium Vinlandia," deceive us. The Cape of Vinland, the Cape Kialarnes, is so often mentioned in the reports of the North- men, and takes such a prominent place in the history of their discove- ries, that, according to its great fame and name, it must have stood before the mind of an Icelandic draughtsman, as something very grand.
That the Icelander, Stephanius, in constructing his map, used Euro- pean originals, is evident from his fabulous island of " Frisland," to the south of Iceland. That this island, in the place assigned to it, did not exist, must have been pretty well known in Iceland itself. It could only be found in Italian, German, or other European maps. Therefore Theodorus, in his notes, adds the remark: "What island this is, I do not know, if, perhaps, it be not that country which a Venetian (Nicolo Zeno) discovered, and which the Germans call Fries- land."
For his figure of Great Britain and Ireland, he may also have used foreign maps. But for the coast of America (" Helluland," " Mark- land," "Promontorium Vinlandia"), he could not find upon the European maps of 1570 anything like what he has drawn. This part he must have taken from Icelandic originals.
From all this I conclude, that we have here in the " Promontorium Vinlandiae" a good type of our Cape Cod after old Northman originals, and in the gulf and coast between this and " Markland," an indication of the Gulf of Maine, with the coast of Massachusetts, New Hamp- shire, and Maine.
2. ON THE MAP NO. S OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN, DRAWN BY GUDBRANDUS TORLACIUS IN 1606.
For the sake of comparison and to illustrate further the geography of the old Northinen of Iceland, we have added, in No. 3, a copy of another map, contained in Torfaeus, and made about forty years later than the former.
This map, according to the notes added to it by Theodorus Tor- lacius, was delineated by Gudbrandus Torlacius, "a most learned man, who was fifty-six years bishop in Iceland, and a reformer of the churches and schools of the country."
Which of these originals this bishop used for the construction of his map, we do not learn. The narrow form given to the North Atlantic,
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CHARTS OF THE NORTHMEN,
with Iceland in the center, as usual on Icelandic maps, presents a view of the whole field of the Northman discoveries.
To the east coast of North America the bishop has not paid much attention. He calls it " Estotilandia," a name not invented in Iceland, but introduced into geography by the Zeni.
The principal feature of the map is the very correct configuration of Greenland, which here is much better depicted than on the former map. It would have been an improvement of many European maps of the year 1606, if this Icelandic representation of Greenland had become known in Europe. The Icelanders spoiled their maps by intro- ducing " Frisland," " Estotiland," and other imaginary countries, which then retained a place in the geography of Europeans, who took no notice of these old Icelandic maps.
Some modern geographers (for instance Malte Brun)* mention a manuscript map, made by Gudbrand Torlakson, as being preserved in the royal library of Kopenhagen. I have not had the good fortune to see this map, but it probably contains the same things, which we find depicted on our No. 3, " made by Gudbrandus Torlacius."
* See Malte Brun, Geschichte der Erdkunde Herausgegeben von E. A. W. von Zim- mermann, vol. 2, p. 183. Leipzig, 1812.
to 2 tys -
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CHAPTER III.
ENGLISH TRADING EXPEDITIONS FROM BRISTOL AND OTHER ENGLISH PORTS TOWARD THE NORTH-WEST, PRINCIPALLY TO ICELAND, DURING THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. - JOHN, OF KOLNO. - CO- LUMBUS.
THOUGH Iceland, after the loss of her colonies in Green- land and America, and after she had become a dependent province of Denmark in 1380, was not so powerful as before, yet she remained, in the fourteenth century, an important province, and the country was pretty well peopled. There were always two bishops on the island, and a number of influential and wealthy families and chieftains, having many wants, which their northern country was unable to supply, and which could be supplied only from the south. She therefore remained during the fifteenth century the object of a lively commerce. The inhabitants received their south- ern necessaries partly from Norway through Bergen, where the Hanseatic towns had their great emporium and factory for the whole North ; but principally, perhaps, from that neigh- boring southern country, from which Iceland had, in former times, received her first Christian settlers, the " Papas," prior to the Northimen, and with which the connection and intercourse had probably never ceased .*
" See upon this, Finn Magnusen, " Om de Engelskes Handel paa Island i det 15 de Aarhundrede in Nordisk Tidsskrift for Oldkyndighed," 2 Bind, p. 164. Kiobenhavn, 1833.
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ENGLISH EXPEDITIONS PRIOR TO 1492.
The navigation from the ports of Great Britain to Iceland appears to have been particularly flourishing during the time above indicated. Several British ports were used in this trade. Hull, London, and Bristol are mentioned as such ; and Scotch and Irish vessels are said to have gone over at times, for fishing and commercial purposes. But the prin- cipal seat and centre of all these commercial expeditions to Iceland was Bristol, the same port from which, afterwards, the Cabots set out for their famous north-western discoveries. The goods which the English carried to Iceland were mani- fold : cloth, and other manufactures ; corn, wheat, and other breadstuffs ; wine, beer, and other liquors .* They received in exchange for these commodities fish, principally stockfish. Iceland and its waters were, together with the coast of Nor- way, the great fishing-ground for cod ; and we may call it, in this respect, the forerunner of the Newfoundland Banks, the great outpost for European fishermen in later times .; Some- times also learned men, or at least priests, appear to have gone out with those English fishermen and merchants to the north-west. At least, a certain Nicolas, of Linne, is men- tioned, as having made a voyage to the north-west from the English port of " Linne," now Kingslynn, in Norfolk, and as having arrived in Iceland with favorable winds in a fort- night. #
How brisk this commerce in some years must have been, is clear from the fact mentioned by Norwegian authors, that in the month of April, 1419, a heavy snow-storm in a short
* See them mentioned in Finn Magnusen, I. c. p. 147.
t An old English poem of the fifteenth century, quoted by Hakluyt, begins with these words:
"Of Iceland to write is little nede Save of Stockfish," etc.
# See on this, C. C. Zartmann, in Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, tom. 3, p. 48, 1836.
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ENGLISH EXPEDITIONS PRIOR TO 1492.
time destroyed not less than twenty-five English vessels, the cargoes and wrecks of which were scattered on the coasts of Iceland and circumjacent islands, whilst the crews were swallowed by the sea .* The English, thinking that so great disasters could not have happened without the assistance and ill-will of the Icelanders, went over to Iceland with an armed force to take revenge for the robberies of which they accused them. English men-of-war, or "pirates," as the Icelanders called them, during the course of the century, went repeat- edly over to Iceland to seek satisfaction for some supposed insult. They made war in the island, settled and fortified themselves there, and seemed as if they had the intention of conquering the whole country. Now and then, also, they quarreled with the merchants and mariners from the Hanse- · atic ports, in many respects their rivals in the commerce of Northern Europe; who, likewise, as I have mentioned above, often sailed to Iceland ; and with whom the English, from time to time, had conflicts in those northern seas.
It is not my intention to give a complete history of the commerce from England, and particularly from Bristol to Iceland ; but it is interesting and important to show the English posted on that great northern oceanic high-road, which had conducted the Europeans repeatedly to discovery in north-eastern America, and to see them in the Icelandic waters, on the threshold of America, occupied with fishing, and military, piratical, and commercial expeditions. Under these circumstances, it may not be unreasonable to suppose, that English vessels may have been driven by storms to Greenland, Labrador, Vinland, and so to the coast of Maine ; as the old Northmen and the Zeni were driven to " Frisland." Though the vessels of the fifteenth century
* Sce on this, Finn Magnusen, I. c. 115.
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ENGLISH EXPEDITIONS PRIOR TO 1492.
had the advantage of the compass, which the old Northmen had not, still if one storm alone, that of 1419, could disperse and destroy twenty-five English vessels, there may have been many chances for widely ranging oceanic adventures in those seas. We have, however, no reports of any such event, as in previous times is said. to have happened to Prince Madoc, to Naddod, Biarne, and the subjects of king Zichmni. The only exception to this appears to be the report, that pirates at that time had their lurking-places on the coast of Greenland.
Toward the end of the fifteenth century, in the year 1476, the king of Denmark, Christian I, is said to have sent out, under the command of a certain John Scolnus, more cor- rectly called John of Kolno, a native of Poland, an ex- ploring expedition on the same old northern route toward the West. The first author who very briefly mentions this Polish adventure, is the Spanish historian Gomara, in the year 1553, without, however, stating from whom he had it. The Dutch cosmographer, Cornelius Wytfliet, more fully speaks of him in his well-known work, "Descriptionis Ptolemaica augmentum. Lovanii, 1597." On folio 102 of this work, after having related the voyage of the Zeni, he says, that, in the year 1476, the said John Scolnus, sailing beyond Norway, Frisland ( Iceland ? ), and Greenland, entered the Arctic Strait (Boreale fretum ingressus, sub ipso arctico circulo) ; and came to Labrador and Estotiland. Neither does Wytfliet say, from what source he had this report. But after his time it was a current opinion among geographers and historians, that Kolno, in the year 1476, had discovered, under the direction and order of Christian I., the strait called Anian,-a north-western passage through Hudson's Strait. Many have repeated this report without finding any other authority for it than Gomara and Wytfliet.
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EXPEDITIONS OF COLUMBUS PRIOR TO 1492.
But the Danish and Norwegian writers upon this subject consider that voyage as altogether apocryphal, and say, that their old northern historians and documents do not contain the slightest mention of such an expedition. Moreover, they think that if it was made at all, it could have been nothing more than an attempt to find out again the lost old Greenland, . and not to make new discoveries in the distant west .* The learned Polish geographer, Lelewel, though inclined, from a patriotic motive, to make a great deal of the undertaking ascribed to his countrymen, has found no Polish authority whatever. We therefore dismiss this somewhat celebrated voyage with the simple statement, that it probably never took place, or that, at all events, it had nothing to do with Vinland and Maine, as, indeed, Lelewel explicitly alleges.
It is curious, however, that in the very next year after that ascribed to the pretended voyage of this Pole, namely, in the year 1477, another great navigator, the greatest and most famed of all, Christopher Columbus himself, went out to explore and reconnoiter on the very same old northern route toward the west. And if, as Lelewel says, the voyage of Scolnus at once became known in Portugal and Spain, he might as well have added the supposition, that perhaps also Columbus heard of it, and that he might have been attracted to the north by the reports of this expedition of Christian I. Columbus, having his mind full of speculations and ideas about the possibility of a circumnavigation of the globe, and about the short distance between Europe and the eastern end of Asia, made several trials and performed several voyages preparatory, so to say, to his grand undertaking. He went in a southern direction to Madeira, Porto-Santo, the Canary Islands, nay, to the coast of Guinea. He made himself
* See for this the work, Grönland's Historiske Mindesmaerker. Tredie Rind, p. 630. Kiobenhavn, 1845,
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EXPEDITIONS OF COLUMBUS PRIOR TO 1492.
acquainted with all the routes of the Portuguese, and also with the extreme ne plus ultra of their discoveries in a west- ern direction, toward the Azores or Western Islands. Hum- boldt thinks it probable, that he himself made an excursion to this western out-post of Portuguese discovery .* Columbus tried also, in the year 1477, the northern route, sailing (probably with an English merchantman from Bristol) toward Iceland, and even some distance beyond it. What induced him to undertake this voyage, he has not told us. But very probably it was the fame of the Ultima Thule, that attracted him. He had read, probably, about it in his old books, in which it was described as the most remote country discovered by the Romans. And he might have inquired, "Are there not still other countries beyond it, and, perhaps, some parts of Asia quite near to it ?" The distinguished French geographer, Malte Brun, has supposed, that Colum- bus, while yet in Italy, had heard something of the early dis- coveries of the Northmen beyond Thule .; And this is not at all unlikely. In Rome, the center of the world, where they had always an eye upon all countries, both heathen and Christian, they certainly knew something of Greenland ; and in Venice, the voyages of the Zeni, though they were not printed as yet, may have been known to some persons. A Danish author thinks it also possible, that Columbus, who made research in all books, printed and manuscript, about his supposed countries in the west, had become acquainted with some copy of the work of the well-known old historian, Adam of Bremen, who clearly mentioned the discovery of Vinland.#
By such hints Columbus may have been induced to make
* Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen, vol. 1, p. 231. Berlin, 1852.
t See upon this, Malte Brun, Histoire de la Géographie, ed. 2, pp. 395, 499. # See Finn Magnusen, 1. c. p. 165, note 1.
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EXPEDITIONS OF COLUMBUS PRIOR TO 1492.
his voyage to Iceland, "and a hundred leagues beyond it." This must have brought him nearly in sight of Greenland, and, at all events, for the first time, into American waters.
We have, unhappily, only a very short notice * of this, to us, particularly interesting voyage, which evidently was a pioneering or exploring expedition in the direction toward the north-east parts of America. But so much seems certain, that he did not merely sail along Iceland (Thule), but stayed some time in the country, and conversed with the inhabitants. If so, this great inquirer must have asked questions enough about countries lying to the west ; and he may have heard much about Greenland, Markland, and Vinland. There must have been in the year 1477, in Iceland, many people who well recollected these countries. The last ship from Markland (Nova Scotia) and its vicinity, had returned to Ice- land, as I have stated, only about a hundred years before the visit of Columbus. It was only sixty-seven years before, that the last Icelandic ship had arrived from Greenland (1410). And even in the year 1445, an Icelander, Björn Thorleifson and his wife are said to have gone to Greenland, and to have stayed there a winter. Many persons in Iceland may have well recollected all this in the year 1477; and, moreover, the old writings about the expeditions of the Northmen toward the west, were then very well known and read by many persons in Iceland. Rafn and Finn Magnusen think it pos- sible, that Columbus, having landed in Hoalfjardareyri, at that time the principal port of Iceland, saw and spoke there with the learned Icelandic bishop, Magnus Eyolfson, of Skalholt, who is known to have been at that place in 1477 .;
* See this in Fernando Colombo, Vita dell' ammiraglio Christophoro Co- lombo, etc., cap. 4. Venetia, 1571.
t See upon this, Rafn, Antiquitates Americana. Introduction, p. xxiv, note 1. A learned friend of mine, M. Sigurdsou, Royal Archivist in Kopen-
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EXPEDITIONS OF COLUMBUS PRIOR TO 1492.
At all events there were sources enough, both books and persons, from which Columbus might, in the year 1477, have learned something about countries lying not very far to the west and south-west from Iceland ; and we may well be allowed to think, that by this information he was confirmed in his belief, of an easy and comparatively short navigation to the east of Asia. Baron Humboldt, who also believed that the exploring expedition of Columbus to Iceland had been proved,* thinks, notwithstanding, that it had little to do with the plans of the great navigator. He says that "Column- bus might have known of the expeditions of the Northmen to Vinland or Drogeo quite well. All this information might not have appeared to him to be connected with his inten- tions. He searched the route to India and to the country of the spices."f I think the great German savant is not quite right in this. If his suggestion be true, we might well ask, why Columbus should have given himself the trouble of making an excursion to Ultima Thule. I think Columbus wished to know, whether our globe was really as large, and the ocean as broad, as cosmographers at this time made it ; or if there were not some countries in the back-ground of the ocean very near, and accessible by an easy navigation ; and, on this subject, the reports of the Icelanders might well have given him some light. If he only knew, and was able to prove to others, that the globe was small, the ocean not very broad, and that countries not far distant had been reported
· hagen, who has favored my researches in a most kind and generous man- ner in many ways, and by the most acceptable services, has proved to me, in a letter, or essay on the visit of Columbus to Iceland, that in Kopen- hagen, among the learned of Denmark, nothing new has become known on this point, and that all the questions connected with it, rest, as before on mere probability.
* He adopts the opinion of Finn Magnusen. See Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen, vol. 3, p. 155.
t Soo Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen, vol. 3, p. 370.
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EXPEDITIONS OF COLUMBUS PRIOR TO 1492.
or indicated from the Canaries, from the Azores, from Ireland and from Iceland, then he might make his choice among the different routes, and explore that region and latitude, to which he thought his land of the spices to be nearest.
I think it, therefore, more correct to subscribe to the opinion of Finn Magnusen on this subject, who says: " If Columbus had been informed of the most important discove- ries of the Northmen, it is much easier to understand his firm belief in the possibility of the rediscovery of a western country, and his great zeal in carrying it out; and we may conceive his subsequent discovery of America partly as a continuation and consequence of the transactions and achieve- ments of the old Scandinavians." This Danish historian · adds this philosophical remark : "Long ago we have known, that the fate of mankind often hangs on the finest threads, the direction of which the historian scarcely can follow and exhibit; but it is seldom that these threads, as in our case, can be observed after the lapse of three centuries."*
The results of this chapter for our particular object may be summed up thus :
1. The lively commerce and navigation between England and Iceland during the course of the fifteenth century, make it appear possible, that some English vessel may have been driven to the coasts of New England.
2. The pretended expedition of the Polish navigator, John Scolnus, in the year 1476, if it was ever made, did not approach the coast of New England.
3. Columbus may perhaps have received in Iceland infor- mation respecting the Northman expeditions to the south-west, and more particularly respecting those to Vinland and Dro-
* See Finn Magnusen, Om de Engelskes Handel paa Island, in Nor- disk Tidsskrift for Oldkyndighed, 2 Bind, p. 166. Kiobenhavn, 1833.
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EXPEDITIONS OF COLUMBUS PRIOR TO 1492.
geo, under which names the territory of the State of Maine was included ; and, accordingly, the fame of these countries may have contributed something to the furtherance of the greatest event of modern times, the discovery of America by Columbus.
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CHAPTER IV.
EXPEDITIONS OF JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT TO NORTH- EASTERN AMERICA IN THE YEARS 1497, 1498.
1. VOYAGE OF JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT IN THE YEAR 1497.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS may be said to have given directly, as well as indirectly, an impulse to western dis- covery in all the nations and to all the sovereigns of Western Europe. In Italy, in Portugal, and in Spain, he agitated personally for his scheme of an expedition to the west, and made it known in those countries. To France and England he had sent his brother Bartholomew, who, in the year 1488, laid before Henry VII., of England, his brother's plan ; made for the king a map of the world, to show which way his brother Christopher intended to sail ; * and in this manner, for the first time, drew his attention to the distant parts of the western ocean. Cautious Henry, however, did not at once profit by the occasion then offered.
When Columbus, with the assistance of Ferdinand and Isabella, had succeeded in his enterprise, Henry no doubt felt regret, and might now have become eager to avail him- self of any opportunity to partake of the profits, which Spain expected to derive from western discoveries. " At Henry's court," as we are informed by good authority, "there was great talke of the undertaking of Columbus,
* See on this map Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen, vol. 2, p. 275. Berlin, 1852.
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THE VOYAGE OF JOHN CABOT, 1497.
which was affirmed to be a thing more divine than humane; and this fame and report increased in the hearts of some of the king's subjects a great flame of desire to attempt some- thing alike notable." *
The king's subjects, particularly the mariners and mer- chants of Bristol, had been long used to sail, as I have before related, to the north-west of the Atlantic, toward Ice- land and its vicinity. It appears probable, as I have already remarked, that these Bristol men, on their expeditions to the north-west, yearly repeated, should have obtained informa- tion about other countries lying to the west and south-west of Iceland. We unhappily know nearly nothing of the old traditions of the merchants and seafaring men of Bristol. This much, however, is certain, that there were in this port persons interested in such voyages, mariners accustomed to perform them, and vessels fitted for the service. It was, therefore, quite natural, that expeditions to the north-west should have originated in that place, and have found persons there ready to promote and aid them.
Bristol, like other ports in the north of Europe had, among its inhabitants, Italian families ; and they, particularly those from Venice, being the most enlightened and experienced merchants of the time, were the leading men of this, as of other commercial communities ; and, like the old Venetian Zeni, of whom I have spoken above, put themselves at the head of all new maritime undertakings.
Among those Venetians at Bristol was a certain Giovanni Caboto (or Cabota), a merchant, who, with his three sons, we do not know exactly at what time, but probably before
* See Ramusio, Delle Navigationi et Viaggi, tom. 1, fol. 374, Valen- tia, 1613, where Sebastian Cabot is introduced as relating this in a conver- sation with a gentleman of note (Galeazzo Bottrigari), the Pope's envoy in Spain.
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