Scandinavian Peninsula, in the anonymous atlas of 1351, preserved at
Florence and commonly called the "Medicean Marine Atlas,"[234] which is an
Italian, probably a Genoese, work. The North is here represented on a map
of the world and on a map of Europe (reproduced pp. 236, 260). The
representation to a great extent resembles the Dalorto type. Its division
of western Scandinavia into three great promontories no doubt recalls the
Carignano map to such an extent that one may suppose it to have been
influenced by some Italian source of that map; but in the names it shows
more resemblance to the Dalorto maps: the delineation of the Baltic and of
the peninsula corresponding to Skåne is practically the same, it perhaps
resembles in particular the Modena map and the anonymous map at Florence
(cf. pp. 232, 233). Jutland, on the other hand, has been greatly prolonged
and given a different shape. The three great tongues of land in Norway,
with a smaller one on the east near Denmark, may correspond to the four
headlands on the south coast of Norway on the Dalorto maps (cf. especially
that of 1339). Through these being considerably increased in size, and the
bays between them being enlarged, the west coast of Norway has been moved
even farther to the west than on the map of 1325, and has been given a
somewhat more westerly longitude than Ireland. On the map of Europe "C.
trobs" ["capitolum tronberg" ? i.e., Tönsberg] is written on the first bay
[like "trunberg" on the Dalorto map], "c. bergis" ["capitolum bergis,"
i.e., the see of Bergen] and "c. trons" (?) [the see of Trondhjem] on each
of the two other bays. Finally, "alogia," which on the Dalorto map is
marked as a town on the northern west coast of Norway, to the north of
Nidroxia [Nidaros], has followed the west coast and is placed on the
westernmost tongue of land. How the whole of this delineation came about
is difficult to say. One might be tempted to think that it was through a
misunderstanding of a description of Norway, like that we find in the
Historia Norwegiæ, where the country is described as divided into four
parts, the first being the land on the eastern bay near Denmark, the
second "Gulacia" [Gulathing], the third "Throndemia," the fourth
"Halogia."[235] The map of the world in the Medici atlas is drawn in the
same way as the compass-charts. It has no names of towns in Scandinavia,
and the westernmost tongue of land is without a name (see the
reproduction). On the other hand, the name "alolanda" occurs inland in
eastern Norway, and is there obviously a corruption of "Hallandia" (cf. p.
227). This mappamundi is interesting from the fact that it makes the
land-masses of the continent extend without a limit on the north, whereas
Africa is terminated by a peninsula on the south.
[Illustration: The north-western portion of the mappamundi in the Medicean
Marine Atlas (1351). The degrees are here inserted after the maps of
Ptolemy]
[Sidenote: Pizigano's map, 1367]
The map of the Venetian Francesco Pizigano, of 1367, resembles Dalorto's
of 1325 in its delineation of the North; the south side of Norway has
somewhat the same rounded form with seven headlands, and "Alogia" is a
town on the west coast.
[Illustration: From the Bayeux tapestry, eleventh century]
VIEWS OF THE NORTH AMONG THE NORTHERN PEOPLES
[Sidenote: Scandinavian view of Greenland as mainland]
It has been already pointed out that, while the oldest northern authority,
Adam of Bremen, regarded the countries of the North, outside Scandinavia,
as islands in the ocean surrounding the earth's disc (in agreement with
the learned view and with the wheel-maps), the Scandinavians, unfettered
by learned ideas, assumed that Greenland was connected with the continent,
for the reason, amongst others, that, as the author of the "King's Mirror"
expresses it, continental animals such as the hare, wolf and reindeer
could not otherwise have got there. But, as we have seen, this land
communication could only be supposed to exist on the far side of Gandvik
(the White Sea) and the Bjarmeland (Northern Russia) that they knew, and
to go round the north of the sea that lay to the north of Norway. Thus the
sea came to be called Hafsbotn (i.e., the bay or gulf of the ocean). We
find the clearest expression of this view in the Icelandic geography
already referred to, which may in part be attributed to Abbot Nikulás
Bergsson of Thverá[236] (cf. vol. i. p. 313; vol. ii. pp. 1, 172), and
where we read:
"Nearest Denmark is lesser Sweden [so called to distinguish it from
'Sviþjóð it Mikla,' Russia], there is Öland, then Gotland, then
Helsingeland, then Vermeland, then two Kvænlands, and they are north
of Bjarmeland. From Bjarmeland uninhabited country extends northward
as far as Greenland. South of Greenland is Helluland," etc. [cf. the
continuation, above, p. 1]. In a variant of this geography in an older
MS. we read: "North of Saxland is Denmark. Through Denmark the sea
goes into 'Austrveg' [the countries on the Baltic]. Sweden lies east
of Denmark, but Norway on the north. To the north of Norway is
Finmark. From thence the land turns towards the north-east, and then
to the east before one comes to Bjarmeland. This is tributary to the
Garda-king [the king of Gardarike]. From Bjarmeland the land stretches
to the uninhabited parts of the north, until Greenland begins. To the
south of Greenland lies Helluland," etc.
We have yet a third, later and more detailed variant in the so-called
"Gripla," given in vol. i. p. 288.
The belief in this land connection with Greenland may have originated in,
or at any rate have been considerably strengthened by, the discovery of
countries such as Novaya Zemlya, Svalbard (Spitzbergen ?), and the
northern uninhabited parts of the east coast of Greenland[237] (cf. above,
pp. 165, ff.). In addition to this, those sailing the Polar Sea came
across pack-ice wherever they went in a northerly direction, closing in
the sea and making it like a gulf, and it must therefore have been natural
to believe in a continuous coast which connected the countries behind the
ice, and which held this fast. The belief in a land connection seems to
have been so ingrained that it can scarcely have rested on nothing but
theoretical speculations, but must rather have been supported by tangible
proofs of this kind.
[Sidenote: Saxo on the far North]
It was to be expected that the countries on the north of Hafsbotn should
become fairylands in popular belief, Jotunheimr and Risaland, inhabited by
giants. Even Saxo (beginning of the thirteenth century) says that to the
north of Norway
"lies a land, the name and position of which are unknown, without
human civilisation, but rich in people of monstrous strangeness. It is
separated from Norway, which lies opposite, by a mighty arm of the
sea. As the navigation there is very unsafe, few of those who have
ventured thither have had a fortunate return."
As it can hardly be the Christian settlements in Greenland that Saxo
refers to as a land without human civilisation, we must doubtless suppose
that his land in the north is a confusion of the eastern uninhabited
tracts of Greenland with Jotunheimr, as in Icelandic ideas. For Adam of
Bremen already had giants (Cyclopes) on an island in the north, and we
have seen that there were similar conceptions in the Historia Norwegiæ
(cf. p. 167).
[Sidenote: The tale of Halli Geit]
A mediæval Icelandic tale [inserted in Björn Jónsson's Greenland Annals]
says of Halli Geit that
"he alone succeeded in coming by land on foot over mountains and
glaciers and all the wastes, and past all the gulfs of the sea to
Gandvik and then to Norway. He led with him a goat, and lived on its
milk; he often found valleys and narrow openings between the glaciers,
so that the goat could feed either on grass or in the woods."
[Illustration: From the Bayeux tapestry, eleventh century]
[Sidenote: Land at the North Pole]
Ideas of this kind led to the view held by some that there was land as far
as the North Pole, which appears in an Icelandic tract, included in the
"Rymbegla" [1780, p. 466]. Of a bad Latin verse, there reproduced, it is
said:
"Some will understand this to mean that he [i.e., the poet] says that
land lies under 'leidarstjarna' [the pole star], and that the shores
there prevent the ring of the ocean from joining [i.e., around the
disc of the earth]; with this certain ancient legends agree, which
show that one can go, or that men have gone, on foot from Greenland to
Norway."
[Sidenote: The Outer Ocean]
But the mediæval learned idea of the Outer Ocean surrounding the whole
disc of earth also asserts itself in the North, and appears in Snorre's
Heimskringla and in the "King's Mirror," amongst other works. This ocean
went outside Greenland, which was connected with Europe, and made the
former into a peninsula. In the work already referred to, "Gripla" (only
known in a late MS. in Björn Jónsson of Skardsá, first half of the
seventeenth century), we read, in continuation of the passage already
quoted (p. 35): "Between Wineland and Greenland is Ginnungagap, it
proceeds from the sea that is called 'Mare oceanum,' which surrounds the
whole world." Since Wineland [i.e., the Insulæ Fortunatæ], as already
stated (pp. 1, ff.), was by some, evidently through a misunderstanding,
made continuous with Africa,[238] it is clear that the Outer Ocean must be
supposed to go completely round both Greenland and Wineland (cf. the
illustration, p. 2). Thus it was also natural to suppose that there was an
opening somewhere between these two countries, through which the Outer
Ocean was connected with the inner, known ocean between Norway, Greenland,
etc.[239]
[Sidenote: Ginnungagap]
At least as old as the Norsemen's conceptions of countries beyond the
ocean in the North was probably the idea of the great abyss, Ginnungagap,
which there forms the boundary of the ocean and of the world, and which
must be derived from the Tartarus and Chaos of the Greeks (cf. p. 150).
When the Polar Sea (Hafsbotn) was closed by the land connection between
Bjarmeland and Greenland, it was natural that those who tried to form a
consistent view of the world could no longer find a place for the abyss in
that direction; and G. Storm [1890] is certainly right in thinking that it
was for this reason that Ginnungagap was located in the passage between
Greenland and Wineland; since, no doubt, the idea was that this "gap" in
some way or other was connected with the void Outer Ocean. But this view
is first found in the very late copy (seventeenth century) of "Gripla,"
and of the somewhat older map of Gudbrand Torlaksson [Torlacius] of 1606
[Torfæus, 1706; Pl. I., p. 21], where "Ginnunga Gap" is marked as the name
of the strait between Greenland and America. What Ginnungagap really was
seems never to have been quite clear, different people having no doubt had
different ideas about it; but when, as here, it is used as the name of a
strait through which the Outer Ocean enters, it cannot any longer be an
abyss; at the most it may have been a maelstrom or whirlpool, which,
indeed, is suggested by the whirlpool on Jón Gudmundsson's map (cf. p.
34). But even this interpretation of the name became effaced, and in
another MS. of the seventeenth century (see p. 35) it is simply used as a
name for the great ocean to the west of Spain (that is, the Atlantic).
[Illustration: From an Icelandic MS. of 1363]
On the other hand we have seen (pp. 150, ff.) that ideas of whirlpools in
the northern seas appear to have been widely spread in the Middle Ages.
There is a possibility, as already hinted (vol. i. p. 303), that when in
Ivar Bárdsson's description of the northern west coast of Greenland "the
many whirlpools that there lie all over the sea" are spoken of, it was
thought that here was the boundary of the ocean and of the world, and that
it was formed by the many whirlpools, or abysses in the sea. In that case
these cannot be regarded merely as maelstroms like the Moskenström, but
more like the true Ginnungagap. But this is extremely uncertain; it may
again have been one of those embellishments which were often used in
speaking of the most distant regions.
[Sidenote: Saxo]
Saxo Grammaticus (first part of the thirteenth century) in the preface to
his Danish history gives geographical information about Scandinavia and
Iceland, to which we have already referred several times. He does not
mention Greenland. He says himself that he has made use of Icelandic
literature to a large extent; but he has also mingled with it a good deal
of mythical material from elsewhere.
[Sidenote: The King's Mirror, circa 1240 ?]
Beyond comparison the most important geographical writer of the mediæval
North, and at the same time one of the first in the whole of mediæval
Europe, was the unknown author who wrote the "King's Mirror,"[240]
probably about the middle of the thirteenth century.[241] If one turns
from contemporary or earlier European geographical literature, with all
its superstition and obscurity, to this masterly work, the difference is
very striking. Even at the first appearance of the Scandinavians in
literature, in Ottar's straightforward and natural narrative of his voyage
to King Alfred, the numerous trustworthy statements about previously
unknown regions are a prominent feature, and give proof of a sober faculty
of observation, altogether different from what one usually meets with in
mediæval literature. This is the case to an even greater degree in the
"King's Mirror," and the difference between what is there stated about the
North and what we find less than two hundred years earlier in Adam of
Bremen is obvious. Apart from the fact that the whole method of
presentation is inspired by superior intelligence, it shows an insight and
a faculty of observation which are uncommon, especially at that period;
and in many points this remarkable man was evidently centuries before his
time. Although well acquainted with much of the earlier mediæval
literature, he has liberated himself to a surprising extent from its
fabulous conceptions. We hear nothing of the many fabulous peoples, who
were still common amongst much later authors, nor about whirlpools, nor
the curdled and dark sea, but instead we have fresh and copious
information about the northern regions, and it comes with a clearness like
that which already struck us in Ottar. We have a remarkably good
description of the sea-ice, its drift, etc. (cf. vol. i. pp. 279, f.); we
have also a description of the animal world of the northern seas to which
there is no parallel in the earlier literature of the world (cf. pp. 155,
ff.). No less than twenty-one different whales are referred to fully. If
we make allowance for three of them being probably sharks, and for two
being perhaps alternative names for the same whale, the total corresponds
to the number of species that are known in northern waters. Six seals are
described, which corresponds to the number of species living on the coasts
of Norway and Greenland. Besides these the walrus ["rostung"] is very well
described. But even the author of the "King's Mirror" could not altogether
avoid the supernatural in treating of the sea. He describes in the seas of
Iceland the enormous monster "hafgufa," which seems more like a piece of
land than a fish, and he does not think there are more than two of them in
the sea. This is the same that the Norwegian fishermen now call the krake,
and certainly also the same that appears in ancient oriental myths, and
that is met with again in the Brandan legend as the great whale that they
take for an island and land on (cf. p. 234). In the Greenland seas the
"King's Mirror" has two kinds of trolls, "hafstrambr" [a kind of merman],
with a body that was like a glacier to look at, and "margygr" [a mermaid],
both of which are fully described. There is also mention in the Greenland
seas of the strange and dangerous "sea-fences," which are often spoken of
in the sagas [and about which there is a lay, the "hafgerðinga-drápa"].
The author does not quite know what to make of this marvel, for "it looks
as if all the storms and waves that there are in that sea gather
themselves together in three places, and become three waves. They fence in
the whole sea, so that men cannot find a way out, and they are higher than
great mountains and like steep summits," etc. It is probable that the
belief in these sea-fences is derived from something that really took
place, perhaps most likely earthquake-waves, or submarine earthquakes,
which may sometimes have occurred near volcanic Iceland. But it is curious
that in the "King's Mirror" these waves are connected with Greenland. They
might also be supposed to be connected with the waves that are formed when
icebergs capsize.
[Illustration: Marginal drawing in the Flateyjarbók (1387-1394)]
The principal countries described are Ireland, Iceland and Greenland; but
it is characteristic of the author that the farther north he goes, away
from regions commonly known, the freer his account becomes from all kinds
of fabulous additions. In Ireland he is still held fast by the
superstition of the period, and especially by the priests' fables about
themselves and their holy men, and by the English author Giraldus
Cambrensis.[242] In Iceland, as a rule, he is free of this troublesome
ballast, and gives valuable information about the glaciers of Iceland,
glacier-falls, boiling springs, etc. In his opinion the cold climate of
Iceland is due to the vicinity of Greenland, which sends out great cold
owing to its being above all other lands covered with ice; for this reason
Iceland has so much ice on its mountains. Although he thinks it possible
that its volcanoes are due to the fires of Hell, and that it is thus the
actual place of torment, and that Hell is therefore not in Sicily, as his
holiness Pope Gregory had supposed, he nevertheless has another and more
reasonable explanation of the origin of earthquakes and volcanoes. They
may be due to hollow passages and cavities in the foundations of the land,
which by the force either of the wind or of the roaring sea may become so
full of wind that they cannot stand the pressure, and thus violent
earthquakes may arise. From the violent conflict which the air produces
underground, the great fire may be kindled which breaks out in different
parts of the country. It must not be thought certain that this is exactly
how it takes place, but one ought rather to lay such things together to
form the explanation that seems more conceivable, for
[Sidenote: Fire derived from force (labour)]
"we see that from force ['afli'] all fire comes. When hard stone and
hard iron are brought together with a blow, fire comes from the iron
and from the force with which they are struck together. You may also
rub pieces of wood together until fire comes from the labour that they
have. It is also constantly happening that two winds arise from
different quarters, one against the other, and if they meet in the air
there is a hard shock, and this shock gives off a great fire, which
spreads far in the air," etc.
This idea of a connection between labour (friction) and force (motion),
and this explanation of the possible origin of volcanoes are surprising in
the thirteenth century, and seem to bring the author centuries in advance
of his time; we here have germs of the theory of the conservation of
energy.
[Sidenote: The inland ice of Greenland]
His statements about Greenland are remarkable for their sober
trustworthiness. He gives the first description of its inland ice:
"But since you asked whether the land is thawed or not, or whether it
is covered with ice like the sea, you must know that there are small
portions of the land which are thawed, but all the rest is covered
with ice, and the people do not know whether the country is large or
small, since all the mountains and valleys are covered with ice, so
that no one can find his way in. But in reality it must be that there
is a way, either in those valleys that lie between the mountains, or
along the shores, so that animals can find a way, for otherwise
animals cannot come there from other countries, unless they find a way
through the ice and find the land thawed. But men have often tried to
go up the country, upon the highest mountains in various places, to
look around them, to see whether they could find any part that was
thawed and habitable, but they have not found any such, except where
people are now living, and that is but little along the shore itself."
[Illustration: Norwegian MS. of the Gulathings law. Fourteenth century]
This, as we see, is an extremely happy description of the mighty
ice-sheet. He also describes the climate of the country, both the fine
weather that often occurs in summer, and its usually inclement character,
which causes so small a proportion of the country to be habitable.
[Sidenote: The glaciers of Greenland a pole of maximum cold]
"The land is cold, and the glacier [i.e., the great ice or inland ice]
has this nature, that he sends out cold gusts which drive away the
showers from his face, and he usually keeps his head bare. But often
his near neighbours have to suffer for it, in that all other lands
which lie in his neighbourhood get much bad weather from him, and all
the cold blasts that he throws off fall upon them."
Though in simple and everyday words, this really expresses the idea that
Greenland and the neighbouring regions are disproportionately cold, and
that, in part at any rate, this is due to the glaciers of Greenland, which
have a refrigerating effect (as an anticyclonic pole of maximum cold).
This is to a certain degree correct. In crossing Greenland in 1888 we
found that a pole of cold [anticyclone] lies over the inland ice, which
gives off cold air. Scientific greatness does not always depend on
erudition or acute learned combinations; it is just as often the result of
a sound common-sense.
The allusion in the "King's Mirror" to the Norse inhabitants of Greenland
and their life has already been quoted in part (vol. i. p. 277); curiously
enough the Skrælings are not mentioned. The author gives a graphic
description of the aurora borealis, and attempts to explain its cause. As
already noted (p. 155), it is curious that he should speak of it as
something peculiar to Greenland, when he must of course have known it well
enough in Norway.
The cosmography of the "King's Mirror" is based on older mediæval writers,
especially Isidore. The spherical form of the earth and the course of the
sun are mentioned, as is Macrobius's doctrine of zones. In the frigid
zones the cold has attracted to itself such power that the waters throw
off their nature and are changed to ice, and all the land and sea is
covered with ice. They are usually uninhabitable, but nevertheless the
author considers that Greenland lies in the north frigid zone. He thinks
that "it is mainland, and connected with other mainland," as already
mentioned, because it has a number of terrestrial animals that are not
often found on islands. It
"lies on the extreme side of the world on the north, and he does not
think there is land outside 'Heimskringla' [the circle of the world,
'orbis terrarum'] beyond Greenland, only the great ocean which runs
round the world; and it is said by men who are wise that the strait
through which the empty ocean flows comes in by Greenland, and into
the gap between the lands ('landa-klofi'), and thereafter with fjords
and gulfs it divides all countries, where it runs into Heimskringla."
This is, as we see, the same idea as already (p. 240) referred to, that
the Outer Ocean runs in through a sound between Greenland and another
continent to the south, evidently Wineland, which is thus here again
regarded as part of Africa (cf. p. 1).
It is moreover striking that neither Wineland, Markland, nor Helluland is
mentioned in the "King's Mirror," and Bjarmeland, Svalbard, etc., are also
omitted. Thus it does not give any complete description of the northern
lands, but it must be remembered that what we know of the work is only a
fragment, and perhaps it was never completed.
[Illustration: The Nancy map. A copy, of 1427, of Claudius Clavus's first
map of the North. The lines of latitude and longitude are omitted for the
sake of clearness]
CLAUDIUS CLAVUS
[Sidenote: Claudius Claussön Swart, born 1388]
[Sidenote: Clavus's maps]
The credit of having introduced the name of Greenland, with the ancient
Norsemen's geographical ideas about the extreme North, into cartography
belongs, so far as is known, to the Dane Claudius Claussön Swart, usually
called in Latin Claudius Clavus (sometimes also Nicolaus Niger). He was
born in Funen, travelled about Europe, and, as shown by Storm [1891, pp.
17, f.], was probably the "Nicolaus Gothus" who is mentioned at Rome in
January 1424, and who is reported to have there given out that he had seen
a copy of Livy in the monastery of Sorö, near Roskilde (which was probably
a romance on his part). We are told that he was a man of acute
intelligence, but a rover and unsteady. His subsequent history is unknown.
As a supplement to Ptolemy's Geography, which just at that time (1409) was
becoming known in Western Europe in a Latin translation, he made, probably
in Italy, two maps of the North, with accompanying descriptions. The maps
must have been drawn either by himself or with his help. They are the
first maps known in Western Europe which are furnished, after the model of
Ptolemy (or Marinus), with lines of latitude and longitude,[243] and they
thus mark the beginning of a more scientific cartography and geography in
Western Europe.[244]
His first map (the Nancy map) must have been drawn between the years 1413
and 1427, probably between 1424 and 1427; but it can never have been
widely known, as it has exercised no noticeable influence on the
cartography of the succeeding period. The French cardinal Filastre (ob.
1428), who was staying in Rome in 1427, became acquainted with it there,
and made a reduced copy of it, which, together with a copy of the
accompanying text, he had bound up with his copy of the Latin translation
of Ptolemy's Geography with maps. This work was not rediscovered at Nancy
until 1835, when it was published; the map is therefore usually called the
Nancy map. Clavus's second map, which seems to have been drawn later than
that just mentioned, has on the other hand had considerable influence on
the cartographical representation of the northern regions through a period
of two centuries.
A copy of the later map was first brought to light by Nordenskiöld at
Warsaw in 1889 [1889, p. xxx.]; since then several copies have been
rescued from oblivion, while the text accompanying the map was
accidentally discovered in 1900 by Dr. A. A. Björnbo in a mediæval MS. at
Vienna [Björnbo and Petersen, 1904]. The original map is lost; but except
as regards details of no great consequence there can now be no doubt as to
what it was like.
The reproductions (pp. 248 and 251) will give an idea of the
representation of the North on the two maps. As far as Ptolemy's map
extended (cf. vol. i. pp. 118, f.), it will be seen that its coast-lines
and islands are almost slavishly adhered to on both maps. To this the
Nancy map adds a Scandinavia, with Iceland, the east coast of Greenland,
and a northern land connection between the latter and Russia. On the later
map Scandinavia has been given a somewhat altered form, and Greenland has
a west coast. The Nancy map has few names, many more being mentioned in
the text, especially in Denmark. Even as regards Denmark they are
evidently to a great extent taken from an older itinerary like that of
Bruges ["Itinéraire Brugeois," cf. Storm, 1891, p. 19]. Some of the names
on the map, like "bergis," "nidrosia," etc., may be taken from older
compass-charts; both texts have the northern form "Bergen." Headlands,
bays and islands (on the coasts of Norway, Iceland and Greenland), for
which he had no names (and which moreover are due to the free
imagination of the draughtsman), have been designated in the Nancy text
by Latin numerals ("Primum," "Secundum," etc.), or are simply named after
each other (in Iceland), a sure sign that Clavus neither knew nor had
heard anything about these coasts.
[Illustration: Copy, of about 1467, of Claudius Clavus's later map. The
copy was executed by Nicolaus Germanus. Owing to the map being transferred
to the latter's trapezoidal projection, with converging meridians,
Greenland, for instance, has been given a very oblique appearance]
[Sidenote: Mystification in Clavus's geographical names]
On his later map Clavus has made up for the want of names in an
astonishing way. On some of the coasts he has continued to use Latin
numerals for bays, etc., but side by side with this on the shores of the
Baltic and in Sweden he has used Danish numerals, such as, "Förste aa
fluuii ostia" (First river, river-mouth), "Anden aa" (Second river) ...,
etc. The southerners, who did not understand Danish, of course regarded
these as names, and subjected them to all sorts of corruptions. Matters
became worse when in Gotland and Norway he used as the names of headlands
and rivers the words of a meaningless rigmarole: "Enarene," "apocane,"
"uithu," "wultu," "segh," "sarlecrogh," etc. (evidently corresponding to
children's rigmaroles like "Anniken, fanniken, fiken, foken," etc.)[245]
In Iceland he used the names of the runic characters for headlands and
rivers; but most remarkable of all are his names in Greenland, alternately
for headlands and the mouths of rivers(!). If, as shown by Björnbo and
Petersen, these are read continuously from the most northern headland on
the east coast round the south of the country, the following verse in the
dialect of Funen is the result:
"Thær boer eeynh manh secundum [== ij ?][246] eyn Gronelandsz aa,
ooc Spieldebedh mundhe hanyd heyde;
meer hawer han aff nidefildh,
een hanh hawer flesk hinth feyde.
Nordh um driuer sandhin naa new new."
(There lives a man (in ?) a Greenland river,
and Spieldebedh is his name;
he has more vermin (?)
than he has fat bacon, etc.)
The verse, as pointed out by Axel Olrik, is evidently an imitation or
travesty of the folk-songs, and, as Karl Aubert has shown,[247] its
prototype must certainly have been the first verse of the same folk-song
that is now known in Sweden by the name of "Kung Speleman":
"Dher bodde een kjempe vid Helsingborg,
Kung Speleman månde han heta,
Visst hade han mera boda sölf,
Än andra flesket dhet feta.
Uren drifver noran, och hafvet sunnan för noran."
(There lived a giant by Helsingborg,
King Fiddler was his name.
Sure he had greater store of silver
Than others of fat bacon, etc.)
This method of fabricating geographical names adopted by Clavus recalls
the designation of the notes in the mediæval scale, for which the words of
a Latin hymn were used, and it seems likely that this is what he has
imitated. But his mystification, with all these strange names which no one
in Southern Europe understood, and which in course of time underwent many
corruptions, has caused a good deal of trouble; many intelligent men have
racked their brains to discover learned etymological interpretations of
their origin, until Björnbo's lucky find of the later text of Clavus
solved the riddle.
[Sidenote: Different views of Clavus's maps and their origin]
Björnbo and Petersen, who by their valuable work on Claudius Clavus with a
reproduction of this text have the credit of throwing light on the
relation between his first and second maps, have put forward the view that
Clavus must have made his first map (the Nancy map) with its Latin text in
Italy; but curiously enough they think he entirely rejected the Italian
compass-charts as unsuitable for the representation of the North, and
constructed his delineation of the northern regions independently of them,
as an addition to Ptolemy's coast-lines, simply from information he had
derived from northern sources. After this we are to suppose that, in order
to extend his geographical knowledge, he went back to Denmark; and since
the authors place reliance on Clavus's assertion (in his later text) that
he had seen the places himself, they even credit him with having made a
voyage of geographical exploration, first to Norway (Trondhjem) and then
to Greenland. And then he is supposed to have drawn his later map, and
written the text for it (in Latin), in the North.
I have come to an entirely different conclusion. His older map must be
based, in my opinion, not only on Ptolemy, but to a great extent on
Italian maps. His later map and text, I consider, show beyond doubt that
he cannot have been either in Norway or Greenland, and I cannot find a
single statement in the Vienna text, or any coast-line in his later map,
which shows that he was outside Italy in the period between the two works.
Doubtless the delineation of Denmark, especially Sealand, is more detailed
in the second map; but the additions do not disclose any more local
knowledge than might be attributed to Clavus as a native of Funen before
his first map was drawn, even though he had not then ventured to change
the form of Ptolemy's Scandia, which to him, of course, became Sealand.
After this first attempt, however, he may have gained courage to launch
out further with his knowledge. He may also have discovered a few fresh
pieces of information, in the papal archives, for instance. Besides this,
he may, of course, have received oral communications from people from the
northern countries; but even of this I am unable to find sure signs. In
consideration of the imaginative tendencies shown by Clavus in his
distribution of names, and to some extent in the coast-lines on his map,
which perhaps may also have asserted themselves in his statement that he
had seen a complete MS. of Livy in Sorö monastery,[248] we shall scarcely
be insulting him if we believe his statements (in two passages of the
Vienna text) that he himself had seen Pygmies from a land in the North,
and Karelians in Greenland, to be rhetorical phrases, calculated to
strengthen the reader's confidence, and to mean at the outside that he had
seen something about these people in older authorities.
After having heard my reasons, Björnbo and Petersen have in all essentials
come round to my views. In particular they agree with me that Clavus
cannot have been in Greenland, but that the delineation of that country on
his later map is based on the Medicean map of the world, which will be
mentioned later. I therefore consider it superfluous to combat any further
here the reasons given in their work for their former view.
Claudius Clavus's task must have been to supplement the newly discovered
atlas of Ptolemy by what he knew of the North; and to this end his maps
were drawn, either by himself or by a professional draughtsman in Italy
from his instructions. The text was prepared after each of the maps, as a
description of it; and the latitudes and longitudes are taken from the map
[cf. Björnbo and Petersen, 1904, p. 130]. With the superstitious respect
of the period for older learned authorities in general, and for Ptolemy in
particular, he did not venture to alter the latter's coast-lines or
latitudes as far as they extended; even in the Danish islands he has done
so with hesitation, thus Sealand in his first sketch [the Nancy map] has
still the same form as Scandia in Ptolemy, etc. He then added to the
latter's coast-lines what he knew or could get together from other
quarters.
[Sidenote: Sources and genesis of the Nancy map]
His first map [the Nancy map] may presuppose the following sources,
besides Ptolemy's various maps of Northern Europe; Pietro Vesconte's
mappamundi (circa 1320) in Marino Sanudo's work,[249] and the anonymous
mappamundi, now preserved in the so-called Medicean Marine Atlas, of
1351, at Florence.[250] In addition to these, either the Bruges itinerary
itself [Itinéraire Brugeois, cf. Storm, 1891, p. 19], or one of its
earlier sources. Possibly he also had, in part at all events, a tract [in
Icelandic ?] that is included in the fourth part of the "Rymbegla" [1780];
that he also knew of the Icelandic sailing directions, as assumed by
Björnbo and Petersen, I regard as less certain, although not impossible;
perhaps it would be safer to suppose that he may have seen some statements
from Ivan Bárdsson's description of Greenland, in an itinerary, for
instance. I have not been able to find any certain indication of his
having been acquainted with the Icelandic geography mentioned on p. 237;
perhaps he may rather have known of the land connection between Greenland
and Russia from some tale or other, or from a legendary saga;[251] from
the same source (or from Ivar Bárdsson's description ?) may also be
derived the name Nordbotn (cf. p. 171, note 1), which is not known in the
Icelandic geography, but which seems most probably to be a legendary form.
Certain names, such as those of the bishops' sees in Norway and Iceland,
Clavus may easily have found in the papal archives in Rome.
In the first place, exactly following Ptolemy, the draughtsman has marked
Ireland with the islands around it and six Hebrides to the north-east,
Scotland with the island of Dumna and the archipelago "Orcadia" to the
north (the island of Ocitis a little farther east), and the south coast of
Thule farther north; next Jutland with its small islands round about, and
with the large island of Scandia, which, of course, became Sealand (he has
added Funen and a number of other islands); finally the coast of Germany
and Sarmatia eastwards to 63° N. lat., and with the same number of
river-mouths as in Ptolemy. As this coast does not extend nearly so far to
the east as does the Baltic on the compass-charts, it resulted that
Clavus's Baltic became much shorter than that of the charts, and its shape
had to be altered to suit Ptolemy's coast-line. Then, at its northern end,
the draughtsman has placed possibly Pietro Vesconte's Scandinavian
peninsula, going out towards the west (see the two maps, pp. 223, 224);
but as he saw Norway on the compass-charts extending west as far as to the
north of Scotland, where on Ptolemy's map he found Thule, it was natural
that he should take the latter to be the southern point of Norway, and he
was obliged to move Vesconte's peninsula farther to the west. Its south
coast may have been drawn with the Medici map, or a similar one, as model.
As the southern coast of the Baltic was moved far to the south, after
Ptolemy, and Jutland was given a different and smaller form than on the
Medici map, besides a marked inclination to the east, and as Skåne had to
be near Sealand (Scandia), the draughtsman was obliged to move the
peninsula corresponding to Skåne about five degrees to the south. The
south coast of the peninsula on the north of Scotland on the Medici map
(see pp. 236, 260) corresponded very nearly to the south coast of Thule
(with an east-south-easterly direction) on Ptolemy's map; it lay in an
almost corresponding latitude, but on account of the puzzling prolongation
of Scotland to the east on Ptolemy's map, it had to be moved a good
fifteen degrees of longitude to the east. Thule was thus united to
Norway[252] and its south coast was given exactly the same shape as the
south coast of the peninsula in question, with three arched bays (the
broadest on the east) and a projecting point towards the south-east. The
coast between this promontory and Skåne may then have been drawn with the
same number of four large bays as on the Medici map: a deeper one farthest
west, then a broad peninsula, next two wide, open bays, with a narrow
peninsula between them, and finally a smaller bay opposite Sealand. The
"Halandi" of the Nancy map is thus brought to the corresponding place with
the "Alolanda" of the Medici map (p. 236).[253]
Thus far it may be fairly easy to compare the maps; but then Norway
according to most of the compass-charts ought not to have any considerable
farther extension to the west, while on the other hand Northern ideas
demanded a Greenland in the far west, as well as a land in the north
between that and Russia. With the latter the westernmost tongue of land in
Norway on the Medicean mappamundi[254] agrees remarkably well. The
southern point of Clavus's Greenland has also the same length in
proportion to the west coast of Ireland, and about the same breadth, as on
this map. There was also an extensive mass of land in the north. According
to various representations, such as those of Vesconte's mappamundi, Saxo's
description (cf. p. 223), and others, there should be a gulf on the north
side of the Scandinavian Peninsula. According to representations like that
of the Lambert map at Ghent (cf. p. 188), this arm of the sea had the same
form as that on the south side of Scandinavia, and there should only be a
narrow isthmus between these two arms of the sea, connecting the peninsula
with the mainland (cf. Saxo). On the Nancy map, too, the north coast of
Scandinavia is drawn almost exactly like the south coast, with the same
number of promontories and bays, which correspond very nearly even in
their shape. In this way Clavus's "Nordhindh Bondh" [Norðrbotn], also
called "Tenebrosum mare" [i.e., the dark sea] or "Quietum mare" [the
motionless sea], may have originated. This remarkable bay is connected on
his map with the Baltic by a canal (which is also mentioned in the Vienna
text). By this means Scandinavia really becomes an island. Clavus cannot
have acquired such an idea from any known source, although, as already
mentioned, Saxo says that it is nearly an island (p. 223); but similar
conceptions seem to have arisen in Italy (cf. above on Pietro Vesconte's
mappamundi, p. 223).
[Illustration: Scandinavia on the map of Europe in the Medici Atlas (of
1351). The scales of latitude and longitude are here added from Ptolemy's
maps. The network of compass-lines is omitted]
The south coast of Norway [with "Stauanger"] and the southern point of
Greenland retained on Clavus's map the same relation of latitude, a
difference of 1-1/2°, as the corresponding localities on the Medici map,
with very nearly the same degrees of latitude as on the latter, if we
there employ a scale of latitude calculated upon this map's representation
of Spain (the Straits of Gibraltar) and France (Brittany), and use
Ptolemy's latitudes for these countries. This has been done in the
reproduction of the Medicean mappamundi on p. 236.[255] The scale of
longitude is calculated in the same proportion to the latitude as in
Ptolemy. In some tract like that included in the fourth part of the
"Rymbegla" [1780, p. 466] Clavus may have found that Bergen lay in
latitude 60° and so placed the town on the west coast of Norway in this
latitude according to his own scale (on the right-hand side of the Nancy
map, see p. 474). In relation to the south coast of Norway Bergen was thus
brought 3/4° farther south than "c. bergis" on the Medici map (above).
Calculated according to Ptolemy's scale of latitude (on the left-hand side
of the Nancy map), Bergen was consequently placed in Clavus's text in 64°,
while the southern point of Greenland is placed in 63° 15',[256] a
difference in latitude of 45' (in the Vienna text the difference is 35'),
while in reality it is 38'; a remarkable accidental agreement. According
to Clavus's own scale of latitude on the right-hand side of the Nancy map,
we get the following latitudes: Bergen 60°, the southern point of
Greenland 59° 15', Stavanger 58° 30'. In reality the latitudes of these
places are: 60° 24', 59° 46', and 58° 58'. This agreement is remarkable,
as a displacement of the scale of latitude half a degree to the north on
the Nancy map would give very nearly correct latitudes.[257] The mutual
relation between the latitudes of the three places may, as we have seen,
be explained from the Medici map, but hardly from a possible acquaintance
with the Icelandic sailing directions; for according to these Bergen and
the southern point of Greenland would be placed in the same latitude,
since we are told that from Bergen the course was "due west to Hvarf in
Greenland."[258] The Medici map may also give a natural explanation of
places like Bergen and the southern point of Greenland having been given
by Clavus a latitude so much too northerly (even in the Nancy map), and of
the southern point of Greenland having only half a degree more westerly
longitude than the west coast of Ireland.[259]
Iceland lay, according to the Bruges itinerary, midway between Norway and
Greenland, precisely as on the Nancy map. Between Norway and Iceland,
according to the same itinerary, lay "Fareö" [Færö], and the fabulous
island "Femöe," "where only women are born and never men."
After speaking of the "third headland" in 71° on the east coast of
Greenland, the Nancy text goes on:
"But from this headland an immense country extends eastward as far as
Russia. And in its [i.e., the country's] northern parts dwell the
infidel Karelians ('Careli infideles'), whose territory ('regio')
extends to the north pole ('sub polo septentrionalis') towards the
Seres[260] of the east, wherefore the pole ['polus' == the arctic
circle ?], which to us is in the north, is to them in the south in
66°."
It is probable, as suggested by Björnbo and Petersen, that these "Careli
infideles" are identical with those who are found almost in the same
place, in the ocean to the north of Norway, on one of the maps in Marino
Sanudo's work (in the Paris MS., see above, p. 225), and who on other maps
belonging to that work are placed on the mainland to the north-east of
Scandinavia. As pointed out by Storm, "Kareli" are also mentioned
together with Greenland and "Mare Gronlandicum" in the Bruges itinerary.
Björnbo and Petersen maintain that Claudius Clavus has here consciously
put forward a new and revolutionary view which was a complete break with
the cosmogony of the whole of the Middle Ages, since according to the
latter the disc of the earth was entirely surrounded by sea to the south
of the North Pole, as represented on the wheel-maps. I think this is
attributing to Clavus rather too much original thought, of which his maps
and text do not otherwise give evidence. It is, of course, correct that
the idea of land, and inhabited land, too, at the North Pole, or to the
north of the Arctic Circle, did not agree with the general learned
conception of the Middle Ages; but the same idea had already been clearly
enough expressed in Norwegian-Icelandic literature. Even the Historia
Norwegiæ has inhabited land beyond the sea in the north, and the Icelandic
legendary sagas and Saxo have it too. In addition to these, the tract
included in the "Rymbegla" says distinctly (see above, p. 239) that this
land in the opinion of some lies under the pole-star (cf. Clavus's
expression: "sub polo septentrionalis"). The fact that the continent on
the Medicean map of the world extended boundlessly on the north into the
unknown (whereas Africa ended in a peninsula on the south) must have
confirmed Clavus in the view that the land reached to the pole. To this
was added, what perhaps weighed most with him, the fact that such a view
did not conflict with Ptolemy, whose continent also had no limit on the
north.
On the connecting land in the north is written, on the Nancy map:
"Unipedes maritimi," "Pigmei maritimi," "Griffonii regio vastissima," and
"Wildhlappelandi." As these names are not mentioned in Clavus's text, it
is uncertain whether the fabulous creatures may not be to some extent
additions for which he is not responsible.
After the map was drawn, with its bays and headlands, and the coast of
Scandinavia provided with a suitable number of islands, Claudius Clavus
set himself to describe it; where he had no names from earlier sources, he
numbered the headlands, bays and islands, "Primum," "Secundum," etc.
A remarkable thing about the Nancy map is that it has two divisions of
latitude: one according to Ptolemy on the left-hand side of the map, and
another according to Clavus himself, on a scale four degrees lower, on the
right-hand side. According to the latter, Roskilde would have a longest
day of seventeen hours (through a transposition the Nancy map gives
seventeen hours thirty minutes), which, as pointed out by Björnbo [1910,
p. 96], exactly agrees with what Clavus may have learnt from a Roskilde
calendar ("Liber daticus Roskildensis") of 1274. Björnbo has also remarked
that Bergen is given a remarkably correct latitude, 60° (the correct one
is 60° 24'), and thinks it possible that there may have been a Bergen
calendar which Clavus has used. But a more likely source, unnoticed by
Björnbo, is to be found, as mentioned on p. 260, in the "Rymbegla" tract,
where the latitude of Bergen is given as 60°. It is true that the same
tract gives the latitude of Trondhjem (Nidaros) as 64°, which does not
agree with the Nancy map, where there is a difference of only 2° between
Bergis and Nidrosia. Even though it is probable that Clavus was acquainted
with some such tract, with which his statement as to land at the North
Pole also agrees, it may have been a somewhat different version from that
which found its way into the "Rymbegla," and perhaps the latitude of
Trondhjem was not mentioned there. On the other hand, he may have found,
there or elsewhere, the latitude of Stavanger given, 1-1/2° farther south
than Bergen (?).
If we assume that Clavus, even in the construction of his first map, made
use of the Medicean map of the world, and that his Greenland is the most
westerly peninsula of the latter's Norway, it will seem strange that he
did not also draw the west coast of that peninsula, which would naturally
become the west coast of Greenland. It is true that the Nancy map is only
a copy, but as the west coast of Greenland is not mentioned in the copy
of Clavus's text either, we are bound to believe that he did not include
it. The margin on the western side of Clavus's first map was evidently
determined by that of Ptolemy's map of the British Isles, and follows
precisely the same meridian. Thus there was no room for the Medici map's
peninsula corresponding to Clavus's Greenland. As already stated, it is
difficult to get away from the belief that the Medici map was used for the
east coast of Greenland, the south coast of Norway, etc.; the resemblances
are too great, and otherwise inexplicable (cf. p. 261, note 3).
[Sidenote: Clavus's later map and text, and their genesis]
After the first map was drawn, Clavus may have made further cartographical
studies in Italy, and may thus have become acquainted with other
compass-charts, especially those of the Dalorto type. At the same time he
may have obtained a new and more accurate determination of the latitude of
Trondhjem, probably by the length of its longest day. As Trondhjem was an
archbishopric, it is not unlikely that he found such a piece of
information in the papal archives at Rome. He may then naturally have
wished to bring his map more into agreement with his new knowledge, and
this may have led to his later map, which is now known to us through
several somewhat varying copies. To this he then wrote a new text (the
Vienna text), which in all important points resembles the former, but has
various additions and alterations. The later map has not the double scale
of latitude on any of the copies known, but curiously enough only
Ptolemy's degrees. Besides a more accurate delineation of Jutland and the
Danish islands, especially Sealand, Bornholm and Gotland are drawn in
closer resemblance to the Medici map; the south coast of Scandinavia has
been altered to agree more with compass-charts of the Catalan type. In
particular the south coast of Norway has been given the four
characteristic promontories (as on the Dalorto map of 1339, and on the
Modena map, etc.; cf. the reproductions, pp. 226, 231), and Bergen
("Bergis") has been placed at the head of the westernmost of the three
bays thus formed, which is also a peculiarity of the maps of this type
(the Catalan chart of 1375 has five promontories with four bays, cf.
Nordenskiöld, 1896, Pl. XI.). The other two diocesan towns, Stavanger and
Hamar, are placed at the heads of the other two bays to the east, and
Stavanger has thus lost the remarkably correct position in relation to
Bergen and the south point of Greenland which it had on the older map.
Trondhjem has been placed at the extremity of the westernmost promontory,
possibly because there had been found a more correct determination of the
latitude of the town, which was to be fitted into Ptolemy's graduation;
thereby the shape of Norway has become still narrower and farther removed
from reality.
From the "lac scarsa" (Lake Skara, i.e., Vener) with its river is derived
the great lake "Vona" (Vener) in the centre of Scandinavia on all the
copies of Clavus's later map, from which the river "Vona" (also mentioned
in the Vienna text) runs into the deep bay by "Aslo" (Oslo) and the island
of "Tunsberg." A connection, especially with Dalorto's map of 1339, seems
again to be implied by Clavus's statement in the Vienna text that on
Lister Ness "white falcons are caught" ("Liste promontorium, ubi capiuntur
falcones albi"). On Dalorto's map there is a picture of a white falcon on
the headland to the west of that which Clavus has made into Lister, and
the words "hic sunt girfalcos" (here are hunting falcons). That Clavus has
moved the hawks to a headland farther east is of small importance. Either
he may have taken his hawks from Dalorto's or a similar map, or else they
are derived from an older common source.
Through the alteration of the south coast of Norway, it became necessary
to separate it from Thule, which again became an island as originally in
Ptolemy; but on the copies of the map it has in addition the name
"Bellandiar," which may be a corruption of Hetlandia (Shetland). The
north-west coast of Norway has also been given a form which agrees better
with the compass-charts, although it has a much more east-north-easterly
direction than even on the Modena map; but this was, of course, necessary
to make room for the sea "Nordhenbodnen" (Nordbotn). That the
compass-charts might lead to something resembling Clavus's last form of
Scandinavia, and especially of the south coast of Norway, is shown by the
map of Europe in Andrea Bianco's atlas of 1436, which must have been drawn
without knowledge of Clavus's work. If on this map we move the coast of
the Baltic farther south and Skåne also, which would be necessitated by a
better knowledge of Denmark (and by the alteration of the map following
Ptolemy), and draw the coast-line of Norway towards the east-north-east
from the south-western promontory (instead of making it go in a northerly
direction), we shall get a Scandinavia of very similar type to that in
Clavus's later map.
[Illustration: The north-western portion of the map of Europe in Andrea
Bianco's atlas of 1436. The compass-lines are omitted]
Björnbo and Petersen have maintained in their monograph that Clavus must
have been in Norway before he drew this map, and that amongst other things
his remarkably correct latitude for Trondhjem must be due to his own
observation of the length of the day at the summer solstice. Storm [1889,
p. 140] seems also to have supposed that Clavus may really have been in
Norway. To me it appears that his map and text are conclusive evidence
against his ever having been there; for a man who had sailed to Trondhjem
along the coast of Norway could not possibly have produced a
cartographical representation of the country so entirely at variance with
reality as Clavus has done, however ignorant we may suppose him. The fact
in itself that "Trunthheim" (Trondhjem) or "Nedrosia" is placed at the
extremity of the south side of the south-western promontory of the
country is extraordinary. If he had come there asleep he could not have
got any such idea; and for a man who had sailed in through the long
channel of the Trondhjem fjord up to the town it is incredible. It is
equally incredible that a man who had sailed along the coast from
Stavanger and Bergen to Trondhjem could place the latter town in a
latitude 10' to the south of Bergen, and only 10' to the north of
Stavanger. We are not justified in attributing to Clavus such an entire
lack of power of observation, especially if we are to suppose him capable
of determining with remarkable accuracy the length of the longest day at
Trondhjem. That Trondhjem is placed to the west of Bergen and Stavanger,
that the Dovrefjeld is called a high promontory, while on the Nancy map it
was inland, that Hamar ("Amerensis") is put on the sea-coast, etc., all
shows the same want of knowledge of the country and its configuration. The
names he may have taken from an itinerary or other sources, and, as
already suggested, it is not unlikely that he may have found in the papal
archives a fairly correct statement of the latitude (or length of the
longest day) of Trondhjem, which was an archbishop's see. That the towns
he gives are just those that are the heads of dioceses is perhaps an
indication of a connection with the Vatican.
Clavus tells us further that
"Norway has eighteen islands, which in winter are always connected
with the mainland, and are seldom separated from it, unless the summer
is very warm," and that "'Tyle' [Thule] is a part of Norway and is not
reckoned as an island, although it is separated from the land by a
channel or strait, for the ice connects it with the land for eight or
nine months, and therefore it is reckoned as mainland. The same
applies to the sea 'Nordhinbodnen' [Nordbotn], which separates
'Wildlappenland' from 'Vermenlandh'[261] and 'Findland' by a long
strait, since the countries are united by almost eternal ice."
This discloses an extraordinary lack of knowledge of Northern conditions.
Such a connection of the islands with the mainland by ice occurs, of
course, nowhere on the whole outer coast of Norway from Færder to the
Murman Coast. On the other hand, the Gulf of Bothnia and the Åland
archipelago are frozen over for a long time in winter, and it might be
supposed that Clavus had heard reports of this. But I have not been able
to discover any source from which he may have derived these fables. Most
probably they are embellishments of the same kind as the eighteen islands
of Norway, that form an arbitrary decoration of the coast-line of his map,
a circumstance which does not hinder him from describing them as real.
Clavus has used the ice as a transition between the representation of his
older map, where Thule was part of the mainland, and that of the later
one, where it was made into an island.
At the northernmost limit of Norway, between two places called "Ynesegh"
and "Mestebrodh," Clavus connected the Polar Sea ("Nordhinbodhn") by a
narrow channel with the Gotland Sea [the Baltic], and a little farther
north, in 67°, he says that
"the uttermost limit is marked with a crucifix, so that Christians
shall not venture without the king's permission to penetrate farther,
even with a great company." "And from this place westwards over a very
great extent of land dwell first Wildlappmanni [Wild Lapps, i.e.,
Mountain Lapps, Reindeer Lapps ? cf. vol. i. p. 227], people leading a
perfectly savage life and covered with hair, as they are depicted; and
they pay yearly tribute to the king. And after them, farther to the
west, are the little Pygmies, a cubit high, whom I have seen after
they were taken at sea in a little hide-boat, which is now hanging in
the cathedral at Nidaros; there is likewise a long vessel of hides,
which was also once taken with such Pygmies in it."
Two things are to be remarked about this assertion that he himself had
seen these Pygmies (one might suppose in Norway): (1) if he had really
seen a captive Eskimo brought to Norway (by whom ?), he could hardly have
been ignorant that this remarkable native was from Greenland, and not from
a fabulous northern land. And (2), how could he then give their height as
no more than a cubit, like the Pygmies of myth? It appears to me that in
one's zeal to defend Clavus, one would thus have to attribute to him two
serious falsehoods, instead of a more innocent rhetorical phrase about
having seen this, that, and the other.
Clavus's statement about the Pygmies' small hide-boats, and the long
hide-boat, that hung in Trondhjem cathedral, is, however, of great
interest from the fact that this is the first mention in literature of the
two forms of Eskimo boat: the kayak and the women's boat ("umiak").
Perhaps he got this from the same unknown source (in the Vatican ?) in
which he found the statement of the latitude of Trondhjem (?). In the fact
that the Wild Lapps are mentioned first, and after them the Pygmies,
Clavus's text again bears a great resemblance to the anonymous letter to
Pope Nicholas V. (of about 1450). In the northernmost regions (to the
north-west of Norway) this letter mentions [cf. Storm, 1899, p. 9]
"the forests of Gronolonde, where there are monsters of human aspect
who have hairy limbs, and who are called wild men."... "And as one
goes west towards the mountains of these countries, there dwell
Pygmies," etc. (cf. above, p. 86).
Michael Beheim also mentions "Wild lapen," who live in the forests to the
north of Norway, and who carry on a dumb barter of furs with the
merchants, like that described by the Arab authors as taking place in the
country north of Wîsu (cf. p. 144), and he goes on to speak of the
Skrælings, three spans high, etc. (cf. above, p. 85). Beheim's statement
differs from Clavus's text, and this again from the letter to Nicholas V.,
so that one cannot be derived from the other. It is therefore most
probable, as suggested already (p. 86), that they have all drawn from some
older source, and it may be supposed that this was Nicholas of Lynn. We
have seen that there are other points in Clavus that lead one's thoughts
in the same direction.
Clavus proceeds:
"The peninsula of the island of Greenland stretches down from land on
the north which is inaccessible or unknown on account of ice.
Nevertheless, as I have seen, the infidel Karelians daily come to
Greenland in great armies (bands of warriors, 'cum copioso exercitu'),
and that without doubt from the other side of the North Pole.
Therefore the ocean does not wash the limit of the continent under the
Pole [Arctic Circle ?] itself, as all ancient authors have asserted;
and therefore the noble English knight, John Mandevil, did not lie
when he said that he had sailed from the Indian Seres [i.e., China ?]
to an island in Norway."
If we compare this with the "Rymbegla" tract already mentioned [1780, p.
466], we see that these are much the same ideas as there expressed. We
read there
"that it is the report of the same men that the sea is full of eternal
ice to the north of us and under the pole star, where the arms of the
Outer Ocean meet...."
When it is there stated that
"those shores [under the pole star] hinder the ring of the ocean from
coming together [i.e., round the earth]" ... and "that one can go on
foot ... from Greenland to Norway" [cf. above, p. 239],
this is evidently something similar to what Clavus says; but the latter's
words as to the voyage which he attributes to Mandeville from the Indian
Seres to Norway being more probable because there is land at the North
Pole are somewhat incomprehensible.
John Mandeville's book about a voyage through many lands to the far
east and China dates from between 1357 and 1371, and is put together
from various accounts of voyages, with the addition of all kinds of
fables. Mandeville does not himself claim to have made any such voyage
from China to Norway; on the other hand, he has much to say, in
chapter xvii., about the possibility of sailing round the world, which
he declares to be practicable, and if ships were sent out to explore
the world, one could sail round the world, both above and below. He
says that when he was young he heard of a man who set out from England
to explore the world, and who went past India and the islands beyond
it where there are more than five thousand islands, and so far did he
travel over sea and land that he finally came to an island where he
heard them calling to the ox at the plough in his own language, as
they did in his own country. This island afterwards proved to be in
Norway.[262]
Clavus's assertion that he himself saw ("ut uidi") Karelians in Greenland
is impossible. As it is expressly stated that there was land at the North
Pole, and as it is not mentioned that these Karelians had hide-boats like
the Pygmies, the meaning must be that their armies came marching by the
land route, which, of course, is an impossibility, which, if he had been
in Greenland, would make him a worse romancer than if we suppose his "ut
uidi" to mean that he had seen something of the sort stated in a
narrative; but even this may be doubtful. In the Bruges itinerary [cf.
Storm, 1891, p. 20] or some similar older authority, which we know he may
have used, he may have seen "Kareli" beyond Greenland spoken of as "in
truth a populus monstrosus." We have already said that on the maps
accompanying Marino Sanudo's work he may have seen "Kareli infideles"
marked on the mainland to the north-east of Norway, or even on an island
out in the northern sea, and he would then naturally have connected the
Karelians of the itinerary with these Karelians north of Norway. If we add
to this that on the Medicean map of the world he saw the mass of the
continent extending from Scandinavia and the peninsula corresponding to
Greenland, northwards into the unknown, and that in the "Rymbegla" tract
he saw mention of land at the North Pole--then, indeed, his whole
statement seems to admit of a perfectly natural explanation.
His lack of knowledge of the conditions in Greenland appears again in his
speaking of Pygmies and Karelians as two different peoples, one apparently
on the sea, and the other marching in armies on land; and in his
mentioning hide-boats as something peculiar to the former in the fabulous
northern country, while he does not say that the Karelians in Greenland
had boats or went to sea. If he had only spoken to people who had been in
Greenland, he could hardly have avoided hearing of the Skrælings who come
to meet every traveller in their hide-boats.
[Illustration: Map constructed by Dr. Björnbo after Clavus's later
description (the Vienna text). (Björnbo and Petersen, 1904, Pl. II.)]
[Sidenote: Clavus's west coast of Greenland taken directly from the Medici
map]
It is an important difference between Clavus's first and second maps (and
also between his first and second texts) that on the latter Greenland is
given a west coast. Its form bears an altogether striking resemblance to
the west coast of the corresponding peninsula on the Medicean mappamundi,
so that there can be no doubt that this coast is copied from it.[263]
This is notably the case if we confine ourselves to Björnbo and Petersen's
reconstruction of the coast after the text of Clavus, from which it
appears plainly enough that there are the same number of bays as on the
Medici map; they are closest together near the southern point of the
country; then come two larger bays to the north, then a very broad bay,
longer than the two others together, and then a straighter coast-line to
the north of that (cf. p. 236). The east coast of Greenland has in part
been provided with corresponding bays, although this coast is almost
straight on the Medici map; but this answers to the north coast of
Scandinavia on the Nancy map having very nearly the same indentations as
the south coast. In taking the Medici map as the foundation of Clavus's
Greenland coast we also have a natural explanation of the relation between
his distribution of names on the east coast and the west. In his later
text it is striking that his description of the east coast of Greenland
does not reach farther than to his "Thær promontorium" in 65° 35', while
the description of the west coast goes as far north as 72°. This might
seem to be connected with real local knowledge, since the latitude 65° 35'
on the east coast agrees in a remarkable way with the latitude of Cape
Dan, 65° 32', where the coast turns in a more northerly direction. To the
north of this the coast is usually blocked with ice, and this place has
therefore frequently been given as the northern limit of the known east
coast, and probably it was there that the Icelanders first arrived off the
land on their voyage westward to the Greenland settlements. But this is
one of those accidental coincidences that sometimes occur, and that warn
us to be careful not to draw too many conclusions from evidence of this
nature.[264] We find the explanation in the Medici map (p. 236), where the
east coast of the peninsula corresponding to Greenland does not go farther
north than to about the same latitude as the promontory on the south side
of the broad bay already referred to on the west coast, which promontory
Clavus calls "Hynth" ["Hyrch"]; it lies in 65° 40'. As Clavus's coast from
this point of the east coast northward had no map to depend on, he did not
venture to go farther in his description this time, though in the Nancy
text he goes to 71° with his northernmost cape.
The Medicean map of the world gives us at the same time a simple
explanation of Clavus's designations for the two most northerly points on
the west coast of Greenland. If we confine ourselves to the scale of
latitude for the Medici map, which, as stated above (p. 259), we have
found by using Ptolemy's latitudes for more southern places on the map
(Gibraltar and Brittany), and which is inserted in the left-hand margin of
the reproduction, p. 236, we shall find the following: just at the spot of
which Clavus declares: "New, the uttermost limit of the land which we know
on this side, lies in 70° 10',"[265] the heavy colouring of the land on
the Medici map comes to an end (judging from the photograph in Ongania,
Pl. V.). Farther to the north extends the coast of the lightly coloured
mass of land; but just at this point, in 72°, where Clavus has his
"ultimus locus uisibilis" [last point visible][266] this coast-line
disappears into the oblique frame which cuts off the upper left-hand
corner of the map. The agreement is here so exact and so complete that it
would be difficult to find any way out of it.
[Sidenote: The position of Iceland]
Björnbo and Petersen have asserted that Iceland, on the later map and in
the Vienna text, has been given a position more in agreement with the
sailing directions than on the Nancy map. I cannot see the necessity for
this supposition, as it has almost exactly the same position in relation
to the southern point of Greenland and to Norway in both works; the chief
difference is merely that the longitude of all three countries is made 3°
farther east in the later work (and the latitude of the southern points of
Iceland and Greenland is put somewhat farther south), and that the east
coast of Greenland has a more oblique north-eastward direction than the
corresponding north-east coast on the Medici map, with the direction of
which the Nancy map agrees fairly well. In this way it is brought nearer
to Iceland; but that this should be due to a knowledge of the sailing
directions seems very uncertain, and is not disclosed, so far as I can
see, elsewhere in the later work. The only things I have found which might
possibly point to northern authorities having been consulted since the
production of the Nancy work, are the accurate latitude of Trondhjem,
already referred to, and the island of "Byörnö" between Iceland and
Greenland. The latter might be the Gunnbjörnskerries (or Gunnbjarnar-eyar)
mentioned, amongst other places, in Ivar Bárdsson's description of
Greenland; but the abbreviation of the name is curious. Perhaps the island
may be due to some oral communication, or an erroneous recollection of
something the author may have heard of in Denmark in his youth.
[Sidenote: Clavus's merits]
On the whole we shall be compelled after all to detract considerably from
Claudius Clavus's reputation as a Northern traveller and cartographer. His
journey did not extend farther north than the Danish islands, and perhaps
Skåne. On the other hand, he was in Italy, where he drew his maps or had
them drawn, and where he also found his most important authorities. His
chief merit as a cartographer is that he is the first we know of to have
adopted Ptolemy's methods, and that he gave the name of Greenland to the
westernmost tongue of land in Norway on the Medicean mappamundi, and
altered this a good deal with the help of other compass-charts and
Vesconte's mappamundi, to make it agree better with the ideas of the North
which he may have acquired to some extent in his youth through legendary
tales, and later through Saxo and other writers.
[Illustration: North-western portion of Nicolaus Germanus's first revision
of Ptolemy's map of the world (after 1466). (J. Fischer, 1902, Pl. I.)]
[Sidenote: Clavus's influence on later cartography]
[Sidenote: Nicolaus Germanus, circa 1460-1470]
Claudius Clavus's later map of the North exercised for a long period a
decisive influence on the representation of Scandinavia and to some extent
of Greenland. This was chiefly due to the two well-known cartographers,
Nicolaus Germanus and Henricus Martellus.[267] The former must have become
acquainted with Clavus's map soon after 1460, and included copies of it in
the splendid MSS. of Ptolemy's Geography which proceeded from his workshop
at Florence. In these copies, of which several are known (cf. p. 251), he
has redrawn Clavus's map in the trapezoidal projection invented by
himself, whereby his Greenland has been given a more oblique position than
the Greenland of the original map and the corresponding peninsula on the
Medici map. He also introduced this Greenland into his map of the world
[cf. J. Fischer, 1902, Pl. I., III.; Björnbo, 1910, p. 136]; but, in order
to make it agree better with the learned mediæval view of the earth's disc
surrounded by ocean, he surrounded it by sea on the north, so that it came
to form a long and narrow tongue of land projecting from northern Russia,
instead of the northern mass of land extending to the North Pole according
to Clavus. But this long peninsula does not seem to have entirely
satisfied this priest's erudite ideas of the continent, and on later maps
(which were printed after his death in the Ulm editions of Ptolemy of 1482
and 1486) he shortened it so much that it became a rounded peninsula to
the north of Norway, with the name "Engronelant,"[268] and at the same
time he moved Iceland out into the ocean to the north-west. This
apparently quite arbitrary alteration may perhaps be due to a desire to
bring the map as far as possible into agreement with the learned dogma of
the continent [cf. Björnbo, 1910, pp. 141, ff.]; but older conceptions of
Greenland may also have contributed towards it [cf. J. Fischer, 1902, pp.
87, ff.]. We have already seen that Adam of Bremen regarded Greenland as
an island "farther out in the ocean opposite the mountains of Suedia" (see
vol i. p. 194), and in his additions to the copy of Ptolemy, Cardinal
Filastre (before 1427) states that Greenland lay to the north of Norway;
we find the same view in the letter of 1448 from Pope Nicholas V. (see
above, p. 113).[269] It is also somewhat remarkable that on the Genoese
mappamundi of 1447 (or 1457) there occurs a peninsula north of Scandinavia
just at the place where Clavus's Greenland should begin (see p. 287).[270]
On Fra Mauro's mappamundi (1457-59) there are several peninsulas to the
north of Scandinavia, some of which proceed from Russia (see p. 285).
[Illustration: Map of the North by Nicolaus Germanus (before 1482), after
Claudius Clavus, but with Greenland transferred to the north of Norway]
[Sidenote: Henricus Martellus, circa 1490]
The cartographer Henricus Martellus, who succeeded Nicolaus Germanus,
again adopted Clavus's form of Greenland, wholly or in part, on his maps
dating from about 1490.
In this way there arose on the maps of the close of the Middle Ages two
types of the North: one with Greenland in a comparatively correct position
to the west of Iceland, though far too near Europe and connected
therewith, and another type with "Engronelant" as a peninsula to the north
of Norway. The latter remained for a long time the usual one in all
editions of Ptolemy, in other cartographical works and on many globes.
After the rediscovery of Greenland we even get sometimes two delineations
of this country on the same map, one to the north of Norway and the other
in its right place in the west.
[Sidenote: Illa verde]
Greenland seems to have been given a wholly different form on a Catalan
compass-chart from Majorca, of the close of the fifteenth century, where
in the Atlantic to the west of Ireland and south-west of Iceland
["Fixlanda"] there is an island called "Illa verde" [the green isle]. It
seems, as assumed by Storm [1893, p. 81], that the name must be a
translation of Greenland, which is called in the Historia Norwegiæ
"Viridis terra." The representation of Iceland ["Fixlanda"] on this map is
incomparably better than on all earlier maps, and gives proof of new
information having come from thence. As the place-names point to an
English source, it is possible that the cartographer may have received
information from Bristol, which city was engaged in the Iceland trade and
fisheries, and his island, "Illa verde," may be due to an echo of reports
about the forgotten Greenland in the west. It is worth remarking that the
island is connected with the Irish mythical "Illa de brazil," which lay to
the west of Ireland and which appears in this map twice over in its
typical round form (cf. above, p. 228).[271] If we remember that this
happy isle is in reality the Insulæ Fortunatæ, and that in the Historia
Norwegiæ (see above, p. 1) it is said that Greenland ["Viridis terra"]
nearly touches the African Islands (i.e., Insulæ Fortunatæ), then we
possibly have an explanation of this juxtaposition. But as it is said in
the same passage that Greenland forms the western end of Europe, we cannot
suppose that the cartographer was acquainted with this work. The
probability is, no doubt, that Greenland [Illa verde] together with Brazil
or the Insulæ Fortunatæ had become transformed into mythical islands out
in the ocean.
[Illustration: Part of a Catalan compass-chart of the fifteenth century,
preserved at Milan. (Nordenskiöld, 1892, Pl. 5)]
On another compass-chart, bound up in a Paris MS. of Ptolemy of the latter
part of the fifteenth century, a similar island (or peninsula ?), with the
same round island to the south of it, is seen to project southwards from
the northern border of the chart out into the Atlantic, and a little
farther east than the Insulæ Fortunatæ. On the island is written: "Insula
uiridis, de qua fit mentio in geographia" [the green island, of which
mention is made in the geography].[272] We do not know what geographical
work may here be meant; Björnbo suggests that it might be the lost work of
Nicholas of Lynn, who again may have used the Historia Norwegiæ. It is
striking that the island, besides being connected with a round island like
Brazil, but without a name, is placed on this map near the Insulæ
Fortunatæ.
This "green island," which thus is probably a remnant of old Greenland,
occurs again in various forms and in various places on many
sixteenth-century maps.
[Sidenote: Lascaris's journey to Norway and Iceland, fifteenth century]
It is not surprising that information about the northern lands made its
appearance also on the maps of this time, as we know that the North was
visited more frequently, and sometimes by eminent southerners, from the
year 1248, when the well-known Matthew Paris, who, amongst other things,
drew a map of England remarkable for his time, visited Norway. Rather is
it strange that the direct knowledge thus obtained did not leave more
definite traces. Early in the fifteenth century (some year between 1397
and 1448) a Byzantine, Cananos Lascaris, travelled in the North and wrote
about it (in Greek). He mentions amongst other things that in Bergen, the
capital of Norway ("Bergen Vagen"), money was not used in trading [this
must have been due to scarcity of coin]; but in Stockolmo, the capital of
Sweden, they had money of alloyed silver. Bergen had a month of daylight
from June 24 to July 25. He also says that he himself went to the land of
the Ichthyophagi (fish-eaters), "Islanta," from "Inglenia," and stayed
there for twenty-four days. The people were strong and powerfully built,
they lived only on fish, and they had a summer day of six months [cf.
Lampros, 1881].
[Sidenote: Fifteenth-century maps of the world]
It would take us too far here to attempt a mention of all the
fifteenth-century maps which have a different representation of the North;
but perhaps some of the mappemundi in wheel-form, which were still current
at this time, ought to be referred to. We saw that on Vesconte's map of
the world accompanying Marino Sanudo's work the coast-lines of the
compass-charts in the Mediterranean, etc., had already been introduced. On
the Modena map (p. 231) this has also been carried out as regards the
North. In the fifteenth century we have various wheel-maps, of which some
seem to be more antiquated. Lo Bianco's round mappamundi, in his atlas of
1436, is connected with the compass-charts of that time. Johannes
Leardus's round mappamundi, in many editions of 1448 and earlier,[273]
likewise shows a strong affinity to the compass-charts, although there is
little detail in the delineation of the North. The same is the case with
the anonymous round mappamundi in a codex in the Library of St. Mark at
Venice [cf. Kretschmer, 1892, atlas, Pl. III., No. 13], but this map has
also points of similarity to Vesconte's mappamundi in Sanudo's work, and,
amongst other things, it has the same mountain-chain along the north coast
of the continent, and the same form of the Baltic.
[Illustration: Europe on the mappamundi in the Geneva MS. of Sallust of
about 1450. (The south should be at the top)]
The round mappamundi in a MS. of Mela of 1417 at Rheims[274] is, on the
whole, of a very antiquated type, but its image of the North seems more
modern, and it has the same mountain-chain along the north coast of the
continent as Vesconte's map. The "Sallust" map at Geneva, of about 1450,
is also antiquated, but its Baltic resembles the compass-charts, and the
two mountain ridges, one along the north coast of the continent, the other
parallel with it in the interior, strongly recall Vesconte's map of the
world. On the other hand, the connection by water between the Baltic and
Mæotis (the Sea of Azov) is evidently derived from an earlier age (cf. p.
199). Out in the ocean to the north-west and west of Norway lie four
islands. Björnbo supposes [1910, p. 75] that the two more northerly of
these may correspond to Adam of Bremen's Greenland and Wineland, but this
must be very uncertain.[275]
[Illustration: North-western portion of Andreas Walsperger's mappamundi
(of 1448). Most of the names are omitted. (The south should be at the
top)]
[Sidenote: Walsperger's map of 1448]
A curious delineation of the North is found on the round mappamundi which
was drawn at Constance in 1448 by the Benedictine monk Andreas Walsperger
of Salzburg [cf. Kretschmer, 1891a]. The map is in most respects imperfect
and antiquated, but shows also more recent, particularly German,
influence.
The Mediterranean and the Baltic are disproportionately large, and the
mass of land between them has been contracted. There are many mediæval
mythical conceptions, and items showing possible influence by Adam of
Bremen [cf. Miller, iii. 1895, p. 147]. Thus in northern Asia we have
"Cenocephali" and Cannibals ["Andropophagi"], bearded women, Gog,
Magog, etc. In Norway we read: "Here demons often show themselves in
human shape and render service to men, and they are called trolls."
Claudius Clavus also speaks of trolls in Norway. In the northern ocean
to the north-west of Norway is written: "In this great sea there is no
sailing on account of magnets." This is evidently the widely
distributed mediæval myth of the magnet-rock, which attracted all
ships with iron in them; in Germany it occurs in the legend of Duke
Ernst's wanderings in the Liver Sea, and it is doubtless derived from
the Arabian Nights. On the mainland to the north-east of Norway we
read that "here under the North Pole the land is uninhabitable on
account of the excessive cold which produces a condition of continual
frost...." In the extreme north of the ocean, near the Pole, is
written: "Hell is in the heart or belly of the earth according to the
opinion of the learned."
"Palus meotidis" [the Sea of Azov] is marked as a lake due east of the
Baltic. Along the north coast of Europe (and Norway) is indicated a
ridge of mountains, somewhat similar to that in the Sanudo-Vesconte
maps of the world. The delineation of Denmark ("dacia," with
"koppenhan" and "londoma," i.e., Lund), the straight south coast of
the Baltic, and a long-shaped island called "Suecia" (with "Stocholm"
and "ipsala") on the north, remind us a good deal of Edrisi's map (p.
203), and also somewhat of the Cottoniana (vol. i. p. 183). To the
north of the island of Suecia "the very great kingdom of Norway
['Norwegie']" projects to the west as a long peninsula bounding the
Baltic, with "brondolch" [Bornholm ?] and "nydrosia metropolis" [the
capital Nidaros] as towns on its south coast, and with the land of
"Yslandia" [Iceland] and the town of "Pergen" [Bergen] on its extreme
promontory.
[Sidenote: The Borgia map, after 1410]
Another peculiar type of the round mappamundi is the so-called Borgia map
of the fifteenth century (after 1410). Its representation of Europe, with
the Mediterranean on the southern side of the earth's disc, is very
imperfect and far removed from reality. The same is the case with its
delineation of the North, but curiously enough its Scandinavia, which is
different from that of the compass-charts, and in which Skåne forms a
peninsula on the south, to the east of Denmark, has a greater resemblance
to reality than that of other maps of this time. This map, too, has a
chain of mountains along the north coast of the continent, as in the
Vesconte maps [see Nordenskiöld, 1897, Pl. XXXIX.].
[Illustration: North-western portion of Fra Mauro's mappamundi (of
1457-59), preserved at Venice. The legends and most of the names are
omitted. (The south should be at the top)]
[Sidenote: Fra Mauro's map, 1458]
The best known fifteenth-century map of the world is that of Fra Mauro
(1457-59), which is also drawn in wheel-form and is preserved at Venice.
The coast-lines are taken to a great extent from the compass-charts, but a
great deal of new matter has been added. As regards Norway, this consists
of information from Querini's voyage in 1432, as well as from other
sources which are unknown to us; this is indicated by, amongst other
things, an inscription on the sea to the north of Russia ["Permia"], which
relates that a short time before two Catalan ships had sailed thither [cf.
Vangensten, 1910]. On this map the Scandinavian Peninsula has been given a
more reasonable extension to the north; but the west coast is very
imaginatively supplied with peninsulas and islands, while the ocean
outside is full of fabulous islands and contains many legends.
Denmark ["Datia"] has been made into an island (which is also called
"Isola islandia"), and the Baltic ["Sinus germanicus"] has been
widened into an inland sea with islands. In its northern part is a
note that on this sea the use of the compass is unknown [cf.
Vangensten, 1910]. Could this inscription be due to a misunderstanding
like that on the Walsperger map in the ocean to the north-west of
Norway, that it could not be navigated on account of magnets (cf. p.
283)? There is no hint of the name of Greenland on this map; on the
other hand, Iceland appears in three or four different places: besides
Denmark, as mentioned above, there is in northern Norway or Finland a
peninsula named "Islant," "where wicked people dwell, who are not
Christians"; also a large island, "Ixilandia," north-west of Ireland,
and finally an intricate peninsula in the middle of Norway called
"Isola di giaza" [i.e., the island of ice]. On the north of Norway or
Finland a peninsula projects into the Polar Sea with the name of
"Scandinabia." The map does not contribute anything new of importance
about the North, but points to a few fresh pieces of information about
Norway, which are not to be traced in the older compass-charts; thus
Bergen comes nearly in its right place on the west coast, and
Marstrand appears to the east of Christiania fjord.
[Sidenote: Genoese mappamundi, 1447]
A picture of the North of a wholly different type is given on the
elliptical Genoese mappamundi [of 1447 or 1457], which is still more
fantastic than any of those hitherto mentioned. The Scandinavian Peninsula
has a very long extension to the west, and ends in a promontory projecting
northwards. To the north of this Scandinavia there is another fantastic
peninsula where Lelewel thinks he can read the name "Grinland," which is
probably due to a misunderstanding, since, as pointed out by Björnbo
[1910, p. 80], the name cannot be seen on the much-damaged original, or on
Ongania's photographic reproduction [Fischer-Ongania, Pl. X.]. Many
imaginary islands are scattered about in the sea round these peninsulas.
[Illustration: Northern Europe on the Genoese mappamundi of 1447 or 1457]
[Sidenote: Globes of the fifteenth century]
[Sidenote: Behaim's globe, 1492]
Towards the close of the fifteenth century the discovery was made of
representing the surface of the earth, with land and sea, on globes. It
was evidently the efforts of Toscanelli that led to the general adoption
of this mode of representation, which had been used by the Greeks at an
early time (cf. vol. i. p. 78); in 1474 he announced that his idea of the
western route to India could best be shown on a sphere. Columbus seems to
have taken a globe with him on his voyage of 1492, according to his own
words in the ship's log. The oldest known terrestrial globe that is
preserved was made in 1492 by the German Martin Behaim (born at Nuremberg
in 1459).[276] He spent much time in Portugal, and also in the Azores,
after making a distinguished marriage with a native of those islands, a
sister-in-law of Gaspar Corte-Real's sister. But it was during a visit to
his native town (1490-93) that he constructed his globe. The sources of
Behaim's representation of the North were principally Nicolaus Germanus's
mappamundi in the Ulm editions of Ptolemy, of 1482 and 1486, where
Greenland is placed to the north of Norway, and Marco Polo's travels,
which speak of the northern regions of Asia. Besides these a name like
"tlant Venmarck" (the land of Finmark), for instance, points to a use of
the same older authority as in the anonymous letter to Pope Nicholas V.,
of about 1450, where in the existing French translation there is mention
of "lieux champestres de Venmarche" [the plains of Finmark].[277] Thus we
are here again led to the lost work of Nicholas of Lynn, "Inventio
fortunata" (1360), as the possible source. That it really was this work
that was used seems also to result from the fact that the countries about
the North Pole on Behaim's globe bear a remarkable resemblance to Ruysch's
map of 1508, where this note is given at the North Pole:
"In the book 'De Inventione fortunata' it may be read that there is
high mountain of magnetic stone, 33 German miles in circumference.
This is surrounded by the flowing 'mare sugenum,' which pours out
water like a vessel through openings below. Around it are four
islands, of which two are inhabited. Extensive desolate mountains
surround these islands for 24 days' journey, where there is no human
habitation."
[Illustration: Northernmost Europe and the north polar regions on Behaim's
globe, 1492]
What is new in Behaim's picture of the North is chiefly this circle of
land and islands around the North Pole, which he evidently took from
Nicholas of Lynn, and which is not represented on any older map known to
us. It consists of a continuous mass of land proceeding from his
Greenland-Lapland to the north of Scandinavia, and extending eastward
nearly to the opposite side of the Pole, where the Arctic Ocean ("das
gefroren mer septentrional") to the north of the continent becomes an
enclosed sea. On the other side of the Pole are two large islands and a
number of smaller ones. On one of the large islands is a picture of an
archer in a long dress attacking a polar bear (which may be connected with
myths about Amazons ?), and on the other side is written: "Hie fecht man
weisen valken" [here they catch white falcons]. It might be supposed that
this was derived from statements about Scandinavia or Iceland (cf. e.g.,
the legends of the compass-charts); but, as assumed by Ravenstein [1908,
p. 92] and Björnbo [1910, p. 156], it is more likely to come from Marco
Polo's travels, where the Arctic coast of Siberia is spoken of. The many
correct names, in a German form, in Martin Behaim's Scandinavian North
point to the possibility of his also having received oral information,
though they may equally well be derived from older German maps.
[Illustration: A portion of the Laon globe of 1493. (After d'Avezac.)]
[Sidenote: Laon globe, 1493]
Almost contemporary with Behaim's globe is the so-called Laon globe of
1493, which was accidentally discovered in a curiosity shop at Laon some
years ago. It gives a wholly different representation of the North, more
in agreement with the usual maps of the world of the Nicolaus Germanus
type, with sea at the pole round the north of the continent, which
terminates approximately at the Arctic Circle. The Scandinavian Peninsula
(called "Norvegia") has a form somewhat resembling this type; but to the
north of it "Gronlandia" appears as an island, with a land called Livonia
projecting northward on the east, and two islands, Yslandia and Tile, on
the west. Nothing is known of the origin of the Laon globe, or of the
sources of its representation of the North.
Such were the geographical ideas of the North at the close of the Middle
Ages, when the period of the great discoveries was at hand; they were
vague and obscure, and the mists had settled once more over large regions
which had been formerly known; but out in the mists lay mythical islands
and countries in the north and west.
[Illustration]