In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 20

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 "Sall.u.s.t" map at Geneva, of about 1450, is also antiquated, but its Baltic resembles the compa.s.s-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 Maeotis (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. Bjornbo 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ma.s.s of land between them has been contracted. There are many mediaeval 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 mediaeval myth of the magnet-rock, which attracted all s.h.i.+ps 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: "h.e.l.l 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 compa.s.s-charts, and in which Skne 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 Nordenskiold, 1897, Pl. x.x.xIX.].

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 compa.s.s-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 s.h.i.+ps 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 compa.s.s 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 compa.s.s-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 Bjornbo [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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 s.h.i.+p'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 princ.i.p.ally Nicolaus Germa.n.u.s'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 circ.u.mference.

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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ma.s.s 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 compa.s.s-charts); but, as a.s.sumed by Ravenstein [1908, p. 92] and Bjornbo [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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Germa.n.u.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIV

JOHN CABOT AND THE ENGLISH DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA

[Sidenote: Awakening of geographical research]

Over the cloud-bridge of illusion lies the path of human progress. The greatest achievements in history have been brought about more by the aid of ideas than of truth. Religious illusions have enn.o.bled the rude ma.s.ses and raised them to higher forms of society; in the domain of science intuition and hypothesis have led to fresh victories, as also in geographical exploration; there too illusions, like a fata Morgana, have impelled men forward to great discoveries.

It is true that Columbus's plan was based on the correct idea that the world was round; but if he had known the real distance of India--if he had not been fettered by the ancient dogmas of the Greeks about the great extension of the continent to the east, and their low estimate of the earth's circ.u.mference, which made India appear so enticingly near--if he had not believed in myths of lands in the west--he certainly would never have been the discoverer of a new world.

The people of the Middle Ages lived, as we have seen, to a great extent on remnants of the geographical knowledge and conceptions of the Greeks.

It was the age of superst.i.tion and speculation; with the exception of the Nors.e.m.e.n and the Arabs, and in some degree also the Irish monks, there was during the earlier part of this period no enterprise that broke through the bounds of the known, except in the mythical world of fancy. It was not until the Crusades that the horizon began to be widened. The eastern trade of the Italian republics and the development of capable Italian seamen were of great significance. At an early date they made discoveries along the west coast of Africa. Of even greater importance was it that the Portuguese learned seamans.h.i.+p from them, and no doubt from the Arabs as well, and displayed great enterprise on the ocean along the sh.o.r.es of Africa, finding groups of islands in the west, and finally the Azores in 1427; but these must have been discovered earlier, since similar islands occur on Italian maps of the fourteenth century (cf. the Catalan Atlas of 1375).

When Ptolemy's work, and through it the geography of the Greeks, became known in Western Europe at the beginning of the fifteenth century, it created a greater stir in the learned world than even the discovery of America did later; the circle of geographical ideas was greatly changed, and the world was regarded with new eyes as a sphere. The doctrine of the possibility of circ.u.mnavigating the earth was especially framed and scientifically established by the celebrated astronomer Toscanelli of Florence. But this was not a new doctrine; for the Greeks, Eratosthenes and Posidonius, for example (cf. vol. i. pp. 77, 79), had already announced it clearly enough, and even in the Middle Ages it was not forgotten. We saw that Mandeville, the writer of fabulous narratives, fully understood the possibility of sailing round the globe, and related ancient tales about such a voyage (cf. p. 271). But at the close of the fifteenth century the idea was seriously taken up by two men of action, both Genoese. One of them was Columbus, the other Cabot. Whether the latter had already conceived the idea before the first voyage of Columbus we do not know for certain, but it is not improbable; the thought was latent in the age, and many must have come near it. Another force impelling men to the western voyage, and perhaps as powerful a one as these scientific speculations, was the belief in the mythical world of enticing islands that lay out in the ocean to the west of Europe and Africa; the Isles of the Blest of the Greeks and the Atlantis of Plato, conceptions, originally derived from the East, which were still alive, though in other forms. There lay Antillia, the Isle of the Seven Cities, mythical islands of the Arabs, and the Irish legendary world, Brandan's isles and many others; some of them had had a part in creating the Norse idea of Wineland and the White Men's Land; now they were given a fresh lease of life, and power over the imagination of Western Europe. Possibly in connection with echoes of tales of the Nors.e.m.e.n's discoveries--coming from Iceland to Bristol, and thence to the continent--these mythical islands helped to form a widespread belief in countries in the far west across the ocean. The fact that the Portuguese, as has been said, really found islands, the Azores, out in the Atlantic in 1427, also contributed to establish this belief. From these islands many expeditions set out in the course of the fifteenth century to search for new lands farther west.[278]

[Sidenote: Connection of Bristol with Iceland]

From the beginning of the fifteenth century Bristol was in frequent communication with Iceland, both for the fishery and for trade. As already pointed out, this was certainly due in no small degree to the number of Norwegians who had settled in the town. Sailors and merchants returning from voyages to Iceland doubtless brought thence many tales of marvels and of unknown islands and countries out in the ocean; legends of the Icelanders' voyages to Greenland and Wineland may have served to entertain the winter evenings in Bristol.[279] It was therefore surely not an accident that attempts to find land in the west should originate precisely in this enterprising sea-port.

[Sidenote: The Isle of Brazil]

On the maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there lay out in the ocean to the west of Ireland the Isle of Brazil (cf. p. 228). It was the Irish fortunate isle Hy Breasail, of which it is sung:

"On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell, A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell; Men thought it a region of suns.h.i.+ne and rest, And they called it O'Brazil--the isle of the blest.

From year unto year, on the ocean's blue rim, The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim; The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay, And it looked like an Eden, away, far away."

[Gerald Griffin.]

[Sidenote: Expedition to find Brazil, 1480]

We have seen that on certain maps this round fabled isle was brought into connection with an "Insula verde," probably Greenland, and this conception of the latter probably came from Iceland by way of England. We do not know what myths were a.s.sociated with Brazil at that time; but the belief in it was so much alive that s.h.i.+ps were sent out from Bristol to search for the island. A contemporary account of such an attempt made in 1480 has come down to us:[280]

"On the 15th of July [25th of July N.S.] s.h.i.+ps ... [belonging to ?]