In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 16

[Sidenote: Sanudo's work and Pietro Vesconte's charts, circa 1320]

Between the years 1318 and 1321 the Venetian Marino Sanudo wrote a work, "Liber secretorum fidelium crucis" (the Book of Secrets for Believers in the Cross), to rouse enthusiasm for a new crusade, and himself presented a copy of it with a dedication to the Pope at Avignon, which is probably one of the two now preserved at the Vatican. The work is accompanied by several charts which must have been drawn by the well-known cartographer Pietro Vesconte in 1320, since an atlas bearing his name has been found in the Vatican with charts that completely correspond.[216] Among them is a circular map of the world of the wheel type, but on which the forms of the coasts from the compa.s.s-charts are introduced. Scandinavia is there represented as a peninsula with a mountain chain (Kjolen ?) along the middle (see map, p. 223), and the names "Gotilandia," "Dacia," "Suetia,"

"Noruega" may be read. On the continent is written "Guenden [Kvaenland, or else == "Suenden" == Sweden ?] vel Gotia"; and on the coast to the north of the peninsula is "Liuonia" and to the south of it "Frixia" [Friesland].

As Kretschmer has shown, Scandinavia was originally drawn (in both atlases) as an island, but was afterwards connected with the continent by a narrow isthmus. This representation of Scandinavia as a peninsula resembles that on many of the wheel-maps mentioned above (see pp. 185, ff.). It also bears a strong resemblance to the view of Saxo (beginning of the thirteenth century), who says:[217]

"Moreover the upper arm of the ocean [i.e., the southern arm, the Baltic, as the south is supposed to be at the top of the map], which cuts through and past Dania, washes the south coast of Gothia [Gotaland, i.e., Sweden] with a bay of fair size; but the lower [northern] branch, which goes past the north coast of Gothia and Noruagia, turns towards the east with a considerable widening, and is bounded by a curved coast. This end of the sea was called by our ancient primaeval inhabitants Gandvicus. Between this bay and the southern sea lies a little piece of continent, which looks out upon the seas washing it on both sides. If nature had not set this s.p.a.ce as a limit to the two almost united streams, the arms of the sea would have met one another, and made Suetia and Noruagia into an island."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Northern Europe in Vesconte's mappamundi (1320) in the Vatican (Kretschmer, 1891)]

It seems not improbable that the delineation on Vesconte's map may have a connection with this description; it has also very nearly the same forms of names. The regions far in the north and east on his map are pure fancy, and the "rifei montes" are still found there.

Eight other MSS. (in various libraries) of Sanudo's work are known, accompanied by maps, and six of them have the circular mappamundi; but the reproductions differ considerably one from another, especially in the representation of the northern coast of Europe.[218] The mappamundi in the MS. in Queen Christina's collection in the Vatican (Codex Reginensis, 548), and the exactly similar map in the MS. at Oxford, have a remarkably good delineation of the Scandinavian Peninsula (see map, p. 224), with the names "Suetia" [Svealand], "Gotia" [Gotaland], and "Scania" on the east, "Noruegia" on the west, "Finlandia" and "Alandia" [land, or perhaps Hallandia ?] in the extreme north-east. On the continent is written "Kareli infideles," "Estonia," "Liuonia," etc. In the Baltic are two islands, "Gotlandia" in the middle, and "Ossilia" [osel] farthest in. The shape of Jutland [with the names "Dacia" and "Jutia"], the direction of the coast of northern Europe and the Baltic, with Scandinavia parallel to it, remind one a good deal of Edrisi's map, of the Cottoniana and also of Carignano's map. Evidently there is here new information which Vesconte did not possess when he drew the map previously mentioned; the correct placing of the names in Sweden and Norway is especially striking. These names, as also "Jutia," occur in Saxo in approximately the same forms (cf.

also Historia Norwegiae). Marino Sanudo, according to his own statement, had himself sailed from Venice to Flanders, and had also travelled in Holstein and Slavonia. He was thus able to collect geographical information, and, as suggested by Bjornbo [1909, pp. 211, f.], may have received communications from North German priests whose picture of the North had been formed by the study of Adam of Bremen and Saxo; but there does not appear to me to be any necessity for such a hypothesis, he may just as well have received direct information from people who knew the localities, while doubtless the names are to a great extent literary. If we suppose that it was Pietro Vesconte who drew all the maps, he may have derived his information about the North through Sanudo himself; but in that case it would be strange that he did not use it for his first map.

We must therefore suppose that it was after this that their real collaboration began.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Northern Europe in the mappamundi in the MS. of Sanudo's work at Oxford (Bjornbo, 1910, p. 123)]

But here we come upon another difficulty, and this is the third entirely different form of the delineation of the North that is found in the corresponding mappamundi in the MS. of Sanudo at Paris. There the Scandinavian Peninsula is divided in an unaccountable way into several islands, the largest of which bears the name "scania de regno dacie" or "scdinaua." To the north of it is a long island, "gotlandia," which has been read by some "yrlandia" or "yslandia," and made into Iceland [as in Thoroddsen, i., 1897, p. 84]. "Noruegia" is written outside the border of the map to the north of Jutland [called "dacia"], and the name "prouincia noruicie" is placed on the west coast of Jutland, which has been given a fantastic extension towards the north with many bays. An island in the ocean to the north of Russia ["rutenia"] is marked "kareli infideles." The whole of this representation is in complete disagreement with the other Sanudo maps, and it is difficult to understand that Vesconte can have also drawn this one, although in other respects it may bear much resemblance to the rest from his hand. One might be inclined to think that some other man had tinkered at this part of the map, introducing ideas which he entirely misunderstood.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Northern Europe in the mappamundi in the Paris MS. of Sanudo's work (Bjornbo, 1910, p. 123)]

A remarkable thing about it is that it is, perhaps, the first that has a legend about the North. For on the large island in the Baltic (?) we read: "In hoc mari est maxima copia aletiorum" [in this sea is the greatest abundance of herrings ?]. In the opinion of Bjornbo this may allude to the herring fishery in the Sound.[219]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The North on Dalorto's map of 1325. The network of compa.s.s-lines is omitted for the sake of clearness. Only a few of the names are given]

[Sidenote: Dalorto's map, 1325]

The type which is first known from Angellino Dalorto's map of 1325 (or 1330 ?), and from that of 1339 signed Angellino Dulcert, which is undoubtedly by the same man, was of fundamental importance to the representation of the North on the Catalan compa.s.s-charts. It has been thought that he belonged to a well-known Genoese family named Dalorto, and that the first map was drawn in Italy, while the latter was certainly drawn in Majorca, either by a copyist who corrupted the name of Dalorto to Dulcert, or by himself, who in that case must be supposed to have given his name a more Catalan sound on settling in Majorca. But in any case these maps had Italian models; this appears clearly in the form of the names [cf. Kretschmer, 1909, pp. 118, f.].

The two maps are much alike. The oldest, of 1325 (1330 ?),[220] gives a more complete representation of the North and of the Baltic than any earlier map known (see ill.u.s.tration). In its names it shows a connection both with Carignano's map and with Marino Sanudo, but new names and fresh information have been added, the delineation of Great Britain and Ireland is more correct, and there is also a more reasonable representation of Scandinavia and of the extent of the Baltic than on Carignano's map.

Amongst new names in the North may be mentioned "trunde" [Trondhjem, cf.

"Throndemia" in the Historia Norwegiae], and "alogia" for a town on the west side of Norway; this is evidently Halogia [Halogaland], a form of the name which was used, for instance, in the Historia Norwegiae and by Saxo.

Another name in the far north, and again at the south-western extremity of Norway, is "alolandia" (see ill.u.s.tration, p. 226). One might suppose that the form of the name and its a.s.signment to these two places are due to a confusion of the name Halogaland with Hallandia (in Saxo) and "alandia" on the Sanudo-Vesconte map (see p. 224).

It will be seen that Norway, which is represented as a p.r.o.nouncedly mountainous country,[221] has on this map been given a great increase of breadth, so that its west coast is brought to the same longitude as the west coast of Great Britain. In the legends attached to Norway we read that from its deserts are brought "birds called gilfalcos" (hunting falcons), and in the extreme north is the inscription:

"Here the people live by hunting the beasts of the forest, and also on fish, on account of the price of corn which is very dear. Here are white bears and many animals."

The substance of this may be derived in the main from the Geographia Universalis (cf. pp. 189, f.; see also p. 177). Islands in the ocean to the west of Norway are: farthest north, "Insula ornaya" [the Orkneys]; farther south, "sialand" [Shetland, "Insula scetiland" on the map of 1339, and "silland" or "stillanda" on later maps]. The resemblance to "shasland," the name of an island in Edrisi (cf. above, p. 207), is great, but it cannot be supposed that we have here a corruption of Iceland. At the north-eastern corner of Scotland is the round island, "Insula tille"

(cf. p. 219).

[Sidenote: The Isle of Brazil]

In the ocean to the west of Ireland we find for the first time on this map an island called "Insula de montonis siue de brazile." This island is met with again on later compa.s.s-charts under the name of "brazil" as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[222] It is evidently the Irish fortunate isle "Hy Breasail," afterwards called "O'Brazil," that has found its way on to this map, or probably on to the unknown older sources from which it is drawn. On this and the oldest of the later maps the island has a strikingly round form, often divided by a channel.

The Irish myth of Hy Breasail, or Bresail,[223] the island out in the Atlantic (cf. vol. i. p. 357), is evidently very ancient; the island is one of the many happy lands like "Tir Tairngiri" [the promised land]. In the opinion of Moltke Moe and Alf Torp the name may come from the Irish "bress" [good fortune, prosperity], and would thus be absolutely the same as the Insulae Fortunatae. The Italians may easily have become acquainted with this myth through the Irish monasteries in North Italy, unless indeed they had it through their sailors, and in this way the island came upon the map. The form "brazil" may have arisen through the cartographer connecting the name with the valuable brazil-wood, used for dyeing. The channel dividing the island of Brazil on the maps may be the river which in the legend of Brandan ran through the island called "Terra Repromissionis," and which Brandan (in the Navigatio) was not able to cross. It is probably the river of death (Styx), and possibly the same that became the river at Hop in the Icelandic saga of Wineland (see vol. i. p. 359). We thus find here again a possible connection, and this strengthens the probability that Brazil was the Promised Land of the Irish, which on the other hand helped to form Wineland.

On later compa.s.s-charts several isles of Brazil came into existence.

As early as in the Medici Atlas (1351) an "Insula de brazi" appears farther south in the ocean, to the west of Spain, and on the Pizigano map (1367) and the Soleri map (1385) there is to the west of Brittany yet a third "brazir," afterwards commonly called "de manj," or "maidas," etc.[224] The name "Insula de montonis" is difficult to understand. If we may believe it to be an error for "moltonis" (or perhaps "moutonis," a latinisation of the French "mouton" ?), it might mean the sheep island of the Navigatio Brandani, which was originally Dicuil's Faroes (cf. vol. i. p. 362). Thus this name also carries us to Ireland.[225]

At the same time another Irish mythical conception has found its way on to the map of 1325, and faithfully attends the isle of "Brazil" on its progress through all the compa.s.s-charts of later times; this is the fortunate lake, "lacus fortunatus," with its islands, "insulle sci lacaris" [Lough Carra or Lough Corrib ?], which were so numerous that there was said later to be one for every day of the year. On Perrinus Vesconte's map of 1327 the same lake with its many islands is found, and as far as I can read the greatly reduced reproduction in Nordenskiold's Periplus (Pl. VII.) the words are: "gulfo de issolle CCCLVIII.[226] beate et fortunate" (the gulf of the 358 blessed and happy islands), as also found on some later maps.[227] I have not had an opportunity of examining the map of the British Isles in the same draughtsman's atlas of 1321, to see whether this happy lake and the isle of Brazil are given there; the gulf with the 358 islands is stated to be on Vesconte-Sanudo maps [cf. Harrisse, 1892, pp. 57, f.], which I have also had no opportunity of consulting.

[Sidenote: Dulcert's (Dalorto's) map of 1339]

Angellino Dulcert's (Dalorto's) map of 1339[228] differs somewhat from the map of 1325 (1330 ?) in its delineation of the North, in that Norway is given a narrower and more rectangular form, with only those four headlands on the south side which are largest on the map of 1325, while the country with the smaller headlands to the west of these is cut away, whereby the narrower shape is brought about.[229]

Dalorto's maps of 1325 and 1339 furnish the prototype for the representation of the North in later compa.s.s-charts; and this persists without important alteration until well into the fifteenth century. But while later Italian charts (cf. Pizigano's of 1367) more closely resemble the Italian Dalorto map of 1325, the Majorca map of 1339 represents the type of the later Catalan charts. In the one preserved at Modena, and dating from about 1350,[230] the Catalan compa.s.s-chart is combined with the representation of the world of the wheel-maps. We find the picture of the North to be the same in all its main outlines; but here a new feature is added, in that Iceland appears as a group of eight islands in the far north-west, out on the margin of the map, with the note: "questas illes son appellades islandes" (these islands are called Icelands). The southernmost island is called "islanda," the others have incomprehensible names ("donbert," "tranes," "tales," "brons," "bres," "mmau...," "bilanj"

[?]); but the name of Greenland is not found. In the ocean to the north of Norway there is "Mare putritum congelatum" [the putrid, frozen sea]. This is evidently the idea of the stinking Liver Sea (as in Arab myths, cf. p.

51), combined with that of the frozen sea. On the approximately contemporary Catalan compa.s.s-chart (see the reproduction, pp. 232-233), preserved in the National Library at Florence (called No. 16), we find the same group of islands called "Island," with a long inscription (see p.

232; cf. also Bjornbo and Petersen, 1908, p. 16), which is partly illegible, but wherein it is stated that "the islands are very large,"

that "the people are handsome, tall and fair, the country is very cold,"

etc. The name of Greenland does not occur on this chart either.[231]

[Ill.u.s.tration: North-western Europe on the wheel-shaped compa.s.s-chart at Modena (circa 1350). The network of compa.s.s-lines, names and legends omitted. Mountains indicated by shading]

[Ill.u.s.tration: North-western Europe on the anonymous Catalan mappamundi of the middle of the fourteenth century, in the National Library at Florence.

Reproduced mainly from a tracing of the original made by Dr. A. A.

Bjornbo. The text of the names and legends has been somewhat enlarged to render it legible in the reduced reproduction. In the legend on the Baltic the erroneous "gronlandia" is given, while the original has "gotlandia"

(according to O. Vangensten)]

[Sidenote: Viladeste's chart of 1413]

The same type of Catalan charts includes Charles V.'s well-known mappamundi, or "Catalan Atlas," of 1375, as well as Mecia de Viladeste's chart of 1413,[232] and many others.[233]

[Sidenote: The Medici Atlas, 1351]

We find a different representation of the North, especially of the 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 Skne 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., Tonsberg] 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 Norwegiae, 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 compa.s.s-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-ma.s.ses of the continent extend without a limit on the north, whereas Africa is terminated by a peninsula on the south.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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, a.s.sumed 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 Nikulas Bergsson of Thvera[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 'Svijo it Mikla,' Russia], there is oland, then Gotland, then Helsingeland, then Vermeland, then two Kvaenlands, and they are north of Bjarmeland. From Bjarmeland uninhabited country extends northward as far as Greenland. South of Greenland is h.e.l.luland," 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 h.e.l.luland," etc.