Vikings in America (10 page)

The century and a half from roughly 1100 to 1250 was a golden age for Viking Greenland. This period coincides with a warm period, which made farming easier, and provided more weeks of ice-free seas for travel. Bishops were appointed to the diocese of Greenland and Vinland, and trade with Europe was fostered. There is a record of another live polar bear being sent to Europe in 1123, with King Sigurd of Norway the recipient. Around this time the Greenlanders appear as a part of a wider world. For example in Denmark they heard stories of crusades as far as Jerusalem, including one which King Sigurd himself had taken part in, for which he was nicknamed
Jerusalemfarer
, the
Jerusalem-traveller
. Inspired by such stories, Greenlanders themselves took part with their Viking cousins in the Crusades. We know that Greenland was then seen as a good place to live, and was attracting more settlers. For example, three ships of Icelanders and Norwegians arrived in 1131. Notwithstanding the prosperity of the golden age, Greenland continued to find trade with Europe problematic. The stretch of Atlantic east from Cape Farewell was always exceptionally dangerous, and ship design did not in any significant way develop to compensate. An account of a wreck survives from 1130, when a ship on this passage was wrecked on the east coast, and all its crew killed. We know of this wreck because there was a particularly messy dispute afterwards as to who owned the salvage rights. The reality is that there must have been very many wrecks. Another wreck, again on the east coast, is recorded for 1189; a ship named the
Stangarfoli
from Bergen was shipwrecked, with one of the bodies recovered eleven years later in 1200, when it was found in a cave. Presumably a sole survivor of the wreck had sought shelter there, yet perished perhaps long after from cold and hunger.

Greenland built its first cathedral in the year 1200 at Gardar, dedicated to St Nicholas. Bishop Jon, Greenland's bishop at this time, set out in 1203 for Rome, returning to Greenland a few years later. He died in Greenland in 1209, and is buried at Gardar. This trip emphasises Greenland's position as a bishopric firmly established within the Roman Catholic Church giving its allegiance to Rome, and as much a part of Christendom as any other country in Europe. Bishops were expected to act as liaison between Greenland and Rome, and were expected to travel. In 1234 the Pope consecrated the first man who was not a Greenlander as Bishop of Greenland. At this time Bishop Nicholas, a Norwegian, was appointed. He appears to
have been most reluctant to make the trip to Greenland, delaying in Norway for six years, and his contribution to Greenland may well have been small, for he died within two years of his arrival. However, his appointment demonstrates that Greenland was considered by the Church as a bishopric to which any appropriately qualified person might reasonably be appointed, not a preserve of Greenlanders. Europe was becoming ever more aware of Greenland, as is shown by its inclusion in another world geography, the
Speculum Regale
⁴
of 1245.

As it became better known in Europe, so Greenland found itself subject to closer control from Europe. The trend was set not in Greenland, but in Iceland. In the early thirteenth century, Iceland experienced a flourishing of learning unknown anywhere in Europe since the classical age.
⁵
This northern renaissance was fostered by the democracy of Iceland, and reached its zenith under the direction of Snorri Sturluson. Snorri was in effect Plato's ‘Philosopher King', being both the most powerful noble in Iceland and also its greatest scholar. Born in 1179, Snorri was heir to vast estates in Iceland which he increased by marrying an heiress. Within the Icelandic democracy he reached the top position of Law-Speaker at the
Althing
, in our terminology prime minister, and in this guise represented Iceland overseas, particularly in Norway, seeking a balance between co-operation with Norway and a robust assertion of Icelandic independence. His scholarly output is prodigious. His massive
Heimskringla
⁶
is in effect an encyclopaedia of the knowledge of the day, starting with the resounding assertion that ‘the world is a sphere', a truth not then fully recognised in continental Europe. The culture he fostered in Iceland included a remarkable degree of comfort. His own spacious home at Reykholt had as an amenity a circular pool fed with geothermal hot water, providing comfortable bathing. Snorri's bathtub still exists and is still occasionally used, a marvellous reminder of the level of civilisation that was created in Snorri's Iceland. Sadly, the northern renaissance was brutally extinguished. Haakon, King of Norway, demanded that Snorri should be killed, and in 1241 sent 70 men to carry out this task. They reached Reykholt and found Snorri hiding from them in his cellar. There, they murdered this unarmed 62-year-old. The subsequent suppression of the democracy, scholarship and prosperity of Iceland was completed in 1262 with the formal annexation of Iceland to the crown of Norway, from which date Iceland declined through extortionate taxes and decades of civil wars promoted by Norway. This suppression and its aftermath put back the progress of European civilisation.

Records from Greenland are not complete enough to reveal a character such as Snorri. It is clear, however, that the suppression of democracy and independence in Greenland was as effective there as it was in Iceland. In 1261 Greenland acknowledged Norwegian sovereignty over the Eastern and Western Settlements and the Nordresetr – a curiously wordy designation which seems to be a deliberate avoidance of the name ‘Greenland', and perhaps to imply that other territories associated with Greenland were excluded. In 1262 Greenland was forced to agree to a Norwegian monopoly on all trade. Both the annexation and the trade monopoly were impositions striking at the heart of Viking Greenland. In addition to the Church tithes that Greenland had been paying to Rome since at least 1053, Greenland now had to pay national taxes to the king of Norway. Additionally, it was subject to impositions such as the 1274–82 ‘Crusading Tithe'
⁷
levied on all Christians by the Council of Lyons and used to fund a crusade to Jerusalem. Ties to Europe were such that a meeting of the Church of Rome in a town in the south of France to fund a campaign in the eastern Mediterranean impacted on the pockets of the Greenlanders. It seems that the Greenlanders were tardy in paying this last imposition, for in 1278 the archbishop of Nidaros – who had taken over responsibility for Greenland from the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen – sent men to collect by force the crusading tithe. Records show from this time a reduction in the number of ships sailing for Greenland. Pope Nicholas wrote that Greenland was ‘visited infrequently because of the cruel ocean' (1279), and there are accounts of wrecks of ships that attempted the journey. While in previous years Greenlanders had owned the ships that sailed for Europe, now the monopoly dictated that all the ships should be Norwegian, and Greenland was dependent on Norway deciding to send them. The ships came to trade, but they also came to collect taxes, even to announce what the increased taxes were and to demand immediate payment, and they must have become increasingly unwelcome. In such circumstances it would be reasonable to expect that the monopoly would be broken by Greenlanders. With Iceland, as well as the Faroe, Orkney and Shetland islands, all owned by the king of Norway, the practical alternative was trade direct with the British Isles, particularly with north-west Scotland. There is every expectation that such harbours as that of Dunvegan on Skye were used by Greenlandic ships, and perhaps one day evidence will be found.

Greenland was further taxed in 1282 when the archbishop of Nidaros, Jon the Red,
⁷
stated in a letter to the Pope that the Greenland luxury goods
(in which the taxes were paid) were selling in Europe for lower prices than had previously been the case. Whether Jon the Red's claim is true is doubtful, as there seems no obvious reason for the price of furs and ivory to fall at this time. He was later found guilty of embezzlement of Church money and forced to go into exile, so his claim about the low values of Greenlandic goods should surely be treated with caution. Even so, the impact on the Greenlanders was simply a demand for more goods, as they were now deemed to be of lower value in Europe.

In the fourteenth century there is evidence that Greenland was carrying out trade in breach of the imposed monopoly. It would be very strange were this not the case, as Greenlanders needed trade for their survival. There is a curious Icelandic record from 1347 of a Greenlandic ship driven off course and forced to put into Iceland. The record – which occurs in three sources, the
Skalholt Book
,
Gottskalk's Book
and the
Flateyjar Book
– states that the ship, with a crew variously set as 17 or 18, was bound not for Europe but for America, specifically for Markland. The obvious interpretation is that under duress from the Norwegian trading monopoly, Greenlandic ships were voyaging to Markland for essential timber. With timber from Markland the Greenlanders had the ability to build the ships they needed for survival. Supply of wood from America was one obvious response to the monopoly. Another was trade with European countries not under Norwegian–Danish control, effectively with the British Isles.

Greenland's fortunes were on the wane. Plague in Iceland in 1306 and 1309 may have spread to Greenland, though there is no direct evidence of this, while from 1308 Greenland experienced a decade of exceptionally cold winters. Europe at this time seemed to see Greenland as no more than a place from which to extract taxes. Records are particularly fragmentary in this period. In 1325 the bishop of Bergen in a letter to the archbishop of Nidaros complains about the behaviour of the Trondheim merchants who were on a previous ship from Norway to Greenland. A plausible interpretation is that the Norwegian monopoly ships had become little better than pirate vessels plundering from the Greenlanders. Yet by one route or another, Greenland products were certainly finding their way to Europe. For example, in 1327 a Flanders merchant bought from Norway 2,000 pounds of walrus ivory at a price of 28 pounds of silver. We have a record dated 1341 of a Norwegian
priest, Ivar Bardarsson, sent to Greenland to re-register the churches and claim the king's rights – that is to ensure that taxes were paid. Ivar spent 20 years in Greenland, finally returning to Norway in 1362, and provided one of the last accounts of Greenland.

It was Ivar who gave notice that something was seriously wrong with the Greenland settlements. He arrived in the Eastern Settlement in 1342, and travelled on to the Western Settlement in 1349, which he found abandoned. This was a settlement of perhaps 2,000 people which had flourished for well over 300 years, and was suddenly deserted, seemingly in 1349, and without that information being brought back to the neighbouring Eastern Settlement. It appears that the destruction of people and buildings was sudden and total. The Western Settlement's termination has left archaeological traces. Some farmsteads appear to have been abandoned suddenly, leaving for example a stock of unused wood, others show signs of having been burnt. Yet others seem to have undergone an orderly evacuation, with almost all possessions removed. There seems to be evidence of two sorts of end to the farmsteads: some attacked by an enemy, others abandoned, perhaps threatened by an enemy.

The final years of the Eastern Settlement have left scant records. The Black Death which swept through Europe reached Norway in 1349 and Iceland in 1350. There is no indication whether it reached Greenland, but as it had received no check anywhere else in its spread, most probably it did. Following the devastation of the Black Death, Norway was preoccupied by domestic problems and in effect lost interest in both Iceland and Greenland. An Icelandic source notes that in 1350 Mass could not be held in churches because that year no ships had arrived from Norway, with the result that communion wine had run out. If Iceland received no ships, we can be sure Greenland didn't either.

There are brief records from 1354 and 1355 that Norway's King Magnus gave permission to Powell Knutsson to take a ship to Greenland to ‘protect' the Christians, though why they needed protection is not explained. Greenland was subjected to another calamity in 1362. A massive eruption in Iceland by the volcano beneath the glacier Oraefajokul created a dust cloud which reduced daylight and caused failed harvests in Iceland and all the lands around the North Atlantic.
⁸

The end of formal contact between Greenland and Europe occurred in 1367, as this is the year of the last official royal ship from Norway to Greenland. The ship presumably over-wintered en route, perhaps in Iceland, as it
arrived in 1368, bringing Greenland's last bishop, Bishop Alf. A Royal Ship was sent out in 1369, but was shipwrecked – not in Greenlandic waters, but in Norwegian waters just outside Bergen, her port of departure. The ship seems not to have been replaced, and from this date Norway appears to almost forget Greenland. Subsequent records of Greenland are exceptionally fragmentary. The king of Norway sent a representative to Greenland in 1374, though how he travelled and even whether he made the journey as instructed is not recorded. In 1378 Bishop Alf died, leaving the Church in Greenland without a head.

The last sure record from Greenland is a marriage which took place 14 September 1408 between an Icelander and a Greenlander. The marriage was in the bride's church of Hvalsey in the Western Settlement; the couple sailed for Iceland and made their lives there, and it is there that the record is preserved. This record suggests some repopulation of the Western Settlement had happened since its abandonment in 1349. There are uncertain records in the years that follow. In 1448 Pope Nicholas implied in a letter that he believed the Greenland colony still existed, and might be in need of help. The information available today suggests that by just after the middle of the fifteenth century both the Eastern and Western Settlements had been abandoned, and Viking Greenland was completely finished before 1500.