Ohio History Journal

THE USEFUL RESULTS OF HISTORICAL CONTROVERSY

An Illustration and Suggestion.

WILLIAM Z. DAVIS, LL. D.

Judge, Ohio Supreme Court.

The present controversy about the discovery of the North

Pole suggests the thought that the truth of history is established

by adverse criticism and thorough investigaton; and that the truth

cannot be hidden forever. A striking illustration of this is found

in the bibliography of the discussion over the question, Who dis-

covered the North American Continent?

Christopher Columbus died in the belief that he had found

the mainland of Cathay and while he had in truth touched the

shores of South America, he never saw the mainland of North

America. The distinguished honor of first finding out this won-

derful land of ours was for a long time awarded to Amerigo

Vespucci and hence the name America; but more recent histor-

ical investigators have placed that great achievement to the

credit of John Cabot; and some, apparently with good reason,

even doubt that Vespucci was ever near the countries which he

claims to have discovered. If he was, his mendacity was equal

to his heroism. For example, he says that after reaching the 23^�

north latitude, he sailed along the coast, steadily northwest, a dis-

tance of eight hundred and seventy leagues. That is, if we fol-

low his course, he sailed from about Tampico, Mexico, through

the latter country northwesterly along the line of the Rocky

Mountains to a point somewhere in the Dominion of Can-

ada. The case against Vespucci is strongly stated by Ridpath,

New Complete Hist. U. S., edition of 1904, chap. X.

But long before the time of any of these voyagers the ven-

turesome and hardy Norse sailors had trailed first to Iceland,

then to Greenland, then to a place on the continent which they

called Vinland, or Wineland. There they established and main-

tained a colony for three years; there was born the first white

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The Useful Results of Historical Controversy. 567

child born on the North American Continent and thence were

they driven, by hardships and pestilence, back to Greenland. In

the paralysis of ignorance and darkness which overspread Europe

during the middle ages, these things were not widely known and

were at last forgotten; but they were preserved in the annals and

sagas of Iceland and in that unfrequented island have continued

to be the subject of history, tradition, poetry and story to the

present time. The adventures of the Norsemen slumbered within

the frozen boundaries of Iceland for centuries, with only now and

then an allusion, generally discrediting, by some learned anti-

quary; but there was little to draw popular attention to the sub-

ject until the publication in 1831, by Henry Wheaton, who had

been U. S. Minister at Copenhagen, of his history of the North-

men, and by Prof. Rafn, the Danish scholar, in 1837, of his great

collection, Antiquates Americanae.

Gradually, it has come to be the accepted belief, I think we

may safely say, that the Norse navigators not only discovered

Greenland and maintained colonies there-of that there can be

no reasonable doubt-but that they also skirted southward along

the coast of North America and made temporary settlements

there. The more intimately acquainted we become with the

Norse records and sagas, the more firmly fixed becomes the be-

lief that so much of historical basis must be conceded to be at

the bottom of the sagas. It finds expression in all the later his-

tories and school text-books of history, although the identification

of localities is still an unsolved problem and perhaps it is un-

solvable.

Recently, the parts of the Flateyjarbok and of the Haksbok

relating to this subject have become accessible to English stu-

dents in the original Icelandic, with parallel Danish and Eng-

lish translations; but the most significant new material in the

controversy is found in the fac similes contained in the same

book (The Flatey Book and Recently Discovered Vatican Manu-

scripts. Published by The Norroena Society. London, Stock-

holm, Copenhagen, Berlin, New York, 1906), of the papal letters

from the Vatican library, which were discovered in 1903 and

exhibited at the World's Exposition at St. Louis in 1906. These

put beyond dispute the fact that the church had followed up the

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568 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

colonists and established a bishopric over them in Greenland;

and inasmuch as a sentence occurs in the Flatey Book under the

date A. D. 1221, stating that "Eric, bishop of Greenland, went

to seek Wineland," the strong presumption is raised that the

existence of Wineland was known to the head of the church, at

Rome.

A letter of Innocent III, dated February, 1206, addressed

to the Archbishop of Nidros, declares that Pope Eugenius by

the papal legate Nicolas had decreed that the city of Nidros "be

the permanent metropolis of the provinces," including with others,

"the Orcade Islands (Orkneys), the islands of Farcia (Faroes),

the bishoprics of Sutrhaia, Iseland, and Greenland, be subject to

it forever as its metropolis and that their bishops obey both him

(your predecessor) and his successors as their metropolitans."

A letter of Pope John XXI, dated December 4, 1276, ad-

dressed to the Archbishop of Nidros, refers to the difficulty of

personal visitation by the archbishop to all parts of the Kingdom

of Norway, "since the diocese of Garda, subject to your province

and said kingdom is so far distant from the metropolitan church

that, because of the difficulties of navigation, one can scarcely

make the voyage, thither and return, in less than five years."

Elsewhere in the same letter, Pope John says that "the majority

of the dioceses of the Kingdom and of your provinces are so

scattered through the expanse of the sea and so extended within

their own limits, that it would be difficult for you to visit all

parts of the said dioceses even in six years," etc.

On January 31, 1279, Pope Nicolas III addressed "Our

Venerable Brother-Archbishop of Nidros," as follows: "From

the series of your letters lately transmitted to us, we gather that

the island on which stands the city of Garda, is seldom visited

by ships, because of the dangers of the ocean surrounding it,"

etc.

Pope Martin IV, writing on March 4, 1282, to the Arch-

bishop of Nidros, mentions "the Island of Iceland and Feroyes

of the Kingdom of Norway," and then proceeds as follows, "You

have added, moreover, that the tithe of Greenland is received

entirely in cattle-skins, the skins and tusks of seals, and whale-

bone (?) which you assert can hardly be sold at a fair price."

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Addressing the Bishops of Shaoltensus and Olensus, Sep-

tember 20, 1448, Pope Nicolas V in part wrote as follows: "In-

deed, as regards our beloved sons, the natives and all the inhabi-

tants of the Island of Greenland, which is said to lie in the prov-

ince of Nidrosi, in the extremity of the ocean, in the northern

region of the Kingdom of Norway, we have heard with sad and

anxious heart the doleful story of that same island, whose in-

habitants and natives, for almost six hundred years, have kept

the Faith of Christ, received under the preaching of their glor-

ious evangelist, the blessed King Olaf, firm and unspotted, under

the guidance of the Holy Roman Church and the Apostolic See,

and where for all succeeding time the people, inflamed with

eager devotion, erected many temples of the saints and a famous

Cathedral, in which divine worship was sedulously carried on;

but at length, thirty years ago, with the permission of Him Who,

in the disposition of His inscrutable wisdom, afflicts for a time

and chastises for their great good those whom He loves, the

barbarians, gathering together in a fleet on the neighborhood

shores of the Pagans, attacked this entire people in a cruel in-

vasion, devastating their fatherland and sacred temples by fire

and sword, leaving in the island only nine parochial churches,

these, it is said, extend into the farthest districts, which they

could not approach conveniently, because of the defiles of the

mountains, and carrying away captive to their possessions the

natives of both sexes, especially such as they deemed brave and

fit to undergo the burden of perpetual slavery, just as if adjusted

to their tyranny. As the same report subjoins, however, very

many, after a time, returned to their own from said captivity

and, having thenceforth repaired the ruins of those places, desired

to renew and extend the divine worship as much as possible after

the pristine fashion, but because, overwhelmed by the past calam-

ities, and laboring under famine and want, they were unable to

support priests and a bishop, they were deprived, for that en-

tire period of thirty years, of the consolation of a bishop and

the ministry of the priests, except when anyone, in the desire

of serving God, after traveling far and long, had succeeded in

reaching those churches which the barbarian hand had passed

unhurt; wherefore, they have humbly petitioned us to deign to

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meet their pious and salutary design with a fatherly commisera-

tion, and to supply their spiritual wants and impart our benevo-

lent approbation and that of the Apostolic See to the foregoing."

In the early years of his pontificate, Alexander VI wrote:

"Since, as we have heard, the Church of Garda is situated

at the extremity of the earth in the country of Greenland, whose

inhabitants are accustomed to use dried fish and milk because of

the want of bread, wine and oil, wherefore, and also on account

of the rare shipping to said country, due to the intense freez-

ing of the sea, no vessel is believed to have put to land there for

eighty years back, or if it happened that such voyages were made,

surely, it is thought, they could not have been accomplished save

in the month of August, when the ice was dissolved; and since

it is likewise said that for eighty years, or thereabouts, abso-

lutely no bishop or priest governed that Church in personal resi-

dence, which fact, together with the absence of Catholic priests,

brought it to pass that very many of the diocese unhappily re-

pudiated their sacred baptismal vows; and since the inhabitants

of that land have no relic of the Christian religion, save a cer-

tain Corporale, annually set forth, upon which, a hundred years

ago, the Body of Christ was consecrated by the last priest then

living there-for these, then, and for other considerations, Pope

Innocent VIII, of blessed memory, our predecessor wishing to

provide a suitable pastor for that Church, at the time deprived

of the useful solace of the same, at the advice of his brethren,

of whom we were then one, appointed bishop and pastor to that

place, our venerable Brother Matthias; the latter was Bishop-

elect of Garda, a professed member of the Order of St. Bene-

dict, and had been announced, at our urging, while we were

still in Minor Orders, as intending to said personally for said

Church, inspired with great fervor of devotion to lead back the

souls of the strayed and apostate to the way of eternal salvation

and to expose his life to the greatest danger, freely and spon-

taneously, to obliterate such errors."'

Twenty years ago Justin Winsor (Narrative and Critical.

History America, vol. I, p. 69) cast doubt upon the authenticity

of the letter of Nicolas V, which had been published and com-

mented upon by Rafn and others. The answer is that the docu-