Greenland

In 1514, or 1513, the Danish King Christian II announced to the pope that he would organise an expedition to ‘islands at the other side of the ice sea’. On 17 June 1514 he obtained papal indulgences for the sailors who would take part in the voyage.2 ‘Et primo de indulgentiis navigantibus ultra mare glaciale ad insulas concedendis, idem Smus D. N. propter multas rationes quas in medium adduxi, acquievit copiosam concedere indulgentiam, quem [quam?] plenius intelligat Serenissima Maiestas Vestra’ (Letter to Christian II from The Holy See, 17 June 1514, Grønlands historiske mindesmærker, 1845, III, pp. 192ff; Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 17:1260). The islands referred to in the indulgence letter have traditionally been interpreted as Greenland,3 Grønlands historiske mindesmærker 1845, III, pp. 192–3, 482; Hamre, Erik Valkendorf, p. 52; see also M. Richter, Die Diözese am Ende der Welt: Die Geschichte des Grönlandbistums Garðar (München, 2017), p. 127. but it has recently been suggested that these islands were in fact India.4 Jensen, Denmark and the Crusades 1400–1650, p. 195, and Jensen, Korstoget til Grønland, p. 414. In any case, from the king’s request for indulgences and the pope’s acceptance we can infer that the expedition must be seen in a crusading perspective, and a re-conquest of Greenland from the heathens would in itself qualify as a crusade. The expedition came to nothing, however. But the pope, Leo X, was clearly interested in Greenland. In 1519 he appointed a new bishop of Garðar and even indicated that Christian II would reconquer Garðar from the heathens.5 Letter to Vincent Pedersen Kampe, 20 June 1519, Diplomatarium Norvegicum, 17:1184. See also Richter, Die Diözese am Ende der Welt, pp. 127–8.

It is tempting to connect these plans with Erik Valkendorf. A number of notes from his hand presumably written in the period 1514–19 reveal that he was planning to organise an expedition to Greenland.6 Valkendorf’s notes on Greenland are published in ‘Om de af Erkebiskop Erik Walkendorf (henved 1516) samlede eller meddeelte Efterretninger om Grönland’, Grønlands historiske mindesmærker, ed. Det Kgl. Nordiske Oldskrift-Selskab, vol. 3 (Copenhagen, 1845), pp. 482–504. Cf. Hamre, Erik Valkendorf, pp. 50–1; L. T. Engedalen, ‘Erik Valkendorf og grønlandsforskningen – fra middelalderen til moderne tid’ (MA thesis, University of Oslo, 2010), pp. 19–30; Jensen, Korstoget til Grønland, pp. 414–17. These notes are preserved as additions to a description of Greenland written or dictated c. 1350 by the Norwegian vicar and canon Ivar Bárðarson (Ivar Bårdsson). It was presumably Valkendorf who had Bárðarson’s description translated from Norwegian into Danish.7 Bárðarson had been vicar for the bishop in Greenland and later became canon in Bergen. Today, Bárðarson’s description is not known in its original Norse version. The most recent edition of Bárðarson’s description is found in F. Jónsson’s Det gamle Grønlands beskrivelse (Copenhagen, 1930). An older edition is published with an introduction in Grønlands historiske mindesmærker, ed. Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-Selskab, vol. 3 (1845), pp. 248–64. See also Engedalen, Erik Valkendorf og grønlandsforskningen, pp. 47–52. Valkendorf’s notes describe the sailing route from Norway and instruct the sailors how to behave towards the locals once they arrive. His primary interest was no doubt to re-establish the lost archbishopric. But it appears from the notes that he was also well aware of the commercial possibilities. He draws attention to the many kinds of valuable goods to be acquired in Greenland and mentions among them, surprisingly, sable and ermine and other animals that do not live in Greenland. It has been suggested that the reason for this misunderstanding may be that since some of these animals are found in northernmost Norway and Russia, Valkendorf may have assumed that they would be found in Greenland as well, since we know that Valkendorf held the belief, common in his day, that Greenland was physically connected to Northern Europe.8 Hamre, Erik Valkendorf, p. 31. It has also been suggested that Valkendorf’s list of goods to be acquired in Greenland reflects older trade contacts between Greenland and America. See the discussion in Engedalen, Erik Valkendorf og grønlandsforskningen, pp. 25–6.

It is to the German geographer Jakob Ziegler (c. 1470–1549) we owe the information about Valkendorf’s geographical perception of the connection between Greenland and Norway. In his description of Scandinavia, Schondia 1532, Ziegler claims that Greenland stretches to Lapland and adds that ‘I hold this opinion the more willingly because the old Archbishop from Nidaros forcefully confirmed that the sea there curves in an angle’.9 The passage is here quoted in its context: ‘Quæ narratio [a reference to Peter Martyr] non nihil causæ dedit mihi ut Gronlandiam ultra Huitsarch promontorium extenderem ad continentem Laponiæ, supra Vuardhus castrum, & id feci eò libentius quod & senior Archiepiscopus Nidrosiensis constanter affirmabat, mare illic in anconem curuari’ (J. Ziegler, ‘Schondia’ in Quae intus continentur Syria, Palestina, Arabia, Aegyptus, Schondia, Holmiae (Strasbourg, 1532, fol. 92v)). The old archbishop, to whom Ziegler here refers as a particular authority on the geography of the northernmost regions, is none other than Valkendorf. From Ziegler’s introduction to Schondia, it appears that the two became acquainted in Rome in 1522.

Apparently, Valkendorf did not have a larger readership in mind when he made his notes on Greenland. However, they caught the interest of later generations and circulated in manuscripts in learned Dano-Norwegian circles in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries.10 See the list of manuscripts in ‘Om de af Erkebiskop Erik Walkendorff (henved 1516) samlede eller meddeelte Efterretninger om Grönland’. Around ninety years later, in 1607, they formed the background to the instructions given by the Danish King Christian IV (1588–1648) for the third of his Greenland expeditions, 11 The letter of instructions is edited by L. Bobé in ‘Aktstykker til oplysning om Grønlands Besejling 1521–1607’, Danske Magazin, 5th ser., 6 (1909), 303–24. See also V. Etting, ‘The Rediscovery of Greenland During the Reign of Christian IV’, Journal of the North Atlantic, 2 (2010), 151–60. and the poet Claus C. Lyschander in his poem on Christian IV’s Greenland expeditions, Den Grønlandske Cronica from 1608, celebrated Valkendorf’s pioneering efforts to seek out information on Greenland and on the sailing route from Norway.12 The poem is published in C. C. Lyschander’s Digtning, eds F. Lundgreen-Nielsen and E. Petersen (Copenhagen, 1988), vol. 1, pp. 127–267. The portrait of Valkendorf is found at pp. 193–6. More than 200 years after Valkendorf’s death his importance for the emergent trade on Greenland also fascinated the Dano-Norwegian Enlightenment author Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754). In his History of Denmark (1732–5) he describes the Greenland expeditions of Christian IV in the early seventeenth century and finds occasion to praise Valkendorf as an important pioneer forerunner.13 L. Holberg, Danmarks Riges Historie, (Copenhagen, 1732–5), vol. 2, p. 600; online edition: eds N. M. Evensen and E. Vinje, Ludvig Holbergs Skrifter (2015) <holbergs­skrifter.no>. Interestingly, it is the trade companies of his own day that Holberg projects back in time and ascribes to the entrepreneurial Valkendorf. From his Protestant Enlightenment perspective, Holberg has no appreciation of the archbishop’s ecclesiastical interest in Greenland.

Nevertheless, Valkendorf’s Greenlandic engagement must be understood within the frames of the late medieval papal Church where conquests in regions outside Christendom found their justification in the pope’s re­cognition of the higher goal, the spread of Christianity. Valkendorf’s notes on Greenland seem to have formed part of the preparations for an expedition to reconquer Greenland from the heathens.