It Appears From The Icelandic Chronicles, That
A Regular Trade Was Established Between This Country And Norway, And That
Dried Grapes Or Raisins Were Among The Exports.
In the year 1121, a bishop
went from Greenland for the purpose of converting the colonists of Vinland
to the Christian religion:
After this period, there is no information
regarding this country. This inattention to the new colony probably arose
from the intercourse between the west of Greenland and Iceland having
ceased, as we have already mentioned, and from the northern nations having
been, about this period, wasted by a pestilence, and weakened and
distracted by feuds. Of the certainty of the discovery there can be no
doubt: the Icelandic Chronicles are full and minute, not only respecting
it, but also respecting the transactions which took place among the
colonists, and between them and the natives. And Adam of Bremen, who lived
at this period, expressly states, that the king of Denmark informed him,
that another island had been discovered in the ocean which washes Norway,
called Vinland, from the vines which grew there; and he adds, we learn, not
by fabulous hearsay, but by the express report of certain Danes, that
fruits are produced without cultivation. Ordericus Vitalis, in his
Ecclesiastical History, under the year 1098, reckons Vinland along with
Greenland, Iceland, and the Orkneys, as under the dominion of the king of
Norway.
Where then was Vinland? - it is generally believed it was part of America;
and the objections which may be urged against this opinion, do not appear
to us to be of much weight.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 456 of 1007
Words from 124945 to 125209
of 273188
