Northern Europe on the Lambert map at Ghent (before 1125)
Ranulph Higden’s map of the world, in London (fourteenth century)
Higden’s work and the Geographia Universalis
Ranulph Higden’s map of the world, which accompanied his already mentioned work, “Polychronicon” (of the first part of the fourteenth century), is more fettered by the scheme of the wheel-maps in the form of the outer coast-line and of the islands. He took his vows in 1299, was a monk of St. Werburg’s Abbey at Chester, and died at a great age in 1363. Various reproductions of his map are known, but they display little sense of realistic representation. “Scandinavia” is placed in Asia on the Black Sea, together with the Amazons and Massagetæ, and to the north of it “Gothia” (Sweden ?). Islands in the ocean off the coast of northern Europe are called “Norwegia,” “Islandia,” “Witland” (or “Wineland,” etc.), with “gens ydolatra,” “Tile” (Thule) and “Dacia” (Denmark) with “gens bellicosa” somewhere near the North Pole. In spite of this representation on the map, the Polychronicon (cf. above, [p. 31]) contains various statements about the North, which may point to a certain communication with it, or may be echoes of Northern writers. Higden to a large extent copied an earlier work, the “Geographia Universalis,” a sort of geographical lexicon by an unknown author of the thirteenth century,[164] which is for the most part based on earlier writers, especially Isidore. Both works are practically untouched by the knowledge of the North that had already appeared in King Alfred and in Adam of Bremen, and show how much ignorance could still prevail in learned quarters on many points connected with these regions. The “Geographia” speaks of “Gothia,” or lower Scythia, as a province of Europe, but obviously confuses Sweden (the land of the Götar) and Eastern Germania (the land of the Goths). Norway (“Norwegia”) was very large, far in the north, almost surrounded by the ocean; it bordered on the land of the Goths (Götar), and was separated from Gothia (Sweden) on the south and east by the river Albia (the Göta river). The inhabitants live by fishing and hunting more than by bread; crops are few on account of the severity of the cold. There are many wild beasts, such as white bears, etc. There are springs that turn hides, wood, etc., into stone; there is midnight sun and corresponding winter darkness. Corn, wine and oil are wanting, unless imported. The inhabitants are tall, powerful and handsome, and are great pirates. “Dacia”[165] was divided into many islands and provinces bordering on Germania. Its inhabitants were descended from the Goths (Götar ? cf. Jordanes, vol. i. p. 135), were numerous and finely grown, wild and warlike, etc. “Svecia” (the land of the Svear) is also mentioned. That part of it which lay between the kingdoms of the Danes and of the Norwegians was called Gothia. Svecia had the Baltic Sea on the east and the British Ocean on the west, the mountains and people of Norway on the north, and the Danes on the south. They had rich pastures, metals and silver mines. The people were very strong and warlike, they once ruled over the greater part of Asia and Europe.
“‘Winlandia’ is a country along the mountains of Norway on the east, extending on the shore of the ocean; it is not very fertile except in grass and forest; the people are barbarously savage and ugly, and practise magical arts, therefore they offer for sale and sell wind to those who sail along their coasts, or who are becalmed among them. They make balls of thread and tie various knots on them, and tell them to untie three or more knots of the ball, according to the strength of wind that is desired. By making magic with these [the knots] through their heathen practices, they set the demons in motion, and raise a greater or less wind, according as they loosen more or fewer knots in the thread, and sometimes they bring about such a wind that the unfortunate ones who place reliance on such things perish by a righteous judgment.”
It is possible that the name “Winlandia” itself is a confusion of Finland (i.e., the land of the Finns [Lapps], Finmark) with Vinland (cf. above, [p. 31]); although the description of the country must refer to the former. It may be supposed that a misunderstanding of the name was the origin of the myth of selling wind being connected with it. The idea persisted, and the same myth is given so late as by Knud Leem [1767, p. 3] from an anonymous book of travels in northern Norway.
Of Iceland the “Geographia” says:
“‘Yselandia’ is the uttermost part of Europe beyond Norway on the north.... Its more distant parts are continually under ice by the shore of the ocean on the north, where the sea freezes to ice in the terrible cold. On the east it has Upper Scythia, on the south Norway, on the west the Hibernian Ocean.... It is called Yselandia as the land of ice, because it is said that there the mountains freeze together to the hardness of ice. Crystals are found there. In that region are also found many great and wild white bears, that break the ice in pieces with their claws and make large holes, through which they plunge down into the water and take fish under the ice. They draw them up through the said holes, and carry them to the shore, and live on them. The land is unfertile in crops except in a few places.... Therefore the people live for the most part on fish and hunting and meat. Sheep cannot live there on account of the cold, and therefore the inhabitants protect themselves against the cold and cover their bodies with the skins of the wild beasts they take in hunting.... The people are very stout, powerful, and very white (‘alba’).”
In Higden’s Polychronicon Gothia is also spoken of as lower Scythia, but among the provinces of Asia, although it is said that it lies in Europe; it has on the north Dacia and the Northern Ocean. But the geographical confusion in this work is greater; as already mentioned ([p. 31]), the countries of the Scandinavians are described together with the Insulæ Fortunatæ, Wyntlandia, etc., as islands in the outer ocean. The disagreement between Higden’s text and his map gives us an insight into how little weight was attached at that time to the relation between maps and reality; they are for the most part merely graphic schemes. Probably Higden’s map was partly copied from an older one, and the desirability of bringing it into better agreement with his text did not occur to him.