After having heard my reasons, Björnbo and Petersen have in all essentials come round to my views. In particular they agree with me that Clavus cannot have been in Greenland, but that the delineation of that country on his later map is based on the Medicean map of the world, which will be mentioned later. I therefore consider it superfluous to combat any further here the reasons given in their work for their former view.
Claudius Clavus’s task must have been to supplement the newly discovered atlas of Ptolemy by what he knew of the North; and to this end his maps were drawn, either by himself or by a professional draughtsman in Italy from his instructions. The text was prepared after each of the maps, as a description of it; and the latitudes and longitudes are taken from the map [cf. Björnbo and Petersen, 1904, p. 130]. With the superstitious respect of the period for older learned authorities in general, and for Ptolemy in particular, he did not venture to alter the latter’s coast-lines or latitudes as far as they extended; even in the Danish islands he has done so with hesitation, thus Sealand in his first sketch [the Nancy map] has still the same form as Scandia in Ptolemy, etc. He then added to the latter’s coast-lines what he knew or could get together from other quarters.
Sources and genesis of the Nancy map
His first map [the Nancy map] may presuppose the following sources, besides Ptolemy’s various maps of Northern Europe; Pietro Vesconte’s mappamundi (circa 1320) in Marino Sanudo’s work,[249] and the anonymous mappamundi, now preserved in the so-called Medicean Marine Atlas, of 1351, at Florence.[250] In addition to these, either the Bruges itinerary itself [Itinéraire Brugeois, cf. Storm, 1891, p. 19], or one of its earlier sources. Possibly he also had, in part at all events, a tract [in Icelandic ?] that is included in the fourth part of the “Rymbegla” [1780]; that he also knew of the Icelandic sailing directions, as assumed by Björnbo and Petersen, I regard as less certain, although not impossible; perhaps it would be safer to suppose that he may have seen some statements from Ivan Bárdsson’s description of Greenland, in an itinerary, for instance. I have not been able to find any certain indication of his having been acquainted with the Icelandic geography mentioned on [p. 237]; perhaps he may rather have known of the land connection between Greenland and Russia from some tale or other, or from a legendary saga;[251] from the same source (or from Ivar Bárdsson’s description ?) may also be derived the name Nordbotn (cf. [p. 171, note 1]), which is not known in the Icelandic geography, but which seems most probably to be a legendary form. Certain names, such as those of the bishops’ sees in Norway and Iceland, Clavus may easily have found in the papal archives in Rome.
In the first place, exactly following Ptolemy, the draughtsman has marked Ireland with the islands around it and six Hebrides to the north-east, Scotland with the island of Dumna and the archipelago “Orcadia” to the north (the island of Ocitis a little farther east), and the south coast of Thule farther north; next Jutland with its small islands round about, and with the large island of Scandia, which, of course, became Sealand (he has added Funen and a number of other islands); finally the coast of Germany and Sarmatia eastwards to 63° N. lat., and with the same number of river-mouths as in Ptolemy. As this coast does not extend nearly so far to the east as does the Baltic on the compass-charts, it resulted that Clavus’s Baltic became much shorter than that of the charts, and its shape had to be altered to suit Ptolemy’s coast-line. Then, at its northern end, the draughtsman has placed possibly Pietro Vesconte’s Scandinavian peninsula, going out towards the west (see the two maps, pp. [223], [224]); but as he saw Norway on the compass-charts extending west as far as to the north of Scotland, where on Ptolemy’s map he found Thule, it was natural that he should take the latter to be the southern point of Norway, and he was obliged to move Vesconte’s peninsula farther to the west. Its south coast may have been drawn with the Medici map, or a similar one, as model. As the southern coast of the Baltic was moved far to the south, after Ptolemy, and Jutland was given a different and smaller form than on the Medici map, besides a marked inclination to the east, and as Skåne had to be near Sealand (Scandia), the draughtsman was obliged to move the peninsula corresponding to Skåne about five degrees to the south. The south coast of the peninsula on the north of Scotland on the Medici map (see pp. [236], [260]) corresponded very nearly to the south coast of Thule (with an east-south-easterly direction) on Ptolemy’s map; it lay in an almost corresponding latitude, but on account of the puzzling prolongation of Scotland to the east on Ptolemy’s map, it had to be moved a good fifteen degrees of longitude to the east. Thule was thus united to Norway[252] and its south coast was given exactly the same shape as the south coast of the peninsula in question, with three arched bays (the broadest on the east) and a projecting point towards the south-east. The coast between this promontory and Skåne may then have been drawn with the same number of four large bays as on the Medici map: a deeper one farthest west, then a broad peninsula, next two wide, open bays, with a narrow peninsula between them, and finally a smaller bay opposite Sealand. The “Halandi” of the Nancy map is thus brought to the corresponding place with the “Alolanda” of the Medici map ([p. 236]).[253]
Thus far it may be fairly easy to compare the maps; but then Norway according to most of the compass-charts ought not to have any considerable farther extension to the west, while on the other hand Northern ideas demanded a Greenland in the far west, as well as a land in the north between that and Russia. With the latter the westernmost tongue of land in Norway on the Medicean mappamundi[254] agrees remarkably well. The southern point of Clavus’s Greenland has also the same length in proportion to the west coast of Ireland, and about the same breadth, as on this map. There was also an extensive mass of land in the north. According to various representations, such as those of Vesconte’s mappamundi, Saxo’s description (cf. [p. 223]), and others, there should be a gulf on the north side of the Scandinavian Peninsula. According to representations like that of the Lambert map at Ghent (cf. [p. 188]), this arm of the sea had the same form as that on the south side of Scandinavia, and there should only be a narrow isthmus between these two arms of the sea, connecting the peninsula with the mainland (cf. Saxo). On the Nancy map, too, the north coast of Scandinavia is drawn almost exactly like the south coast, with the same number of promontories and bays, which correspond very nearly even in their shape. In this way Clavus’s “Nordhindh Bondh” [Norðrbotn], also called “Tenebrosum mare” [i.e., the dark sea] or “Quietum mare” [the motionless sea], may have originated. This remarkable bay is connected on his map with the Baltic by a canal (which is also mentioned in the Vienna text). By this means Scandinavia really becomes an island. Clavus cannot have acquired such an idea from any known source, although, as already mentioned, Saxo says that it is nearly an island ([p. 223]); but similar conceptions seem to have arisen in Italy (cf. above on Pietro Vesconte’s mappamundi, [p. 223]).
Scandinavia on the map of Europe in the Medici Atlas (of 1351).
The scales of latitude and longitude are here added from Ptolemy’s
maps. The network of compass-lines is omitted
The south coast of Norway [with “Stauanger”] and the southern point of Greenland retained on Clavus’s map the same relation of latitude, a difference of 1½°, as the corresponding localities on the Medici map, with very nearly the same degrees of latitude as on the latter, if we there employ a scale of latitude calculated upon this map’s representation of Spain (the Straits of Gibraltar) and France (Brittany), and use Ptolemy’s latitudes for these countries. This has been done in the reproduction of the Medicean mappamundi on [p. 236].[255] The scale of longitude is calculated in the same proportion to the latitude as in Ptolemy. In some tract like that included in the fourth part of the “Rymbegla” [1780, p. 466] Clavus may have found that Bergen lay in latitude 60° and so placed the town on the west coast of Norway in this latitude according to his own scale (on the right-hand side of the Nancy map, see [p. 474]). In relation to the south coast of Norway Bergen was thus brought ¾° farther south than “c. bergis” on the Medici map (above). Calculated according to Ptolemy’s scale of latitude (on the left-hand side of the Nancy map), Bergen was consequently placed in Clavus’s text in 64°, while the southern point of Greenland is placed in 63° 15′,[256] a difference in latitude of 45′ (in the Vienna text the difference is 35′), while in reality it is 38′; a remarkable accidental agreement. According to Clavus’s own scale of latitude on the right-hand side of the Nancy map, we get the following latitudes: Bergen 60°, the southern point of Greenland 59° 15′, Stavanger 58° 30′. In reality the latitudes of these places are: 60° 24′, 59° 46′, and 58° 58′. This agreement is remarkable, as a displacement of the scale of latitude half a degree to the north on the Nancy map would give very nearly correct latitudes.[257] The mutual relation between the latitudes of the three places may, as we have seen, be explained from the Medici map, but hardly from a possible acquaintance with the Icelandic sailing directions; for according to these Bergen and the southern point of Greenland would be placed in the same latitude, since we are told that from Bergen the course was “due west to Hvarf in Greenland.”[258] The Medici map may also give a natural explanation of places like Bergen and the southern point of Greenland having been given by Clavus a latitude so much too northerly (even in the Nancy map), and of the southern point of Greenland having only half a degree more westerly longitude than the west coast of Ireland.[259]
Iceland lay, according to the Bruges itinerary, midway between Norway and Greenland, precisely as on the Nancy map. Between Norway and Iceland, according to the same itinerary, lay “Fareö” [Færö], and the fabulous island “Femöe,” “where only women are born and never men.”