From the “lac scarsa” (Lake Skara, i.e., Vener) with its river is derived the great lake “Vona” (Vener) in the centre of Scandinavia on all the copies of Clavus’s later map, from which the river “Vona” (also mentioned in the Vienna text) runs into the deep bay by “Aslo” (Oslo) and the island of “Tunsberg.” A connection, especially with Dalorto’s map of 1339, seems again to be implied by Clavus’s statement in the Vienna text that on Lister Ness “white falcons are caught” (“Liste promontorium, ubi capiuntur falcones albi”). On Dalorto’s map there is a picture of a white falcon on the headland to the west of that which Clavus has made into Lister, and the words “hic sunt girfalcos” (here are hunting falcons). That Clavus has moved the hawks to a headland farther east is of small importance. Either he may have taken his hawks from Dalorto’s or a similar map, or else they are derived from an older common source.
Through the alteration of the south coast of Norway, it became necessary to separate it from Thule, which again became an island as originally in Ptolemy; but on the copies of the map it has in addition the name “Bellandiar,” which may be a corruption of Hetlandia (Shetland). The north-west coast of Norway has also been given a form which agrees better with the compass-charts, although it has a much more east-north-easterly direction than even on the Modena map; but this was, of course, necessary to make room for the sea “Nordhenbodnen” (Nordbotn). That the compass-charts might lead to something resembling Clavus’s last form of Scandinavia, and especially of the south coast of Norway, is shown by the map of Europe in Andrea Bianco’s atlas of 1436, which must have been drawn without knowledge of Clavus’s work. If on this map we move the coast of the Baltic farther south and Skåne also, which would be necessitated by a better knowledge of Denmark (and by the alteration of the map following Ptolemy), and draw the coast-line of Norway towards the east-north-east from the south-western promontory (instead of making it go in a northerly direction), we shall get a Scandinavia of very similar type to that in Clavus’s later map.
The north-western portion of the map of Europe in Andrea Bianco’s
atlas of 1436. The compass-lines are omitted
Björnbo and Petersen have maintained in their monograph that Clavus must have been in Norway before he drew this map, and that amongst other things his remarkably correct latitude for Trondhjem must be due to his own observation of the length of the day at the summer solstice. Storm [1889, p. 140] seems also to have supposed that Clavus may really have been in Norway. To me it appears that his map and text are conclusive evidence against his ever having been there; for a man who had sailed to Trondhjem along the coast of Norway could not possibly have produced a cartographical representation of the country so entirely at variance with reality as Clavus has done, however ignorant we may suppose him. The fact in itself that “Trunthheim” (Trondhjem) or “Nedrosia” is placed at the extremity of the south side of the south-western promontory of the country is extraordinary. If he had come there asleep he could not have got any such idea; and for a man who had sailed in through the long channel of the Trondhjem fjord up to the town it is incredible. It is equally incredible that a man who had sailed along the coast from Stavanger and Bergen to Trondhjem could place the latter town in a latitude 10′ to the south of Bergen, and only 10′ to the north of Stavanger. We are not justified in attributing to Clavus such an entire lack of power of observation, especially if we are to suppose him capable of determining with remarkable accuracy the length of the longest day at Trondhjem. That Trondhjem is placed to the west of Bergen and Stavanger, that the Dovrefjeld is called a high promontory, while on the Nancy map it was inland, that Hamar (“Amerensis”) is put on the sea-coast, etc., all shows the same want of knowledge of the country and its configuration. The names he may have taken from an itinerary or other sources, and, as already suggested, it is not unlikely that he may have found in the papal archives a fairly correct statement of the latitude (or length of the longest day) of Trondhjem, which was an archbishop’s see. That the towns he gives are just those that are the heads of dioceses is perhaps an indication of a connection with the Vatican.
Clavus tells us further that
“Norway has eighteen islands, which in winter are always connected with the mainland, and are seldom separated from it, unless the summer is very warm,” and that “‘Tyle’ [Thule] is a part of Norway and is not reckoned as an island, although it is separated from the land by a channel or strait, for the ice connects it with the land for eight or nine months, and therefore it is reckoned as mainland. The same applies to the sea ‘Nordhinbodnen’ [Nordbotn], which separates ‘Wildlappenland’ from ‘Vermenlandh’[261] and ‘Findland’ by a long strait, since the countries are united by almost eternal ice.”
This discloses an extraordinary lack of knowledge of Northern conditions. Such a connection of the islands with the mainland by ice occurs, of course, nowhere on the whole outer coast of Norway from Færder to the Murman Coast. On the other hand, the Gulf of Bothnia and the Åland archipelago are frozen over for a long time in winter, and it might be supposed that Clavus had heard reports of this. But I have not been able to discover any source from which he may have derived these fables. Most probably they are embellishments of the same kind as the eighteen islands of Norway, that form an arbitrary decoration of the coast-line of his map, a circumstance which does not hinder him from describing them as real. Clavus has used the ice as a transition between the representation of his older map, where Thule was part of the mainland, and that of the later one, where it was made into an island.
At the northernmost limit of Norway, between two places called “Ynesegh” and “Mestebrodh,” Clavus connected the Polar Sea (“Nordhinbodhn”) by a narrow channel with the Gotland Sea [the Baltic], and a little farther north, in 67°, he says that
“the uttermost limit is marked with a crucifix, so that Christians shall not venture without the king’s permission to penetrate farther, even with a great company.” “And from this place westwards over a very great extent of land dwell first Wildlappmanni [Wild Lapps, i.e., Mountain Lapps, Reindeer Lapps ? cf. vol. i. p. 227], people leading a perfectly savage life and covered with hair, as they are depicted; and they pay yearly tribute to the king. And after them, farther to the west, are the little Pygmies, a cubit high, whom I have seen after they were taken at sea in a little hide-boat, which is now hanging in the cathedral at Nidaros; there is likewise a long vessel of hides, which was also once taken with such Pygmies in it.”