Footnote 301: The magnetic needle had been used by the mariners of western and northern Europe since the end of the thirteenth century.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 302: "Fanno nauigli e nauigano, ma non hanno la calamìta ne intendeno col bossolo la tramontana. Per ilche questi pescatori furono in gran pregio, si che il re li spedì con dodici nauigli uerso ostro nel paese che essi chiamano Drogio." Major, op. cit. p. 21.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 303: Major, op. cit. pp. 20-22.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 304: Ingram's narrative was first published in Hakluyt's folio of 1589, pp. 557-562, but in his larger work, Principal Navigations, etc., London, 1600, it is omitted. As Purchas quaintly says, "As for David Ingram's perambulation to the north parts, Master Hakluyt in his first edition published the same; but it seemeth some incredibilities of his reports caused him to leaue him out in the next impression, the reward of lying being not to be beleeued in truths." Purchas his Pilgrimes, London, 1625, vol. iv. p. 1179. The examination before Walsingham had reference to the projected voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, which was made in 1583. Ingram's relation, "wch he reported vnto Sr Frauncys Walsinghm̃, Knight, and diuers others of good judgment and creditt, in August and Septembar, Ao Dñi, 1582," is in the British Museum, Sloane MS. No. 1447, fol. 1-18; it was copied and privately printed in Plowden Weston's Documents connected with the History of South Carolina, London, 1856. There is a MS. copy in the Sparks collection in the Harvard University library. See the late Mr. Charles Deane's note in his edition of Hakluyt's Discourse concerning Westerne Planting, Cambridge, 1877, p. 229 (Collections of Maine Hist. Soc., 2d series, vol. ii.); see, also, Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist., iii. 186.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 305: See below, vol. ii. p. 501.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 306: In the first reception of the Spaniards in Peru, we shall see a similar idea at work, vol. ii. pp. 398, 407.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 307: The latest pre-Columbian voyage mentioned as having occurred in the northern seas was that of the Polish pilot John Szkolny, who, in the service of King Christian I. of Denmark, is said to have sailed to Greenland in 1476, and to have touched upon the coast of Labrador. See Gomara, Historia de las Indias, Saragossa, 1553, cap. xxxvii.; Wytfliet, Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ Augmentum, Douay, 1603, p. 102; Pontanus, Rerum Danicarum Historia, Amsterdam, 1631, p. 763. The wise Humboldt mentions the report without expressing an opinion, Examen critique, tom. ii. p. 153.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 308: Practically, but not entirely, for we have seen Markland mentioned in the "Elder Skálholt Annals," about 1362. See above, p. [223].[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 309: The "Truce of God" (Treuga Dei) was introduced by the clergy in Guienne about 1032; it was adopted in Spain before 1050, and in England by 1080. See Datt, De pace imperii publica, lib. i. cap. ii. A cessation of all violent quarrels was enjoined, under ecclesiastical penalties, during church festivals, and from every Wednesday evening until the following Monday morning. This left only about eighty days in the year available for shooting and stabbing one's neighbours. The truce seems to have accomplished much good, though it was very imperfectly observed.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 310: Diodorus Siculus, i. 70.[Back to Main Text]