IN NORTHERN MISTS 



The cessation of the communication of Greenland with 

 Iceland and Norway came about in the following way: 

 between 1247 and 1261, during the reign of Hakon Hakons- 

 son, Greenland voluntarily became subject to the Norwegian 

 crown, whilst before this it had been a free state like 

 Iceland. In 1294, trade with the tributary countries of Nor- 

 way, Greenland among them, was declared a sort of royal 

 monopoly or privilege, which the king could farm out to 

 Norwegian subjects. The result of this was that only the 

 king's ships — and of these there was, as a rule, only one, called 

 " Knarren," for the Greenland traffic — were permitted to 

 sail there for the purposes of trade,^ and this was the 

 beginning of the end. Even before that time communication 

 with Greenland was rare. Thus we read in the " King's 

 Mirror" that people seldom went there. But now, when the 

 royal trading ship was practically the only one that made 

 the voyage, things were to be much worse. Frequently 

 several years were occupied on one trip. As some time 

 elapsed also between each voyage, it will be understood that, 

 at the best, the communication was not lively. But when 

 it occasionally happened that " Knarren " was wrecked, 

 things were still worse. That the communication may have 

 been defective as early as the beginning of the fourteenth 

 century is seen from a letter from Bishop Ame, of Bergen, 

 to Bishop Tord in Greenland, of June 22, 1308, wherein it 

 IS taken for granted that the death of King Eric nine years 

 before, in 1299, was not yet known in Greenland. In the 

 middle of the fourteenth century, for instance, " Knarren " 

 returned to Bergen in 1346 safe and sound and with an 

 very great quantity of goods; but perhaps did not sail 

 again until 1355, and we hear nothing of her return before 

 iS^sC?). In 1366 we hear that "Knarren" was again 

 fitted out; but she was wrecked north of Bergen in the 



1 Existing royal documents show that the prohibition of trade with these 

 tributary countries was again strictly enforced by Magnus Smek in 1348, and 

 by Eric of Pomerania in 1425. 



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