DECLINE OF GREENLAND SETTLEMENTS 



following year, probably on the outward voyage. In the year 

 following a new trading ship must actually have arrived 

 with the new bishop, Alf; but it is stated that Green- 

 land had then been without a bishop for nineteen years. In 

 1369 the Greenland ship seems again to have been sunk off 

 Norway.^ 



It looks as if these voyages of " Knarren " became rarer 

 and rarer, until at the beginning of the fifteenth century 

 (1410) they presumably ceased altogether; in any case, we 

 hear no more of them. Even though the Greenland traffic 

 may have paid, it cost money to fit out " Knarren," and 

 when there was so much doing in other quarters, it was not 

 always easy to procure the necessary funds. Another reason 

 for the decline was the growing influence and power of the 

 Hanseatic League over trade and navigation in Norway. 

 Together with the Victualing Brethren and the adherents of the 

 captive King Albrecht of Sweden, the Leaguers took and sacked 

 Bergen in 1393. In 1428 the town was again taken by the 

 Hanseatic League. It may easily be understood that events 

 of this kind had a disturbing and perhaps entirely paralyzing 

 effect on the Greenland traffic, which had its headquarters in 

 this town. Moreover, Norway had before this been much 

 weakened by the Black Death, which visited the country in 

 1349. It raged with special virulence in Bergen; but there 

 is no notice of the disease having spread to Greenland; 

 perhaps that country was spared through " Knarren " not 

 having sailed there before 1355, and probably no other ship 

 having made the voyage in the interval. In 1392 there was 

 again a severe pestilence throughout Norway, and many 

 people died. In that year, too, a great many ships were 

 wrecked. There were thus a number of misfortunes at 

 that time, and the people of Norway had enough to occupy 

 them in their own affairs. Another circumstance unfavor- 

 able to the communication with Greenland was the union 

 of Norway with Denmark, and for a time with Sweden. The 



iCf. Islandske Annaler, ed. by Storm, 1888, p. 228. 



99 



