DECLINE OF GREENLAND SETTLEMENTS 



even greater impunity than in Iceland, and perhaps they 

 increased the ruin of the settlements there. 



Of great interest is a letter from Pope Alexander VI. ^ of 

 the first year of his papacy, 1492-1493, which was written 

 in consequence of a Benedictine monk named Mathias having 

 applied to the Pope to be appointed bishop of Greenland, and 

 declared himself willing to go there personally as a missionary 

 to convert the apostates. The letter runs: 



" As we are informed, the church at Gade [i.e., Gardar] lies at the world's 

 end in the land of Greenland, where the people, for want of bread, wine and 

 oil, live on dried fish and milk; and therefore, as well as by reason of the ex- 

 treme rarity of the voyages that have taken place to the said land, for which 

 the severe freezing of the waters is alleged as the cause, it is believed that for 

 eighty years no ship has landed there; and if such voyages should take place, 

 it is thought that in any case it could only be in the month of August, when 

 the same ice is dissolved; and for this reason it is said that for eighty years 

 or thereabouts no bishop or priest has resided at that church. Therefore, and 

 because there are no Catholic priests, it has befallen that most of the parish- 

 ioners, who formerly were Catholics, have (oh, how sorrowful!) renounced the 

 holy sacrament of baptism received from them; and that the inhabitants of 

 that land have nothing else to remind them of the Christian religion than a 

 corporale [altar-cloth] which is exhibited once a year, and whereon the body 

 of Christ was consecrated a hundred years ago by the last priest who was 

 there." For this reason, '* to provide them with a fitting shepherd," Pope Alex- 

 ander's predecessor. Innocent VIII., had appointed the Benedictine monk 

 Mathias bishop of Gade (Gardar), and he "with much godly zeal made ready 

 to bring the minds of the infidels and apostates back to the way of eternal 

 salvation and to root out such errors," etc. Then follow exhortations to the 

 Curia, the chancellors, and all the religious scriveners under pain of excom- 

 munication to let the said Mathias, on account of his poverty, escape all ex- 

 penses and perquisites connected with the appointment and correspondence, 

 etc. 



The Statements in the letter agree remarkably well with 

 what we gather from other historical sources. In 1410 — 

 that is, eighty-two years before the date of the letter — the 

 last ship of which we have any notice arrived in Norway from 

 Greenland (see above, p. 118). This agrees with the statement 

 in the letter that no ship had been there for eighty years. In 



1 See G. Storm, 1892, pp. 399-401. The letter was discovered some years ago 

 in the Papal archives by a priest from Dalmatia, Dr. Jelic. Cf. also Jos. 

 Fischer, 1902, p. 49. 



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