CLAUDIUS CLAVUS 



accidental agreement. According to Clavus's own scale o£ 

 latitude on the right-hand side of the Nancy map, we get 

 the following latitudes: Bergen 60°; the southern point of 

 Greenland 59° 15'; Stavanger 58° 30'. In reality the latitudes 

 of these places are: 60° 24'; 59° 46', and 58° 58'. This 

 agreement is remarkable, as a displacement of the scale of 

 latitude half a degree to the north on the Nancy map would 

 give very nearly correct latitudes.^ The mutual relation 

 between the latitudes of the three places may, as we have 

 seen, be explained from the Medici map, but hardly from a 

 possible acquaintance with the Icelandic sailing directions; 

 for, according to these, Bergen and the southern point of Green- 

 land would be placed in the same latitude, since we are told 

 that from Bergen the course was " due west to Hvarf in 

 Greenland." 2 The Medici map may also give a natural 

 explanation of places like Bergen and the southern point 

 of Greenland having been given by Clavus a latitude so much 

 too northerly (even in the Nancy map), and of the southern 

 point of Greenland having only half a degree more westerly 

 longitude than the west coast of Ireland.^ 



1 Gerard Mercator writes that, according to a tradition, an English monk 

 and mathematician from Oxford (i.e., Nicholas of Lynn) had been in Norway 

 and in the islands of the North, and had described all these places and de- 

 termined their latitude by the astrolabe [cf. Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, 

 1903, p. 301]. It is therefore possible that Clavus may have obtained the lat- 

 itudes of some places, such as Stavanger and Bergen, from his work; but, in 

 any case, he cannot have got the latitude of the southern point of Greenland 

 from it. Moreover, if he had had such accurate information to depend on, it 

 would be difficult to understand why he retained the incorrect latitudes which 

 he obtained by introducing those of Ptolemy on the Medici map; in his later 

 map, indeed, he has used nothing else. 



- Cf. Sturlubok and Ivar Bardsson's description of Greenland. In Hauk's 

 " Landnama " we read that it was from Hernum (that is, north of Bergen) 

 that they sailed west to Hvarf. According to this, then, the southern point 

 of Greenland would be brought even farther north than Bergen. 



3 Although Dr. Bjornbo now admits that the Medici map must have been 

 used for Clavus's later map, he is still in doubt as to this being the case with 

 the older one (the original of the Nancy map) ; he is inclined to think that this 

 map may have been constructed from Northern sources, sailing directions, 



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