200 W. E. Ckirtis — Pre-Columbian, Vatican Documents. 



of the ninth or heginning of the tenth century ; hut, as in Nor- 

 way itself, so in Greenland, the complete establishment of the 

 Christian religion is attributed to King Olaf II (died 1030). It 

 is said that Archbishop Adalbert, of Bremen (1055), sent Albert 

 as the first bishop to Greenland. This bishopric certainly ex- 

 isted in 1124. It was the first bishopric erected in America. 



" The numerous researches and publications in regard to the 

 extension of settlements which Christian Greenlanders effected 

 on the American continent, and in regard to the positions of the 

 Helleland, the Markland and the Vinland, make apparent, not 

 only the possibility, but also the probability, that a considerable 

 portion of that continent felt in some degree at that time the 

 civilizing influence of the bishops of Gardar. 



" Rafn identified the Vinland with Massachusetts. The ques- 

 tion has lately been thoroughly reexamined b}'' Storm. His 

 opinion is that Vinland, and consequently the extreme point 

 reached by Christian Northmen, cannot be sought for further 

 south than Noya Scotia. In any case, the historic importance 

 of the bishopric of Gardar is plain. 



" The bishopric belonged first to the metropolitan see of Ham- 

 burg-Bremen ; but in 1146 Pope Eugene III sent the cardinal- 

 bishop of Albano, Nicolas, who afterward became Pope Hadrian 

 IV, to Norway to arrange in a more convenient manner the 

 ecclesiastical affairs of that country. He established a metropol- 

 itan see at Drontheim, to which he subjected the bishoprics of 

 Norway, of the Northern islands, and of Gardar, or Greenland. 



" The letter of Innocent III, the earliest in order of time and 

 the first here exhibited, epitomizes the apostolic case with which 

 his predecessors in the twelfth century had bestowed on the only 

 part of America then known. 



" In all ordinary matters the dioqeses were governed by the 

 bishops, without any direct interference on the part of the pope. 

 But when Gregory X,' in the council of Lyons (1174), ordered 

 that a tithe of all ecclesiastical revenues should for six years be 

 contributed, in order to provide means at least to preserve the 

 last Christian position in Palestine, which, after the death of 

 Louis IX of France (died August 25, 1270), seemed almost lost, 

 such interference in some cases became necessary. 



" The letters of the popes, written under these extraordinary cir- 

 cumstances to the archbishop of Drontheim, contain interesting 

 information regarding the condition of the Greenlanders in the 



