The Bishop of Greenland. 215 



examined and understood what we have said above, to ascer- 

 tain whether it be true. If this is the state of affairs, and if you 

 find the number and resources of tlie population sufficiently 

 increased to make expedient the fulfillment of their desire, it is 

 our wish that you ordain fitting priests of exemplary life, and 

 provide rectors for the government of the restored parishes and 

 churches and for the administration of the sacraments. More- 

 over, if to one or both of you it seem timely and expedient 

 (having asked the advice of the metropolitan if the distance per- 

 mit), we give you power to appoint and constitute as bishop for 

 them some useful and qualified person in communion with us 

 and with the apostolic see, to consecrate him in our name with 

 the usual form of the church, and to concede to him the admin- 

 istration of spiritual and temporal affairs, after having received 

 from him a fitting and customary oath of allegiance to us and 

 the apostolic see. Making this a matter of conscience, we. by 

 our apostolic authority, concede to one or both of you full and 

 unrestricted power in this matter according to the tenor of these 

 presents, all statites and constitutions, whether apostolic or of gen - 

 eral councils or of any other kind whatsoever, notwithstanding. 

 Given at Rome, at Saint Potenciana's, in the year, etc., fourteen 

 hundred and forty-eight, twelfth day before the kalends of Octo- 

 ber, the second year of our pontificate. 



990. Letter of Pope Alexander VI,1492-'93,appointing Mathias, 

 a monk of Saint Benedict, to the bishopric of Gardar, Greenland, 

 and describing the condition of the people of that country. 



■ ~ (Translation.) 



We are informed that the church of Gadar, on the confines of 

 the world, in the country of Greenland, whose inhabitants are 

 wont to subsist upon dried fish and milk on account of the 

 dearth of bread, wine, and oil, and that because of the very rare 

 voyages wdiich caii be made to the said country, owing to the 

 freezing of the waters, no ship is supposed to have landed there 

 during the past eighty years. We are told, moreover, that such 

 voyages are not considered possible except in the month of 

 August, after the thawing of the ice, and that no resident bishop 

 or priest has governed the said church for some eighty years 

 past; hence, because of the absence of the priests, it has hap- 



