Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 695 



not described. They had other things to think about in Scandinavia and there- 

 fore Greenland was not heard of. To begin with the destruction was caused 

 by certain differences in the poHtical conditions of the Scandinavian countries. 

 King Håkon Hâkonsson the Old of Norway (1217—1263) conquered the Icelan- 

 ders and Greenlanders, though however not without resistance and only after 

 14 or 15 years. Bishop Olafr who was consecrated bishop in Greenland in the 

 year 1246 was charged by the king with proclaiming to the Greenlanders that 

 they had to submit to his government and would have to pay certain taxes. 

 But it was not until the year 1261 that there arrived in Norway three repre- 

 sentatives from the Greenlanders, probably the best men of the country, with 

 the information that the Greenlanders would surrender to the king and bind 

 themselves to pay taxes and fines to him for all homicide "whether it was Nor- 

 wegians or Greenlanders that were killed and whether this happened in the 

 settlement or in the northern summer residences {Norörseta) as far as up under 

 the North Star"^. This unaccustomed burden naturally caused discontent in 

 the country. During the reign of the following king therefore we hear that 

 the Greenlanders rebelled against the Norwegian supremacy in ca. 1270; and 

 in 1272 the Greenland bishop Olafr asked for soldiers for a renewed suppression 

 of the Greenlanders and collection of taxes. From a somewhat uncertain source 

 we hear that King Magnus' Danish brother-in-law King Erik Glipping fitted out 

 a fleet, which in 1273 was sent to Greenland to collect taxes and suppress the 

 obstinate people^. When Iceland in 1280 obtained a new code of laws (Jônsbôk) 

 this was also introduced the next year into Greenland. In the 14th century 

 Greenland was divided into districts and had its upper legislative and judicial 

 assembly {alf)ingi) as in Iceland'"*. 



Thus Greenland had become one of Norway's tax-paying countries [shatt- 

 lönd) in the same way as Iceland and the southern islands. No other ships but 

 those of the Norwegian king must navigate the coasts and bring wares back 

 therefrom"*. Without the royal passport with the permission contained therein 

 no ship was allowed to come to Greenland. Besides the royal taxes the mer- 

 chantmen sailing between Greenland and Norway had also to pay other heavy 

 taxes during their stay in Norway, namely tithes to the clergy, an arrangement 

 constantly causing disagreement between the Greenland merchants and the 

 bishops of Bergen and Trondhjem''). No wonder that the trade with Greenland 

 altogether declined at last. But there were other conditions causing a de- 

 crease of trade and the position of the country to be forgotten. This was the 

 great plague raging in Norway in 1349 especially in Bergen, the main seat of 

 the Greenland trade. And it helped but little, that the merchants of Bergen 

 in 1361 were allowed to sail to the tax-paying countries of Norway, as e. g. Green- 

 land, for in 1393 Bergen was attacked and plundered by King Albrecht's Ger- 

 man friends and the trade was ruined for a long time^). 



I may cite here an example of the difficulties connected with the trade of 

 Greenland and which gradually checked the thriving of the two colonies of 

 Norsemen there; this example is also instructive in other respects. It is Björn 

 Einarsson's stay in Greenland I refer to. 



1) Greenl. histor. Mindesm., vol. II, pp. 776 — 779. 



2) 1. c. vol. III. pp. 453—457. 



3) 1. c. ibid pp. 457—459 cf. p. 440 and I, p. 121. On Iceland and Greenland a 

 sysla was a judicial district the head of which {sysluma()r) was officer of justice 

 and judge and also collected the public revenues. 



*) Grønl. hist. Mindesm. Ill, pp. 130—142. 



5) Lc. Grønl. hist Mindesm. Ill, pp. 103-111. 



«) 1. с pp. 36—39, 136. 



