Vinland

Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the Norseman Leif Ericson, about the year A.D. 1003.

In 1960 archaeological evidence of the only known Norse settlement[1] in North America (outside of Greenland) was found at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland, in what is now the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Although this proved conclusively the Vikings' pre-Columbian discovery of North America, whether this exact site is the Vinland of the Norse accounts is still a subject of debate.

There is a consensus among scholars that the Vikings did reach North America, approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus.[2]

Contents

Etymology

The name Vinland has been interpreted in two ways: traditionally as Vínland ("wine-land") and more recently as Vinland (meadow- or pasture-land).

Wine-land

The earliest etymology of "Vinland" is found in Adam of Bremen's 11th-century Latin Descriptio insularum Aquilonis ("Description of the Northern Islands"): "Moreover, he has also reported one island discovered by many in that ocean, which is called Winland, for the reason that grapevines grow there by themselves, producing the best wine." (Praeterea unam adhuc insulam recitavit a multis in eo repertam occeano, quae dicitur Winland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum optimum ferentes). The implication is that the first element is Old Norse vín (Latin vinum), "wine".

This explanation is essentially repeated in the 13th-century Grœnlendinga saga, which provides a circumstantial account of the discovery of Vinland, and its being named from the grapes (vínber) found there.

Pasture-land

A more recent interpretation of the name Vinland is that the first element is not vín but vin, an Old Norse word with the meaning 'meadow, pasture'. (Proto-Norse winju.) The word is a common suffix in old Norwegian place names - but because it mostly has been weakened (into -in, -en, -e, -a, and more), it is often hard to recognize in its modern forms. See, for example, Hornindal; Bergen, Løten, Røyken, Sande, Skodje, Time; Halsa; Bodø; Gjerdrum.

Vin is a common name on old farms from Norse times in Norway, and present-day use of the word are Bjørgvin, the Norse (and Icelandic) name of Bergen, Norway, and Granvin, where -vin translates into 'pasture' in both. A poetic Norse name of the Danish island of Sjælland (Zealand) was Viney 'pasture island'. The word can also be a name in itself (see Vinje).

A cognate name also existed in Old English (Anglo-Saxon), in the name of the village Woolland in Dorset, England: This was written "Winlande" in the 1086 Domesday Book, and it is interpreted as 'meadow land' or 'pasture land'.

Historical accounts

The island ("insula") of Vinland ("Winland") was first recorded by Adam of Bremen, a German (Saxon) geographer and historian, in his book Descriptio insularum Aquilonis of approximately 1075. To write it he visited Danish king Svend Estridson, who had knowledge of the northern lands.

The main source of information about the Viking voyages to Vinland is derived from two Icelandic sagas, The Saga of Eric the Red and the Saga of the Greenlanders. These sagas were written down approximately 250 years after the settlement of Greenland and are open to considerable breadth of interpretation. Combining those two, it seems that there were possibly two separate attempts to establish a Norse settlement in Vinland, neither of which lasted for more than two years. The disbandment of the small Viking colony seems to have had several causes. Disagreements among the men about the few women that followed on the trip, and fighting with an unidentified group of indigenous people (called "skrælingar" in the Sagas) already living in the area, are both indicated in the written sources.

The two Sagas tell that after the settlement of Greenland by the Vikings, a merchant by the name of Bjarni Herjólfsson set sail from Iceland to Greenland to visit his father, a new settler in Greenland. His ship was blown off course by a storm and thus accidentally discovered a new land, presumably the east coast of North America, in 985 or 986. It was late in the summer, and he did not want to overwinter in this new land, which he noted was covered with forests, so he did not land and managed to reach Greenland before winter fell. He then afterwards told the story and sold ships to Leifr Eiríksson. With wood being in very short supply in Greenland, the settlers there were eager to explore the riches of this new land. Some years later Leifr Eiríksson explored this coast, and established a short-lived colony on a part of the coast that he called Vinland.

The first discovery made by Leifr was according to the stories Helluland ("flatstone land"), possibly Baffin Island. Markland ("wood land"), possibly Labrador - was discovered next (there is some evidence that the tree line in northern Labrador has been diminished or eroded since Leifr's time) and lastly Vinland. Vinland is possibly identifiable with the archaeological site of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. The expedition included both families and livestock, and its aim was to found a new settlement. Straumfjörðr ("stream", possibly in reference to the strong currents of near-by Strait of Belle Isle and Belle Isle) was the name of the northern settlement and "Hóp" (lagoon) was the name for the warmer southern settlement. Only two Viking leaders actually overwintered in Vinland, the second being Thorvald Eiríksson, Leifr's brother, who was killed the second summer. However, according to the stories, the idea was soon abandoned due to conflicts with the skrælingar and among the Norsemen themselves. New voyages for woodcutting seem to have been discussed even as late as the 1300s.

Until the 19th century, the idea of Viking settlement in North America was considered by historians to be the product of folk tales. The first scholarly theory for the idea was put forth in 1837 by Danish literary historian and antiquarian Carl Christian Rafn in his book Antiquitates Americanæ. Rafn had made an exhaustive examination of the sagas, as well as potential settlement sites on the North American coast and concluded that Vinland was a real place in North America that had been settled by the Norse. Newfoundland historian William A Munn (1864-1939), after studying literary sources in Europe, suggested that the Vikings had first made land at L'Anse aux Meadows and then sailed round to Pistolet Bay.

Localization debate

Historians do not agree on the location of Vinland. Rafn and Erik Wahlgren believed that Vinland was probably in New England. In 1960 a Viking settlement was discovered by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad and excavated during the 1960s and 1970s at L'Anse aux Meadows in northern Newfoundland, and some historians believe that this was Leifr's settlement, thus connecting Vinland to Newfoundland. Others have followed Rafn in sharing the belief that Vinland was farther to the south. In this view, L'Anse aux Meadows was perhaps part of an undocumented later attempt at settlement.

Viking colonisation site at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Newfoundland
L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Newfoundland

Those who believe Newfoundland is the location of Vinland generally think that settlements farther south are unlikely, because maintaining such a distant lifestyle from the Norse homelands would have been far too difficult for the Vikings of the time. Iron and other needed resources would have been too difficult to sustain on any workable level, as the later English settlers in New England would find. Costly fights with Native populations so far from supply lines would have been another deterrent.

An argument for placing Vinland farther south is presented in Adam of Bremen's account. In his Descriptio insularum Aquilonis he wrote that the name Vinland comes from the grapevines growing there. He received this information from King Svend Estridson.

There are a number of theories to explain this discrepancy:

While the theory that Vinland was further south is a legitimate line of inquiry, for some the motivation to search Vinland further south could have been more personal to justify or romanticize the Scandinavian colonization of areas in the present-day United States. There have been several instances where evidence of pre-Columbian Norse explorers in the United States has become a source of controversial debate, for example, the Kensington Runestone. However, the Maine Penny is regarded by many as a legitimate artifact. Alleged Runestones found throughout America are often used to attempt to show proof of pre-Columbian Norse settlement, but this is not thought to represent Vinland.

Promontorium Winlandiae

From Skálholt map: "Promontorium Winlandiae" is Latin, probably translated from Scandinavian "forland", German "Vorland". First part, see Latin: "pro-" = English: "before -". A possible meaning is "The land before Vinland". If the Latin name was translated from e.g. English a possible meaning would be: "Head of Vinland". See also foreland.

The Skálholt map shows Promontorium Winlandiae as a narrow cape extending from 53°N to 56°N. But, the map also shows the position for Bristol, England, at around 56°N. So the "grid" of the map is somewhat inaccurate (+5°) as Bristol and L'anse Aux Meadows are actually at 51°N.

The Extension of Vinland

The Norse believed that the new land extended to near to Africa.
This country, (later called America) which was discovered, ..., by Icelanders, is the western boundary of Europe, almost touching the African islands where the waters of ocean flood in.
From: "A History of Norway...", 12th century, p. 3, lines 2-5. ("Island" may mean "land accessible only by sea".)

Proposed locations

Including some of the possibilities mentioned above, popular locations for the possible site of Vinland generally include, in order from north to south:

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Ingstad, Helge; Ingstad, Anne Stine (2001). The Viking Discovery of America: The Excavation of a Norse Settlement in L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Checkmark Books. ISBN 0-8160-4716-2.
  2. ↑ Jones, Gwyn (1986). The Norse Atlantic Saga: Being the Norse Voyages of Discovery and Settlement to Iceland, Greenland, and North America. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-1928-5160-8.
  3. ↑ Gambo vineyard website
  4. ↑ "Did Leif Erikson once live in Cambridge, Massachusetts?". The Straight Dope. Retrieved on 2008-08-09.
  5. ↑ Horsford, Eben Norton (1892). The Landfall of Leif Erikson, A.D. 1000: And the Site of His Houses in Vineland. Damrell and Upham. http://books.google.com/books?id=5wNCAAAACAAJ&dq=The+Landfall+of+Leif+Erikson:+A.D.+1000. 
  6. ↑ Horsford, Eben Norton (1890). The Discovery of the Ancient City of Norumbega. Houghton, Mifflin. http://books.google.com/books?id=c2ETAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Discovery+of+the+Ancient+City+of+Norumbega. 

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