Flemish Contribution to America
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The Flemish Contribution to America New Netherland Institute October 5, 2013 – Session 5 – 3:15 PM David Baeckelandt Flemings in Greenland and North America Before Columbus …A Flemish Priest in Greenland – in 1364!! Left a Record – the “Inventio Fortunatae” … becomes a critical piece in the intellectual impetus for 14th, 15th and 16th century explorers looking for a path to Asia… “In A.D. 1364 eight of these people [from Greenland] came to the King’s Court in Norway. Among them were two priests, one of whom had an astrolabe, [and] who was descended in the fifth generation from a Bruxellensis [native of Brussels]…The eight (were sprung from) those who had first penetrated the Northern Regions in the first ships.” - E.G.R. Taylor, “A Letter Dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee”, p.58 in Imago Mundi, XIII, (1956), ed. Leo Bagrow, (‘s Gravenhage), pp.56-68 Flemish Flag First Recognized Internationally “The first flags identifying nationality were used at sea. The oldest international legal obligation on record for ships to display flags as identification was agreed by King Edward I of England and Guy, Count of Flanders , in 1297.” – A Znamierowski, The World Encyclopedia of Flags, p.44 The Vlaamse Leeuw saluted by English ships in 1297 was black on a yellow background 14th century Guidebook– From Bruges to Greenland Created for Flemish merchants ca 1380-1420 The “Bruges Itinerarium” – the only copy extant (at the University of Gent) dates from the 14th century and shows the step-by-step route (and distances between) Bruges and Greenland . Gilles le Bouvier, Le livre de la description des pays / de Gilles Le Bouvier, dit Berry... ; publié pour la première fois avec une introduction et des notes, et suivi de l'"Itinéraire brugeois″ et de la "Table de Velletri" et de plusieurs autres documents géographiques, inédits ou mal connus du XVe siècle, recueillis et commentés par le Dr E.-T. Hamy,..., (Paris, E. Leroux, 1908), p. 167. Found online at : http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1120936.zoom.f172 Direct Flemish Trade With Greenland – in 1327! ”Proof that there was trade in walrus tusks between Greenland and Flemish merchants is provided by the accounts of [Bruggeling] Bernardus de Ortolis, an agent of the papal camera, who was appointed in 1326 to collect the sexennial tenth from the Scandinavian sees…The see of Gardar [Greenland] habitually paid its required dues in walrus tusks and Bernardus noted the receipt of one hundred twenty- seven Norwegian lisponsis [ca 1500 lbs] …on August 11, 1327, from the hand of the archbishop of Nidarios, the ecclesiastical head of the see of Greenland. These tusks were sold to one Jan d’Ypres, a Flemish merchant from Bruges, who paid for them 12 li. 14 s. in silver Tournois [ca $166,000 in 2013 $*] of which the Norwegian king, who possessed a monopoly of trade with Greenland, received one half. The papal agents set out from Bruges, which commercial metropolis possessed a flourishing trade with Scandinavian lands…A few years before the activities of Bernardus de Ortolis, other papal representatives had suggested that the papal monies be entrusted to loyal and honest merchants of Flanders.” -Henry S. Lucas, “Medieval Economic Relations Between Flanders and Greenland”, Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1937), pp. 167-181. Published by: Medieval Academy of America Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2849572 *A 1314 silver Tournais = ca EUR 10,000 ; 1 EUR=$1.3077 4/13/12 Flemings Sent Ships Northwest to Greenland & Canada Ptarmigan “Pure white gyrfalcons, unique to Gyrfalcon Nest the American Arctic, were supplied to medieval Europe by the Norsemen.” - James Robert Enterline, Erikson, Eskomos & Columbus, (Baltimore: John Hopkins U Press, 2002), p. 57 “The arctic falcon preys largely on ptarmigan, of which there are certainly more on Victoria [Island] (and throughout the Arctic) than on Greenland….[Martin] Behaim’s [1492] globe depicts Victoria Island.” -James Robert Enterline, Erikson, Eskomos & Columbus, (Baltimore: John Hopkins U Press, 2002), p. 57 “The northern Vikings were not only wild sea-rovers, they were also enterprising merchants who sought to get riches in every way.” - James Westfall Thompson, “The Commerce of France in the Ninth Century”, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 23, No. 9 (Nov., 1915), pp. 857-887, The U.of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1819140 .Accessed: 29/04/2012 23:44; p.858 Norwegian King Hakon V Magnusson makes a five-year trade treaty with Flanders in 1308 to sell luxury goods (ivory & gyrfalcons especially) to Bruges’ merchants. - Kristen Seaver – The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America, p.82 Flanders’ Cloth Exports 15th cent Flemish Style Dresses Found in Greenland… ”Shrouds recovered from the graves [in Greenland] show that the garments which these people wore resembled those of their distant kin…Thus the custom wearing pleated dresses, illustrated by the Flemish artist Petrus Christus (d.1473) in his portrait of Marco Barbarigo which hangs in the National Gallery [of London] …was imitated in Greenland. The date of the specimen of pleated dresses discovered in one of the graves must therefore be placed at about 1450 or later….” - Henry S. Lucas, “Medieval Economic Relations Between Flanders and Greenland”, Speculum: A Journal of Mediaeval Studies Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr., 1937), pp. 167-181 Published Greenland dress – Petrus Christus by: Medieval Academy of America Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2849572 detail 1450-1460 Were Vikings & Flemish in…Rhode Island?? The Tower of the Monastery of Saint Bavo, Ghent, Belgium “The monastery evolved over the next several centuries (600s – 1100s) until it reached its Newport Tower Compared to St Bavo’s Tower Romanesque form in the twelfth century. …The construction in its geometric features offers a viable prototype for Newport Tower.” - Suzanne Carlson, “Loose Threads in a Tapestry of Stone: The Architecture of the Newport Tower” in New England Antiquities Research Association , online downloaded April 11, 2012 http://www.neara.org/CARLSON/newporttower.htm Newport Tower Lavatorium, St. Baaf’s/ Bavo’s Abbey in Ghent Rhode Island - The Counts of Flanders were crowned here! Flemish, Fish & Innovations in the Settlement of America European Exploration of North America Followed (Coastlines)/Fish “Along this southern coast of Newfoundland the explorers met great schools of cod, which the sailors caught merely by lowering baskets into the water and hauling them up again full of fish…So plentiful were the cod in this region [Newfoundland] that according to Sebastian Cabot, ‘they sumtymes stayed his shippes.’” – H.P.Biggar, Precursors of Jacques Cartier, pp. x, xiv The Flemish Banks – Codfish Grounds 875 miles from the Azores, 420 miles From Newfoundland “The eastern most extension of what we today call the Outer Banks, the rich fishing grounds off of the coast of Newfoundland, have traditionally been called the “Flemish Cap”. This is the closest North Atlantic fishing ground for Europeans. European fishermen could fish there literally year-round. Even today, fishermen, when making for the Flemish Cap from Europe, would often say, “We are headed for Flemish.” - Rosa Garcia-Orellan, TerraNova: The Spanish Cod Fishery on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the Twentieth Century, (Boca Raton: Brown Walker Press, 2010), p.222. Codfish & Christianity “’Bacalao’ was the southern European name for cod, deriving from the Flemish word for cod, bakkeljaw.” - Callum Roberts, The Unnatural History of the Sea, (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2007), p.382 “The introduction of Christianity had an impact on the European diet…[meat] could be prohibited for up to 135 days during the year…the usual alternative was fish.” – J.Wubs-Mrozewicz, “”Fish, Stock and Barrel” p.188 The oldest continuously named geographic place in Canada – the island “Baccalieu” – named for the codfish 1st appears on a map by Antwerp cartographer Ruysch in 1508 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baccalieu_Island) Codfish Migration “The record for long-distance travel belongs to a cod tagged in the North Sea in June 1957 and caught on the Grand Banks in January 1962 after a journey of about 3,200 kilometers.” - Brian Fagan, Fish on Friday: Feasting, Fasting and the Discovery of the New World, (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p.228. “Cod migrate for spawning, moving into still-shallower [less than 120 feet deep] water close to coastlines, seeking warmer spawning grounds and making it even easier to catch them.” - Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, (New York: Penguin, 1997), p.42. “Vismarkt” by the 16th century Antwerp artist Joachim B “Gilles Le Bouvier (writing about [the year]1450) refers to the Icelanders’ trade with Flanders [and Brabant], especially in ‘stocphis’ [cod] , mutton, wool, and salmon.” R.A. Skelton, et.al., The Vinland Map and Tartar Relations, (New Haven: Yale University Press,1965), p.165. Quoting Gilles le Bouvier, Le livre de la description des pays / de Gilles Le Bouvier, dit Berry..., ed. E.T. Hamy, (Paris, E. Leroux, 1908), p. 167. Found online at : http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1120936.zoom.f109 Early Flemish Innovations in Navigation “The use of the initials of the Frankish names of the winds – N, NNE, NE, etc. – on compass cards, seems to have arisen with Flemish navigators, but was early [1400s] adopted by the Portuguese and Spanish.” – - Silvanus P. Thompson, "The Rose of the Winds: The Origin and Development of the Compass- Card," Proceedings of the British Academy 6 (London, 1918) Compass Rose in Flemish Compass Rose Mounted “Innovation occurred through trade.” -Hanno Brand, ed., Trade, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange: Continuity and Change in the North Sea Area and the Baltic c.1350-1750, (Hilversum: Verloren, 2005), p.159 The Flemish Buss “A Flemish Buss doth often take seven or eight Last [=14-16 tonnes] of herrings in a day.