The Jens Munk story By John Bechtel ~ Freelance Writer among both the peasants and the The Portuguese period of Munk’s life llegitimacy cast a long nobles. He forgot that the hands At the age of 12, in 1591, Jens Munk shipped out to Oporto, Portugal. The shadow in the early you trample on the way up could Reformation era. A expedite your way back down. Erik century following Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America in 1492 I acquired many properties, and the had been a golden age for Portugal. They had discovered and conquered one continent after another, and at one time controlled much of India, Africa, and bastard child, Jens Munk king finally knighted him, but his South America. Their discoveries came so fast, it was becoming a problem was born to affluence on enemies were patient and waited for finding names for all of them, and the Portuguese began naming places after the the propitious moment to strike. June 3, 1579, when both date on which they were discovered. Under relentless accusation Shakespeare and Galileo Cristóvão Jacques discovered Bahia, in of foul play, fraud, and abuse of what is now Brazil, on November 1st, were 15 years old. The the king’s property, Erik Munk All Saints’ Day. So it was named Bahia, events of Jens’ early life finally lost all of his fiefs on the which means “bay” and the full name order of King Frederick, much presaged everything that of the place became “City of the Holy like a sheriff repossessing your Savior on the Bay of All Saints.” When came later. His mother, properties and it makes the front another Portuguese explorer, found a his brother Niels, and he page news. However, Erik kept his bay farther south on January 1st, 1502, prized title to nobility for a while, he named it “January River,” Rio de were reduced to poverty at least. He knew, that by law, his Janeiro. 17th century illustration of Copenhagen, Denmark. by the conventional and two illegitimate sons Jens and Neils However, that world of Portuguese hypocritical social and (named after his grandfather) dominance came to an end in 1580, could not inherit property from when Jens was one-year-old, when religious mores of a 17th- him. Moreover, if he married their Philip II, King of Spain, inherited century society convulsed mother, who was a commoner, he by marriage Portugal and all of its possessions. For a short time, Philip COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG PHOTO: with spasms of Reformation could be punished by death. So there King Phillip II was to be no inherited title for Jens ruled an empire more than ten times piety. The story begins with and his brother Neils. There was the size of Alexander the Great’s, from the Americas to the Chinese border. Jens Munk’s grandfather, no way Erik’s common-law partner In this changing world, Jens Munk got a position on the Dutch ship Schoubynacht, headed for Brazil and sugar. A mile from the Brazilian coast, Niels, a nobleman from a Anna and her two boys could share Erik’s wealth at its peak, but they all they were attacked by French pirates. After disposing of all the others either manor house in Halland, shared in his fall. as prisoners or killing them in combat, the French discovered seven crew in the then-Kingdom of Erik mysteriously disappeared members, including Jens Munk, in hiding. With a shrug of their shoulders, they put them in a boat and told them to row for shore, and left their fate to Denmark. from his son’s life. Jens was shipped out to Aalborg, where his father’s Providence. Heading south through the jungle, in a region never penetrated or sister was married to the mayor. It colonized by the Portuguese, and hiding from hostile natives with poisonous Jens’ grandfather Niels COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG PHOTO: seemed as if fate smiled on Jens, for blowpipes, swamp water, leeches, crocodiles, jaguars, 24-foot giant constrictor King Christian II snakes named by the Portuguese anaconda, and fevers, the group found their makes enemies COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG PHOTO: he got something of an education and acquired good manners. Jens way south to Bahia. A nobleman was expected to marry forgave this egregious betrayal by one King Frederick II was eight years old. He didn’t know a woman from another established of their own. They sought revenge by Return to Copenhagen in 1598-99 noble family. Niels scorned the custom using what they had, his violation of thieving scoundrel who made it why his father had disappeared, and Jens found employment and remained there for the next six years, becoming of the day and married a common marriage custom, to strip him of his his life’s goal to acquire riches and he never saw him again. woman. Niels had enemies among the patent of nobility. His son, Erik (Jens regain the family title by any means Jens Munk’s life can best be fluent in Portuguese. He had lived among strangers for seven years with no word other nobles, who remembered that Munk’s father), was forced to begin necessary. He murdered and used described as a determined, from, or about, his father. On October 1, 1598, he sailed back to Copenhagen, the Munk clan had sided with Danish his career with this handicap. false evidence to cheat and even indefatigable event, but ultimately expecting to collect his inheritance and went directly to 21-year-old Christian IV, king Christian II and the peasants hang those in his disfavor. Erik was frustrating effort to gain honest crowned king only two years before. He was informed by a functionary that all in the civil war of 1525. That war was by no means the only nobleman to recognition for his exploits and his father’s property had been seized by the State. After five years of incarceration, primarily an uprising of peasants Jens’ father Erik makes engage in such behaviors, but his contributions, and to regain his his father had hung himself in his cell. Jens was presented with his father’s silver against the abuses of the nobility. more enemies hyper-aggressive, imperious pursuit family’s status as a member of the tankard and some used clothes and signed a receipt for them. The spiteful nobles neither forgot nor Erik was an ambitious, arrogant, of property and fame offended many Danish nobility. It was not to be. (Continued on page 10) i SUMMER 2019 | SCANDINAVIAN PRESS SCANDINAVIAN PRESS | SUMMER 2019 j (Continued from page 9) Could Jens Munk Such were the circumstances of his first time in Copenhagen, then a city of succeed where Henry 20,000. What a blow for an ambitious Hudson and William young man expecting to come into Barents had failed? possession of real estate, peasants, and (Please refer to maps) of course, a title of nobility. 1609-1610 _______________________________ In 1596, Dutch explorer William Barents discovered Spitzbergen while Undeterred, in the next six years, looking for the northeastern passage Jens Munk went on 17 voyages, and to China. He got locked into the ice on transitioned into a skilled, respected the body of water-bearing his name, mariner; from cabin boy to captain. _______________________________ and he and his crew were forced to spend an entire year on Novaya Zemlya At about this same time, 800 miles (Arctic Russian archipelago north of the away, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, Ural Mountains) before the ice broke COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG PHOTO: Prince of Denmark, a play based on up enough for them to take a small Henry Hudson a Scandinavian saga. Although they boat through. Barents didn’t make the did not know each other, the story trip home. It is not known how the 12 Passage, this time making it to Novaya was almost a portent of the tragedies COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG PHOTO: survivors disposed of his body. Zemlya, where even in June they found in store for both Jens Munk and his King Christian IV In 1607, Henry Hudson had the the ice impenetrable. monarch, Christian IV. water that seemed to offer safe passage same idea, and he attempted to find In 1609, Henry Hudson was forward, only to fill quickly with a northeast passage and got as far as commissioned by the Dutch East India Christian IV ice floes ten feet thick that crowded Spitzbergen before being turned back Company, Henry’s third time to seek and the call of the Arctic their ships and prevented retreat. For by ice. Hudson’s report of large groups the eastern passage across the top of Christian IV’s reign of 59 years was the next two centuries, the much- of whales on this voyage may have Siberia, but he once again was blocked .WIKIMEDIA MAP: the longest of all the Scandinavian anticipated shortcut between two been a strong motivation for European by ice north of Norway. Without Map of the Barents Sea and Novaya Zemlya (circled), where William Barent monarchs. He was only two years oceans was revealed as a labyrinth interest in the Arctic whaling business permission, Hudson changed course and his crew were older than Jens Munk, and they were in which ships and hundreds of men in the following years. In 1608, Henry and sailed in the opposite direction, to forced to spend an destined to interact on the world stage. disappeared without a trace. attempted again to find the Northeast North America, where he discovered entire year after his Christian was 19 at his coronation as the bay to what is now Manhattan, ship became locked king of Denmark and Norway, and his and he explored the river named after in the Arctic ice.