Re: The Vinland Map Find Or Fraud?

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 12:17:53 -0000, "William Black"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
>"hippo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> "William Black" wrote in message
>
>> > There's no doubt that the 'Thorfin Karlstefni Saga' is essentially a
>true
>> > story.
>> >
>> > The map doesn't actually matter.
>> >
>> > The only issue is 'is it a fake'.
>> >
>> > That's not actually a matter that anyone but the owner of the map and
>the
>> > forger care about.
>>
>> The map is interesting in that it antedates the events of Thorfinn's Saga
>by
>> more than four hundred years and shows that the lands beyond Greenland
>were
>> not forgotten over the intervening centuries. -the Troll
>
>So what?
>
>We know that English fishermen were fishing off the Grand Banks throughout
>the medieval period,  there's even some sort of Papal order banning landing
>on the shore there.
>
>Everyone who cared knew there was something out there,  but nobody had the
>economic muscle to do anything about it until the late fifteenth century.


It's not that simple. The practical route to that part of the world
was via the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland, which route the King of
Norway banned to all unlicensed traffic sometime in the 14th century.
Licesnses were not usually given to other than royal ships. Anyone
caught in those waters without a license was liable to be treated as a
pirate with the appropriate penalties. I believe there was some kind
of a treaty about this between Norway and England of Henry V. In any
case, the development of North America and its trade was effectively
throttled.




Eric Stevens