Everything about Vinland totally explained
Vinland was the name given to an area of
North America by the
Norseman Leifr Eiríksson, about the year A.D.
1003.
In 1960
archaeological evidence of the only known
Norse settlement 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.
Etymology
The name
Vinland has been interpreted in two ways: traditionally as
Vínland ("wine-land") and more recently as
Vinland ("plain land" 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's 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 isn't
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's 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's 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 the
Native Americans (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 didn't want to stay over winter in this new land, which he noted was covered with forests, so he didn't 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 Eiriksson'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 aims 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 between the Vikings 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 mere 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 don't 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.
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 convenient 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:
- It was an early marketing attempt, something like the naming of Greenland by Erik the Red. In this theory, Leifr's naming of Markland and Vinland was to encourage others to explore and settle there.
- A theory subject to much debate among scholars is that there was a misinterpretation of short-i *Vinland as long-i Vínland, as described above. This theory can be combined with the previous one: Estridson might have embellished Adam's mistake if he believed it would increase the fame of Vinland for joint-financed ventures he'd no doubt claim for himself. One problem with this theory is why the sagas outside of Adam of Bremen's account also refer to long-i Vínland, and mention vines as well. Since the sagas were written later, an explanation for this could be that the sagas were somehow influenced by Adam of Bremen's account.
- Alternatively Estridson was joking or lying, or even referring to similarly sounding Wendland instead in an earlier account, where grapes did grow, and this was later confused with Vinland by Adam of Bremen.
- Another theory is that we've not discovered the true location of Vinland yet, and it's further south, where grapes do grow. More subtly Vinland could be seen as a gateway or northern part, in reach of more temperate areas where grapes grew.
- Another possibility is that later, longer voyages further south, reporting Concord style grapes confused the story told about the settlement, as there were individuals of the crews who had ventured out on their own to return with tales.
- Still another possibility is that the reference is to any of the abundant berries in Newfoundland, including gooseberries or blueberries, which are both abundant near L'Anse-aux-Meadows (51°N) and are both suitable for winemaking. Blueberries look very much like small black grapes, although they grow on bushes very unlike grape vines.
- Finally it has been speculated that grapes did in fact grow in Newfoundland (47-51°N) in the past. The first recorded grapes were grown 2002, when a successful vineyard
was established in Gambo, Newfoundland, 48°50'N. The time period of the Vinland settlement corresponds with the Medieval Warm Period (from about the 10th century to about the 14th century). Water temperatures in the northern hemisphere during this time were up to 1°C warmer, allowing the planting of vineyards as far north as the coastal zones of the Baltic Sea (ca. 56°N) and southern England (ca. 51°N). There are vineyards at 54°N in Lancashire and Yorkshire, northern England.
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 isn't thought to represent Vinland.
Possible locations
Including some of the possibilities mentioned above, popular locations for the possible site of Vinland generally include, in order from north to south:
Newfoundland
Anticosti Island
Gaspé Peninsula
Cape Breton Island
Nova Scotia
northeast coast of New Brunswick. Supported by finding a few hickory nut shells at L'Anse aux Meadows. See The Norse Atlantic Sagas by Gwyn Jones.
coastal Maine (see Maine Penny)
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Nantucket
Martha's Vineyard
Nomans Land (Massachusetts)
Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island (see Newport Tower)
Other usages of the term Vinland
Ethno-cultural uses of the term Vinland
Vinland is also used as the symbolic name for the cultural and geographic landscape of Canada (Upper Vinland) and the United States (Lower Vinland) which some adherents of modern Germanic Neopaganism groups use to distinguish themselves from other ethno-cultural groups who share the same geographical areas of North America.
Vinland flag
The term "Vinnland", a variation of "Vinland", is commonly used by the American musical group Type O Negative, who created a flag based around this association.
Other
The name "Vinland" has historically been also an alternative spelling of Finland, for example in some Dutch maps from the 18th century.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Vinland'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://vinland.totallyexplained.com">Vinland Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
