said; although none of them is named as destined for Greenland.1 The foregoing statement leaves no doubt of the fact that Adalbert of Bremen sent missionaries to Greenland in the year 1044, when, according to Messenius,2 the request was made the first time; but it is not certain that he, either then or afterwards, also granted a bishop to this remote portion of his province. The affirmative opinion is, however, probable in the highest degree, and held by such conscientious scholars as Moosmüller, Magnussen, and Rafn. The learned Fidel Fita* takes the same view, although he mistakes more than once when he says, "Albert became the first bishop of the cathedral of St. Nicholas of Gardar, in Greenland, in the year 1055." Beauvois doubts, and is inclined to the negative," but his opponents' arguments carry more weight than his inaccurate objections. Adam of Bremen writes that of the several bishops consecrated by him, Archbishop Adalbert "assigned one, a certain Thurolf, to the Orkney Islands, and another, named Adalbert." This obscure expression might signify that the Orkneys received two bishops at once, but the small importance of this group would hardly bear out such an interpretation. It seems, therefore, that the archbishop had rather conceded the second to one of the two other applicants, namely to the Greenlanders, while those of Iceland received, one year after, the saintly man Isleif, as their first regular, resident bishop. On the other hand, Messenius relates that, in the year 1055, the metropolitan of Hamburg-Bremen sent to Iceland Bishop Jón, Albert to Greenland, and Thurolf to the Orkneys. Messenius, it is true, does not give any authority for his assertion, but he is a reliable author, and is rather sustained by an ancient scholium, where it is said that the vicar of Hamburg's archbishop sent out Bishops Albert and Meinhart to Norway and to the oceanic isles. Adalbert and Albert are doubtless the same person. A last argument originates in a later statement of Adam of Bremen,—namely, that Isleif, a short time after his consecration for the see of Skalholt, was charged by Adalbert, the northern metropolitan, to carry his letters of greeting to the churches of Iceland and of Greenland, "Eorum salutans ecclesias," which is a mediæval expression, referring to cathedral churches or dioceses. Hence it would seem that there was a bishop in Greenland at the time. The archbishop told Isleif, moreover, of his intention to visit ere long those distant missions,-a purpose which, however, he did not accomplish.1 A demurrer to the last evidence might be interposed from the commonly accepted opinion that Greenland, at this time, had no "church," no episcopal see; but it is stated in various passages of the ancient Icelandic and Greenland records that Gardar was but the second cathedral of Greenland. The episcopal residence and church of Steines were built a number of years before. It is admitted that the first diocese of Greenland had its see located in the northern province, called Vestrebygd or western settlement; but the name of this see is given with some variation by different authors. Peyrère says, "The country is uninhabited and barren 2 1 Adam Bremensis, De Situ Daniæ, cap. xxxvi., ap. Beauvois, Origines, p. 26, n. 4. 2 P. 191. between Ostrebug and Vestrebug. Near this desert there is a church called Stornes, which was formerly the metropolitan and the residence of the bishop of Greenland." Torfæus relates,' after the ancient Ivar Bardson, that "there is a distance of twelve Danish miles between Easterbygd and Westerbygd, a worthless desert; but in Westerbygd there is a large church named, in the Danish old translation, Steinsnes kirkia, which, for a while, was the cathedral and the episcopal see." The German version of Bardson's description calls it Strömsnes. Björn Skardza, revised by Theodore Thorlak, when describing Greenland, says, "There is in the western province a bay called Straumfjord, and I think it was on its coast that was situated the episcopal see of Straumnes." From this fact of an episcopal residence at Steines during the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth has risen the question whether Greenland, at one time, was divided into two dioceses, as would appear to be the case when we consult the venerable manuscripts that contain the lists of bishoprics in olden times. The old "Provincial Book" of the year 1182, as preserved by the Poor Scholar Albinus, mentions as suffragan of the archbishop of Drontheim, the Greenland bishop, the "Grónlendingabiskup ;" and the appellation of the "Greenland diocese" has been kept on the most ancient tax-rolls of the pontifical treasury, together with that of the later "diocese of Gardar." 3 75. 1 Gronl. Ant., cap. vii. p. 50. 2 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. x. p. 3 Cajetanus Cennius, in presenting the "Provinciale Vetus" of Albinus, remarks: "Albinus, pauper scholaris, perspicue testatur se antiquioribus ex codicibus quidquid posteritati mandavit desumpsisse." He continues: "Quæ Censius anno 1192 se collegisse ait, ante annos minimum octo aut decem Albinus collegerat; Provinciale Vetus et Librum Censuum exhibeo, octo minimum annis ante Censium, conscriptum." That Albinus's authorities knew of a bishop of Greenland, but had no very correct ideas The reliable historian Albert Krantz admits the early existence of two cathedral churches in ancient Greenland.1 The agreement of the Roman officials with the northern chorographers hardly leaves any doubt regarding the reality of a "Greenland diocese," whose incumbents resided at Steines in the western settlement. Was this bishopric suppressed at the erection of the one of Gardar in Östrebygd in the year 1123? This would seem most likely in the absence of documents; but while the Greenland diocese continues to be mentioned conjointly with that of Gardar in the pontifical registers, we have a bull of Innocent III., dated February 13, 1206, by which he confirms former papal constitutions, subjecting to the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Drontheim the dioceses of Osloe . . . and of "Greenland," and similar to that issued by Innocent II., on the 27th day of May, 1133, in which mention is also made of the "bishopric of Gronland."3 We do not insist, however, upon the probatory force of these two documents, and admit the possibility of the official title of the bishops of Steines being used to designate the bishops of Gardar. 2 To return to our unfinished disquisition, we must add the remark that, if Albert was not sent to Greenland in the year 1055, another bishop must have been there at the time; because Pope Victor II. speaks of of geography, follows from the following extract: "In Regno Norwesie, Metropolis Trondum hos episcopos suffraganeos habet: Bergensem, Strangensem, Hamarchopensem, Halsflonensem. Habet quoque in Regione Granellandia episc. Horchadensem, et in insula Islandia episc. Phare. Sunt igitur num. VII." (Migne, vol. xcviii. cols. 451, 455, 469.) Cf. Document L. 1 Rerum Germanicarum Historia, ed. Francfort, p. 479, ap. Moosmüller, S. 55. Potthast, vol. i. p. 230; Raynaldi, ad an. 1206, n. 26. Supra, pp. 54, 55, and Document XXVI. the bishop of that island, on October the 29th of that same year, as subject to the jurisdiction of the Hamburg-Bremen metropolitan.1 Nothing is known of Bishop Albert's administration or doings in Greenland, nor is there any record to tell us how long a time he presided over, or did missionary work in, this diocese; neither is there any positive reason to believe that he had a successor before the year 1112. De Costa assures us that the Greenlanders selected for bishop, Eric Gnupson, an Icelander, who proceeded to Greenland about the year 1112, without being regularly consecrated. This view is in a slight manner confirmed by an entry in the Lögman's Annals under the year 1112, wherein a journey of Bishop Eric is recorded, a voyage presumably to Greenland. But the chronology of the Flateyarbók places this event between St. Bernard's entry into the monastery of Citeaux in the year 1113, and the death of Olaf Magnusson, king of Norway, in 1115.* 5 Gams states that "Erich" or "Eirikr" was consecrated in the year 1112 or 1113; and, with equal lack of authorities, De Costa, that he returned to Iceland in 1120, and afterwards went to Denmark, where he was consecrated in Lund by Archbishop Adzer." 7 The most trustworthy as well as the briefest notices regarding the advent of Bishop Eric are that of Torfæus, who simply states: "1121, at the time of Sigurd the Jerusalem-pilgrim, king of Norway, there was Bishop Eiric;" and the one of Langebek: "Bishops of 1 See supra, p. 54. 2 Precolumbian Discovery, p. 27. Reeves, p. 82, from Groenl. Hist. Mindesm., t. iii. p. 6, ap. Beauvois, Origines, p. 30. * Ed. Christiania, iii. p. 511, ap. 6 Precolumbian Discovery, p. 27. |