them to their homes. Several authors place these events in the year 1349, and are of the opinion that Vestrebygd was abandoned by the Northmen ever since.1

2

The date of 1342 assigned by Winsor to the total ruin of Greenland's northern settlements appears to be rather unlikely, when we remember that of Bardson's departure from Bergen, in the year 1341; for he could hardly have been ready or known sufficiently in Greenland the next following year to be chosen as one of the leaders of the relief expedition. Nor is it probable that these events took place in 1379, as other authors are inclined to believe, because Ivar's advanced age would scarcely have permitted him, that late, to perform the arduous task. The attack of the Skraelings at this latter epoch is, moreover, distinguished from the former by special particulars, which we shall relate farther on.

The Esquimaux were either given little opportunity of conversion to Christianity and civilization, or resisted the efforts of the Scandinavian clergy; they considered the Europeans as national enemies and invaders of their land; and it is stated with good reason that they early and often, not to say constantly, harassed their white neighbors with sudden and treacherous inroads, in which they did all the harm they could, and then hastily returned in their canoes to their holes and caves on the adjoining continent.

Greenland was no more the green, inviting land of Eric the Red; new arrivals from Iceland or Norway landed no more to take the place of those who had fallen under the sting of the plague or the tomahawk of the aborigines; and John Skalle, the bishop of Gar

1 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. vii. p. 42, seq.; De Costa, Sailing Directions, p. 79; Precolumbian Dis

covery, p. 32; von Humboldt, Examen, t. ii. p. 103.

Vol. i. p. 68.

dar, felt so deeply discouraged by the sad condition of his diocese that, at the death of Bishop Orm of Holar, in the year 1356, he resolved to request his succession ; and at the end of that or in the year following he went to Rome to obtain from the Sovereign Pontiff the desired translation.1 The next year, 1358, he arrived in Holar, stating that his petition had been granted; but, as he would not or could not show any papal bulls, he was not received well; both clergy and laity of the North of Iceland refused him obedience and respect, saying that he was no bishop of Holar but of Gardar. Bishop Skalle could, under the unpleasant circumstances, imagine nothing better to do than to leave for Norway, where he passed the following winter. Afterwards he went to Rome again, and obtained, this time, more probatory papers of confirmation in his new see.3 He was respectfully recognized at his second arrival in Holar, and acted as bishop of this diocese until his death in the year 1390. He is said to have greatly improved the administration of the diocesan temporalities. During the winter of 1363 he received a visit from Arne Svaela, bishop of the Faroe Islands, and in the year 1375 he introduced into his diocese the feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.5

6

Gams and Wetzer and Welte state that before the entry of the next bishop, in 1368, the see of Gardar was vacant for nineteen years. By this information is further confirmed the opinion that Bishop Skalle never

set his foot in Greenland, although his appointment as ordinary of this country, which was irregular in its beginning, was undoubtedly made valid by the death of Arnius, his predecessor, and, consequently, we may conclude that the diocese of Gardar was juridically deprived of a bishop only from the translation of John Skalle to Holar in the year 1358, until the election of Bishop Alfuir, Alf or Alfus, formerly a friar of the monastery of Munkalif in Norway.

3

5

We have noticed already the error of Messenius and Huitfeldt, who place the consecration of this prelate in the year 1325. Gams' likewise mistakes when assigning the year 1368 as the date of this consecration,2 and still more, Torfæus and Gravier, who defer it to 1376. Wetzer and Welte assure us that Alfus was already consecrated in 1375, and we have found a document in which he styles himself "Bishop of Greenland" on the 28th of July, 1366. As the paper is an indication that he was at that time preparing for his departure to his distant field of labor, it may not be amiss to literally translate it here:

"To all men who may see this writing or hear it read, brother Alfus, by the grace of God bishop of Greenland, sends God's blessing. And be it made known that we testify with all truthfulness and under our oath, which we have sworn to Holy Church and to the Lord Olaf, by God's grace archbishop of Drontheim, before the honorable lords: the Lord Gisbert, by God's grace bishop of Bergen, the Lord Ogmund Findson, agent in Norway, and the Lord Thorstein, provost of the church of the Apostles; that that hillock which lies

1 P. 334.

2 Gams's error was revived in a paper for the Congrès Scientifique des Catholiques, 1894, sec. Sciences, etc., p. 180, seq.

3 Gronl. Ant., Addenda, p. 369. 4 P. 237.

5 Art. Grönland.

about the church of Nordnoese, outside of the church enclosure, is the property of St. Michael and of the monastery of Munkalif. But that house which there stands, we have built with our own money, with such help as we received from the monastery. Thus done with the advice and approval of the foresaid lords. We make this in the archbishop's safe-keeping at Bergen, to wit, that Diderick Nicolasson, the son of our sister, shall have the herewith named house as long as he will, but after that it shall fall to the monastery. And for the truthfulness thereof we have set our seal to this writing, which was done at Bergen the twentyeighth of July in the year of Our Lord one thousand three hundred and sixty-six. And to bear witness of the truth thereof, we have set our seal to this copy, which was made at Bergen."1

This was not, it seems, the last business which Alfus had to settle in Norway, for he did not arrive in Greenland until the year 1368.2

The silence of the chroniclers leaves us to presume that the new prelate, with all the zeal of a saintly friar, did what lay in his power to console and comfort his suffering and distressed diocesans, with whom he remained as long as he lived.

When Pope Gregory XI. had recovered the Pontifical States and was preparing to transfer his court to Rome again, he found his treasury exhausted, and himself unable to cover the expenses necessary to provide for his own security and that of his subjects. He decreed, therefore, the levy of one year's tithes on all the revenues and income of ecclesiastical offices and property. On January 13, 1373, he wrote to the archbishop of Drontheim and to all his suffragans, intimating to

1 See Document LXII., a.

2 Gams, p. 334; Wetzer und Welte, art. Grönland.

them the strict duty of collecting and forwarding these tithes.' We may suppose that the letter reached Greenland some time, but there is no record of its practical results in the diocese of Gardar, which certainly was not then in a condition to contribute large sums towards the subjection of the schismatical rebels of Italy.

In the year 1382 a ship named Olafssud was driven out of her course from Iceland to Greenland, and compelled to pass the following winter in Iceland again. When her crew finally landed in Norway in 1383, they brought the news that Bishop Alfus had died five years before, that is, in 1378!*

The crew of the Olafssud made it also known in Norway that the distant province of Greenland had lately been in danger of total destruction. The year after Bishop Alfus's death the Esquimaux had made another assault upon the settlements of the Scandinavian colonists, where they had killed eighteen persons, kidnapped two boys, and carried off a large booty.

3

The Greenlanders, compelled to draw back before their savage enemies, stood sorely in need of assistance from the mother country, but were so unfortunate as not to receive any help, not even from their neighboring kindred of Iceland.

It is stated by some authors that the cause of their abandonment was the extraordinary accumulation of a mole of ice along the coasts of Greenland, intercepting all communication by large ships with the outside world. Von Humboldt, however, justly calls this a

1 See Document XLII.

2 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xxx. p. 253; Hist. Rerum Norveg., t. iv. lib. x. cap. viii. p. 507; Baumgartner, S. 279; Cooley, Histoire Générale, t. i. p. 215; Gams, p. 334; Wetzer und Welte, art. Grönland; Gravier, p. 237; Moosmüller, S. 65.

3 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xxx. p. 253; Hist. Rerum Norveg., t. iv. lib. x. cap. viii. p. 507; von Humboldt, Examen, t. ii. p. 103; Wetzer und Welte, art. Grönland.

* Hornius, lib. iii. cap. viii. p. 166; Moosmüller, S. 2.