that our aforenamed son, strong with this high sanction, and his successors endeavoring to convert the infidels, be more powerful against the attempts of the devil, We appoint our son himself, the above-named Ansgar, and his successors as our delegates to all the surrounding nations: to the Danes, the Swedes, the Norwegians, the Funelanders, the Greenlanders, the Helsingers, the Icelanders, the Scritifinns, the Slavonians, and to all the northern and eastern nations, by whatever name they may be called.

"And after having bent our head and shoulders over the body and confession1 of St. Peter the Apostle, We appoint him and his successors as our lieutenants forever, and confer upon them the public faculty of preaching the gospel, and We ordain that the see of the Nordalbingians, called Hamburg, consecrated in honor of the Holy Redeemer and of Mary, his inviolate mother, be a metropolitan church. Until, however, the number of consecrators be increased from among the nations, We, in the meanwhile, intrust to the care of the sacred imperial court the consecration of the priests who are to be the successors. Yet an energetic preacher, qualified for so important an office, ought always to be chosen in succession. In regard to the pious wishes of the revered prince, concerning this charge so important before God, We sanction them all, even delegating him our authority to that effect; and any one resisting or contradicting, or in any way trying to make void these our pious desires, We strike with the sword of excommunication, and, guilty as he is of everlasting punishment, We condemn him to the devil's portion; in order that, as our predecessors used to do, we may more securely fortify the apostolic primacy and those who are piously

1 That is, the grave.

zealous in the cause of God against our enemies in every quarter.

66

And, dearly beloved son, Ansgar, since the divine clemency has chosen you to be the first archbishop of the new see, We confer upon you the pallium wherewith to celebrate solemn Mass; we grant it to be used by you in your lifetime and as a pledge of the established and lasting privileges of your Church. May the Blessed Trinity vouchsafe to preserve you in good health and, after the sufferings of this world, lead you to perpetual bliss. Amen.

"Given, 835."1

Few are the words which, in these two documents, relate to our subject, but they are weighty. The names of Iceland and Greenland therein mentioned clearly establish what we learned before in a less satisfactory manner,―to wit, that not only Iceland, but the American great island as well, was in the year 831 known to Christian Europe, and contained already such people as, through their religion, were subject to the spiritual jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, who confided them to the superintendence of his delegate, St. Ansgar.

This unavoidable conclusion is so startling, however, and seems to be so directly opposed to some data of the venerable Icelandic sagas, that not a few learned men have, upon the slightest reasons, declared both the imperial decree and the pontifical bull to be either forged altogether or, at least, interpolated.

5

Lappenberg, Klempin,3 and Dümmler* consider the documents as entirely spurious. Their sweeping criticism is condemned by all others; but several writers,

while generally admitting the authenticity of the parchments, pretend that the names of "Norwegians, Funelanders, Greenlanders, Helsingers, Icelanders, and Scritifinns" have been intercalated in subsequent copies; leaving as genuine only those of "Danes, Swedes, and Slavonians." They reason a priori, and, starting from the supposition that the former nations were wholly unknown to Lewis the Pious, conclude that he could not mention their names.

2

8

The older and the more important authors who have followed this opinion are Torfæus,' Arngrim Jonas, and Theodore Thorlak, who rely on the text of the sagas of Iceland; the Bollandists, Langebek,' and Maltebrun, followed by several modern copyists like Gaffarel, who, not suspecting that Christian Irishmen were in "Cronland" before the Scandinavians, adds that the bull, if genuine, would prove the presence of the Northmen in Greenland a century and a half before their actual arrival. Our erudite historian, Justin Winsor, is less positive, though more confused, when he makes the curious remark that "It has sometimes been contended that a bull of Gregory IV., in A.D. 770, referred to Greenland. . . . A bull of A.D. 853, in Pontanus's 'Rerum Danicarum Historia,' is also held to indicate that there were earlier peoples in Greenland than those from Iceland.""

The latter portion of Winsor's note is correct, while Pontanus asserts that the emperor, Lewis, in his pious

1 Gronl. Ant., Præf., p. 44.

2 Letronne, p. 140; Moosmüller, S. 32, 39; Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 13. 3 Acta SS., ad 3 Febr., ¶ xiii. p. 411.

'T. i. p. 451, n. z; t. ii. p. 126,

n. q.

Letronne, p. 140.

T. i. p. 293. The American

Catholic Quarterly Review (vol. xiv. p. 598) charges B. F. De Costa with pronouncing the bull of Gregory IV. as "beyond question a fraud;" but De Costa does not say so, at least not in the second edition of his "Precolumbian Discovery." See p. 25, n. 1.

7 Vol. i. p. 61, n. 5.

zeal and with the approval of the ecclesiastical senate, made Ansgar archbishop of Hamburg and confided to his care the northern people,-the Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, and others more remote than these, namely, the Icelanders and Greenlanders.'

3

Long before the Danish great historian, the illustrious Trogillus Arnkel assigned the conversion of Greenland to the time of Archbishop Ansgar, and Torfæus testifies already that this opinion had been defended by so many learned men that it had acquired an incontestable authority which it would be rashness to contradict.2 Other ancient writers, like John Messenius and Bussæus,* admit the authenticity of the entire documents. David Crantz writes in his History of Greenland: "The calculation of Lyschander is corroborated by a bull issued by Pope Gregory IV. in the year 835, wherein the conversion of the northern nations, and, in express words, of the Icelanders and Greenlanders, is committed to the first northern apostle Ansgarius, who had been appointed archbishop of Hamburg by the emperor, Lewis the Pious. If this bull is authentic, which we find no reason to doubt, Greenland must have been discovered and planted one hundred and fifty years earlier, about 830 [or earlier yet], by the Icelanders or the Norwegians,"—or, rather, by the Irish.

8

9

The genuineness of the bull is demonstrated by such men as Simson,' Koppmann, and Dehio; and the great critic Pagi admits Iceland and Greenland as

1 Pontanus, lib. iv. ad an. 833. 2 Gronl. Ant. Præf., p. 44. 3 Scandia Illustrata, ed. 1700, t. i. pp. 63, 68, 76; t. ii. p. 87.

In ed. Schedarum Arii Polyhistoris, p. 32; cf. Rafn, Ant. Amer., p. 13.

5 Moosmüller, S. 32.

6 Vol. i. p. 244.

7 Jahrbücher des Frankischen Reichs, ii. 281.

8 Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamb. Gesch., Bd. v. S. 494.

9 Erzb. Hamburg-Bremen, Bd. i. S. 65, and Anm., pp. 7, 12; ap. Jaffé, Loewenfeld, t. i. p. 324.

mentioned portions of St. Ansgar's jurisdiction.' Peyrère and several more authors, both ancient and modern, rely upon the bull of Gregory IV. to determine the question of Greenland's discovery and colonization in the year 830 or before, whilst Cooley declares that criticism, in considering the Patents as either forged or interpolated, assumes a character so arbitrary that it cannot escape the suspicion of injustice.3

2

After adducing all such authorities we might dismiss the further discussion of the authenticity of the two documents, but their importance is so great that we consider it our duty to propose a few intrinsic arguments by which the reader may form an enlightened opinion for himself.

The most convincing evidences should be the texts of the ancient manuscript copies of the Diplomas. The parchment preserved among the Hanoverian archives may not be the original bull of Gregory IV., but it is highly venerable with age, and it reads the names under consideration in the following manner: ". . . Delegates to all the surrounding nations of 'Danorum, Sueonum, Norvehorum, Farrie, Gronlandan, Halsingolandan, Islandan, Scridevindun, Slavorum,' and . . .” So also are the same names given by the other ancient codices, and in particular by the Hamburghensian and the Budecensian. The text of the Codex of Udalric of Babenberg is: " Danorum, Gronlandon, Islandon

et omnium

6

5

that of the Codex Vicelini: ". . . Sue

onum, Norweorum, Farne, Gronlandan, Islondan, Scri

1 Baronius, t. xiv. ad an. 832; Pagi, ibid., ¶ x.

2 Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xiv. p. 598.

3 Histoire Générale, t. i. p. 215. 4 Beauvois, Origines, p. 10, n. 1; Jaffé, Loewenfeld, t. i. p. 324.

5 Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xiv. p. 601.

6

Ap. Eccard, Corpus Hist., ii. 119; Jaffé, Loewenfeld, t. i. p. 324 ; Beauvois, Origines, p. 10, n. 2.