Even when Magellan crossed the Pacific almost thirty years later, fully aware of the distance he had to cover, his fleet barely made it. He lost a number of sailors to scurvy during the three-month passage from South America to Guam.
For the first part of that, read Cod by Mark Kurlansky. It goes into the Basques in great detail.
Even if it is true that Columbus visited Iceland (and if we also accept your claim that the story of Ericson’s voyages were well known in Iceland at the time) it in no way follows that he knew about Vinland. Visiting a country does not automatically endow you with all the knowledge, even all the common knowledge, that people in that country may have.
Likewise, even if it is true that Beheim was the most eminent geographer of his time, it by no means follows that he knew about Vinland (or, if he did, that he would have told Columbus about it). As Columbus’ voyages, and the reaction to them, very vividly demonstrate, much about world geography was unknown to the European experts of the time. Indeed, if Vinland had been known about by the era’s geographers, no-one would have been much surprised by Columbus’ discoveries. Clearly, however, just about everyone was surprised.
You are probably thinking of the voyages of John Cabot, who sailed from Bristol, and is thought to have reached Newfoundland (or somewhere else on the east coast of Canada). However, the relevant voyages took place a few years after Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas.
The Wiki article on Cabot does mention a scholar, a Dr Alwyn Ruddock, who apparently has claimed to have discovered a letter from the time that claims that “seamen of Bristol had already discovered land across the ocean before John Cabot’s arrival in England.” That may also be what you are thinking of. However, apparently (I am just going by Wikipedia here) no historian but the late Dr Ruddock has ever seen this letter, and he never told anyone where he found it, or where it might be now. (And, of course, even if the letter was real, it does not follow that the claims made in it, apparently in a fairly offhand way, were true.)
As an aside, I attended a genetics lecture last week in which the geneticists said they had found a mitochondrial DNA lineage from North America in Iceland. The implication is that at least one female Inuit slave or concubine was brought from Greenland to Iceland at some time. So it might have been possible for Columbus to observe “Asian-type” individuals in Iceland, if he actually went there.
[QUOTE=njtt]
You are probably thinking of the voyages of John Cabot, who sailed from Bristol, and is thought to have reached Newfoundland (or somewhere else on the east coast of Canada). However, the relevant voyages took place a few years after Columbus’ first voyage to the Americas.
[/QUOTE]
That sailors from Bristol had sailed to America before Cabot has been suggested many, many times. Usually on the basis of the 1497 letter by John Day to Columbus, which suggests that what Cabot had discovered was the ‘Ysla de Brasil’, which it implies Bristol sailors had previously visited. Not that Day’s claim is necessarily true. But the idea, plausible or not, crops up again and again in the secondary literature.
[QUOTE=njtt]
The Wiki article on Cabot does mention a scholar, a Dr Alwyn Ruddock, who apparently has claimed to have discovered a letter from the time that claims that “seamen of Bristol had already discovered land across the ocean before John Cabot’s arrival in England.” That may also be what you are thinking of. However, apparently (I am just going by Wikipedia here) no historian but the late Dr Ruddock has ever seen this letter, and he never told anyone where he found it, or where it might be now. (And, of course, even if the letter was real, it does not follow that the claims made in it, apparently in a fairly offhand way, were true.)
[/QUOTE]
Strictly speaking, all that Ruddock is known to have claimed is that the letter she had discovered amounted to ‘New evidence supporting the claim that seamen of Bristol had already discovered land across the ocean before John Cabot’s arrival in England’. (What she claimed is discussed in detail here.) So it doesn’t necessarily follow that such a discovery, if true, predated Columbus. It would also appear that she didn’t think that this was evidence of secret fishing voyages to Newfoundland.
It should also be said that the sources of some of Ruddock’s other unsourced claims have since been located and have turned out to be entirely correct. No specialist would now bet against the existance of the letter.
Is it being suggested that the name “Brasil” derives from “Bristol”? :dubious: If not, why would legends about an ‘Ysla de Brasil’ imply, specifically, that Bristol sailors had found it? Bristolians could have picked up the legend from elsewhere.
Given the very short time between Columbus’ voyage and Cabot’s setting out from Bristol, I would say that if Bristol seamen indeed discovered something before Cabot’s voyage, it pretty much had to have been before Columbus’ voyage too. (It seems to me, though, that if this had happened, there would be a lot more evidence, and probably a lot more folklore about it. I used to live in Bristol, and they are quite proud of Cabot there, even though he was no native, but I never heard about any story that true Bristolian sailors had been to the New World before him.)
How do they know how long ago that person was there? (i.e. did it happen in 1900?)
Interesting. I bet if they tested Björk’s DNA, they would find some in there, too. If I were Columbus, and saw someone that looks like her, I’d think the same thing.
Brasil was mythical island in the Atlantic, usually thought to be near Ireland. It appeared on many maps in the Medieval/Renaisance period. Apparently it has no relationship to the country of Brazil.
Right; the latter means “burning ember” (think “brazier”), and refers to a South Anerican tree with dark wood used for red dye.
This. Only in hindsight do we think of Greenland, or even Newfoundland (“Vinland”, probably), as “belonging” to some huge landmass that covers so ethnic like a fifth of the globe. That takes a huge leap of knowledge and insight. Indeed, it’s pretty impressive that this concept was already starting to take shape by the time of the Waldseemuller map (1507, I think?).
Historian Nicolas Wey-Gomez wrote a book called “The Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the Indies”, in which he argues that Columbus was mainly interested in exploring and exploiting the (“Asian”) tropics, southwest of Europe. He wasn’t all that interested in Iceland and its neighbors (even though he might have visited there), as others have noted.
Interesting…the fact is, Greenland was not known to be an island until 1908 (Peary Expedition). Before that time, geographers thought that it might be part of the Eurasian landmass, or possibly Canada. Of course, we have the case of the famous “Vinland Map” (found in a medieval book, but widely considered to be a fake). That map shows Greenland as an island. As for Vinland-all evidence is that the settlement at L’anse aux Meadow was occupied for a number of years, but exactly what made them choose that spot is not clear-it was above the arctic treeline-perhaps it was a fishing camp? The only thing that would have attracted medieval mariners to the waters off Newfoundland wold be the cod fisheries-which were immensely rich. The basque fishermen would not want anybody knowing about this, so I’m sure they never talked much about it.
APB Many thanks for this and particularly the linked articles. Fascinating historical research in the raw! Alwyn Ruddock sounds a very strange lady…
And the New World *is *“so ethnic”. Parts of it, anyway. Especially in 1492. 
(darned autocorrect…I meant “something,” duh.)
Sailors of the day sucked at longitude, but were pretty good at latitude. It’s not like Polaris changes altitude hour by hour.