I suspect I’m revealing a shocking historical ignorance with this question, but what’s the answer? How did the knowledge of Vinland disappear from the European consciousness? The Vikings were literate and surely kept some records. There was never a wholesale destruction of their language and culture that I’m aware of. Were there people in, like, Sweden, that were still aware of a landmass out beyond Greenland at the time of Columbus, or did the norse somehow completely “forget” over the generations?
I think the answer is that the knowledge that Vinland = North America never made mainstream knowledge in Europe. The “Vinland Saga” was certainly an preserved record of the discovery/exploration of Newfoundland but the Vikings were practical people and I believe when a minor deterioration of climate made Vinland uncommercial as a potential colony the fact of the lands existance was submerged as being of no practical use. Greenland pretty much went the same way - hanging on by the skin of their teeth…
The latest versions of the Viking explorations that I’ve read indicate that they settled only a very small portion of the extreme easternmost areas of North America, and that these were primarily islands themselves, as Newfoundland is. I don’t think the Vikings ever understood themselves that this was an entryway to an entire continent. (The claims for Viking landings in Massachusettes, Minnesota and other states on the continental landmass have been pretty well demolished these days, although I’m sure some partisans will jump in to dispute this. I’m an enthusiastic reader rather than a true expert.)
The settlements failed after a comparatively short time, as the short warming period ended and the climate turned extremely nasty.
The notion that the northern seas had a variety of inhospitable islands that could be sailed to but not settled undoubtedly lingered on after this. How much of this knowledge would have been transmitted to the rest of Europe is unclear.
In any case this would have meant little or nothing to Columbus. He was after a much more southerly water route to Asia. There would have been nothing in the Viking records that would have indicated to him that a whole continent lay between him and his goal.
I just noticed I somehow double-posted the thread. I apologize and moderators please delete (the other one). Thanks for the answers!
I know that Columbus made a voyage to Iceland, sometime around 1477. Nothing I have read says anything about what he may have learned in Rejkavik. I have always wondered about this, because Iceland was probably still in contact with greenland in the mid-1400’s-I remember that a danish archaeologist excavated a cemetary in greenland, and the bodies were clad in the latest european fashions!
Now, the sagas relating to the discovery of N. America (Vinland) were written down around 1300 , so I’m sure that Columbus learned on Vinland while in iceland.
For all you medieval history buffs-how long would CC have stayed in Iceland? Presumably he was there to load a cargo of salted cod…I’m sure he had a chance to converse with the local sea captains…thoygh how many Icelanders spoke italian is open to question.
Except, of course, that Columbus did not set out to find a new continent. He was sailing for India, remember? The most he would have learned from any Norse sailors was what little they knew–that you’d eventually hit some land if you sailed west.
An article from US News & World Report in 2000, [url=“http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/mysteries/columbus.htm” A leaf from Leif: Columbus might have been a Viking disciple, BY BRUCE B. AUSTER states that there is only one passing contemporary reference to Columbus’ Iceland voyage and that it is somewhat suspect.
It also repeats my understanding that the only known Viking settlements in North America are on Newfoundland. Whether the Vikings could have known that there was a whole continent to the south is uncertain.
There’s no evidence that Columbus ever thought there would be a problem in sailing to India by a southern route.
In Columbus’ trip to Iceland, there would likely be a lot of dealing thru Portugese/Genoan/Venetian trading agents stationed in Iceland, and Icelanders/Genoans/Venetians based in Lisbon, for these purposes. So he could still get his info 2nd hand.
In any case, by that time, there was a lot of what today we’d call “intelligence chatter” in navigational-cartographic circles, to the effect that the Ocean Sea featured many interesting, though distant, islands. Not just from the Vikings but also from Basque fishermen, off-course Portugese explorers, pieces of old Arab-African reports… the existence of Iceland and the Azores – quite a ways from the European or African landmass – lended credence to this.
So apparently CC had a pretty good idea that he was not headed for the void, though I’m unconvinced by claims that he knew exactly what he was getting into; for now I’ll accept that he he had info enough to expect that land was within his estimated range, but that he may have thought he was headed to some uncharted peripheral islands of Asia, or maybe oceanic islands halfway to Asia (say, what we now know as Micronesia) and not to 2 whole unrelated continents.