There isn't much to go by here. I mean -- if they could embellish with large stone tablet buildings and "giants", we may reasonably surmise that the whole tale is a stand-in for simply uncharted/unexplored territory. The Norse equivalent of "Here be dragons".
A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
101–110 of 244 posts
Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
#102There isn't much to go by here. I mean -- if they could embellish with large stone tablet buildings and "giants", we may reasonably surmise that the whole tale is a stand-in for simply uncharted/unexplored territory. The Norse equivalent of "Here be dragons".
I think the surprising news is that the norse explorations of North America was known in southern Europe. Until now I had thought it was a quite isolated event.
Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
#103> But it could help explain why Columbus, a Genoese, was prepared to set off across what most contemporaries considered a landless void. I had always thought that Columbus made the trip because he miscalculated the distance around the globe, while everyone else was saying they'd starve before reaching Asia. He was just lucky enough there happened to be land halfway there, and then mistakenly assumed he made it, since…
Probably fake history. Modern thinking is that Columbus had a pretty good idea where he was going because others had already been there.
Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
> seems pointless I'm more wondering about the effects of seed/life transfer. Doesn't seem feasible to me.
That’s a walk in the park https://www.birdlife.org/worldwide/news/migration-marathons-... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_tern#Distribution_and...
The birds you listed don’t fly across oceans to get twigs.
Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every year or two, people decide to fly from North America to Europe in a short range Cessna. They get the extra fuel tankage package, then hop from PEI to Greenland, Greenland to Iceland, then Iceland to.... Svalbard, or maybe somewhere in the Scotish Isles. From there it's pretty standard flight operations over local bodies of water. If a Cessna can do it, that's well within a bird's migratory travel distance.
Yeah but you think they'd save fuel and locally source the twigs
Possibly not if the goal is to impress a potential mate.
Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Columbus thought India was closer than it was because birds could be seen returning to the West Coast of England with twigs and leaves from somewhere . Portugal, Spain and anyone else he asked thought he was wrong because that would've required the Earth to be around 20k miles in circumference, when the Ancient Greeks had calculated it to be 24k miles in circumference (and they were very close in their calculations).…
> birds could be seen returning to the West Coast of England with twigs and leaves from somewhere. Are you saying birds were carrying twigs over the Atlantic from Americas -> Europe?? Genuinely curious as to if birds actually do that, seems pointless.
It doesn't matter whether the birds did or didn't. What matters is that people of the time thought birds were bringing in sticks from somewhere west. People believed there was a land out there. Whether or not the observations behind those beliefs are credible doesn't take away from the fact of their believing there was a land to find.
Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
#107Markland is frequently referenced by the fourteenth century Norse characters in Jane Smiley's novel The Greenlanders [1988].
I cannot vouch for the historical accuracy, but the whole thing appears otherwise exceedingly well researched (and is hereby highly recommended).
These people maintained contact with Europe almost to the end. Titbits of myth and knowledge will have filtered through, not least via the papacy in Rome.
Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
#108> But it could help explain why Columbus, a Genoese, was prepared to set off across what most contemporaries considered a landless void. I had always thought that Columbus made the trip because he miscalculated the distance around the globe, while everyone else was saying they'd starve before reaching Asia. He was just lucky enough there happened to be land halfway there, and then mistakenly assumed he made it, since…
No, that was just the story he told to his venture investors. Fishermen probably had lots of circumstantial evidence for America at the time, but explaining that to a venture capitalist is much harder than spinning some fantabulous tall tale. (People do this sort of thing today too.)
Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that nobody knew about this book for centuries, it seems pretty unlikely that Columbus saw it. Let alone, saw it and believed it and discounted the giants and also didn't mention it to anyone.
I think the idea is that he heard the same tales because he was in the same milieu, not that he read that book.
TIL a cool new word; "milieu"
> the physical or social setting in which something occurs or develops
Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Columbus thought India was closer than it was because birds could be seen returning to the West Coast of England with twigs and leaves from somewhere . Portugal, Spain and anyone else he asked thought he was wrong because that would've required the Earth to be around 20k miles in circumference, when the Ancient Greeks had calculated it to be 24k miles in circumference (and they were very close in their calculations).…
> birds could be seen returning to the West Coast of England with twigs and leaves from somewhere. Are you saying birds were carrying twigs over the Atlantic from Americas -> Europe?? Genuinely curious as to if birds actually do that, seems pointless.
I mean, the real question is whether they carried any coconuts.