seems almost impossible, when it is taken into consideration that
the diocese of Gardar in Greenland is so remote from your metropolitan
see and kingdom, that five years or more would be consumed in going
thither and returning." It has been inferred, on account of the length of
this time, that the Vinland colony was included. There is no documentary
evidence of this. The papal letters contain no reference to Vinland.

[71-1] No record of these reports from Greenland has been found.

[71-2] Both Iceland and Greenland came under Norwegian rule in 1261,
during the reign of Haakon Haakonson (1217-1263).

[71-3] In Norway.

[71-4] Only four and a half centuries before this time. Olaf Tryggvason,
who reigned from 995 to 1000, sent Leif Ericson as a missionary to
Greenland in the year 1000.

[71-5] According to Northern chorography, the Eastern Settlement had one
hundred and ninety farmsteads, twelve churches, and two monasteries; the
Western Settlement had ninety farmsteads and three churches.

[71-6] The cathedral (hardly magnificent) was in the Eastern Settlement
(_i.e._, in southern Greenland), no doubt the present Kakortok. The
village of Gardar, which gave its name to the bishopric, was at the
present Kaksiarsuk. The authority which makes this identification
possible, is Ivar Bardsen's description of Greenland written in that
country in the fourteenth century. He was for many years steward to the
Gardar bishopric. An English version of Bardsen's description is printed
in Major's _The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers Zeno_ (London, 1873).
See also Fiske, _The Discovery of America_, pp. 239 and 242.

[71-7] That is, about 1418. The last notice of Greenland based on
Northern tradition is from the year 1409, telling of a marriage ceremony
performed by Endride Andreson, the last bishop. See Laing's _The Sagas of
the Norse Kings_ (London, 1889), p. 177.

[71-8] From Ivar Bardsen's description of Greenland it is known that the
Greenlanders first came in conflict with the Eskimos during the
fourteenth century. He was appointed to lead an expedition from the
Eastern Settlement against the Skrellings (Eskimos), who had taken
possession of the Western Settlement. When he arrived there the
Skrellings had departed, and they found nothing but ruins and some cattle
running wild. See _Antiquitates Americanae_, p. 316.

The letter of Nicholas V. refers to an attack on the Western Settlement,
of which there is no other recorded e