Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1962, Page 82

PROFESSOR TRYGGVI J. OLESON:
Inventio Fortunata
In recent years a good deal of at-
tention has been re-directed to a
geographical treatise which, among
other things dealt with the Arctic
regions of Canada.1 No copy of this
work exists but its title was Inveniio
Foriunaia and it was written about
1360. Its author is unkown, and
much ink has been spent in specu-
lating as to his identity. Many com-
mentators2 have confidently identi-
fied him as Nicholas of Lynn, a
Carmelite who was a mathematician
and spent some time at Oxford. He
flourished in the latter half of the
fourteenth centry. This man, or
whoever the true author was, has
now emerged in recent writings on
the Inveniio Foriunaia as one of the
most remarkable men of the day.
He has been called “the outstanding
figure” of the fourteenth century in
geographical research.3
One writer has called him an Eng-
lish scientist who travelled widely
in the Arctic as a member of a sup-
posed royal Norwegian expedition
about 1360.4 The same writer calls
this “one of the world’s greatest ex-
ploration expeditions,” and adds
that to Nicholas it was “a grand
achievement in the fields of naviga-
tion, magnetic attraction and geog-
raphy.”5 On it Nicholas is said to
have spent most of his time on Hud-
son Bay where he found the mag-
netic mountain.6 Nicholas has also
been made the leader of the earliest
1. Attention has been centred on the Arctic references and not on the part that
dealt with floating islands in the Atlantic.
2. E.g. Fridtjof Nansen, In Norlhern Mists, London, 1911, II, 151; B. F. de Costa,
“Arctic Exploration”, Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York,
XII (1880); H. R. Holand, “An English Scientist in America 130 years before
Columbus,” "Transaclions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and
Leiiers, XLVIII (1959); ibid., A Holy Mission to Minnesota 600 Years Ago.
Alexandria, Minnesota, 1959; H. Ingstad, Landet under Leidarstjernen, Oslo,
1959. Cf. Asgaut Steinnes,” Ein Nordpolsekspedisjon ar 1360”, Syn og Segn,
LXIV (1958) Steinnes says Nicholas sailed from Hull in 1360 on a ship with an
English crew (p. 417), but there is no evidence for this statement. Most recently
a Russian geographer, Dr. Samuel Varshavsky, has, according to newspaper
reports, credited Nicholas with the discovery of America 130 years before
Columbus (Winnipeg Tribune, 22. Dec. 1962).
3. E. G. R. Taylor, Tudor Geography 1485-1583. London, 1930, p. 3. Professor Taylor
says here that he is perhaps the author of the Invenlio, but in a later work (“A
Letter dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee”, Imago Mundi, XIII (1956) she
points out that Nicholas was a Carmelite and thus could hardly be the author.
4. Holand, “An English Scientist”; ibid. A Holy Mission. The expedition is the
so-called Knutsson one for which there is no trustworthey evidence. The
Kensington runes which have been attributed to it have been shown to be a
nineteenth century concoction (Erik Wahlgren, The Kensington Slone, Madison,
1958).
5. Holand “An English Scientist”, p. 219.
6. Ibid. p. 209.