Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1962, Qupperneq 83

INVENTIO FORTUNATA
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English expedition to the Arctic.7
One writer say that the author of
the Inventio appears “to have made
visits to Iceland and Greenland, and
possibly to the Vikings’ Vineland in
North America.”8 On the other hand
it has been suggested that the Eng-
lish friar never got farther from
England than Norway where he got
the information he recorded in the
Inventio.9 What are we to make of
this controversial figure and of his
writings?
First, I think, it must be said that
the author will probably never be
identified, at least with any cer-
tainty. The only real reason for as-
cribing the Inventio Fortunata to
Nicholas of Lynn is that Hakluyt
names him as its author without
any proof for his assertion.10
Very little is known of Nicholas of
Lynn beyond the fact that he was
a mathematician who drew up a
calendar and made an astrolabe.11 It
has been pointed out, however, that
7. Ingstad, Landet, p. 475.
8. E. G. R. Taylor, The Haven — Finding Art, London, 1956, p. 155.
9. Jón Dúason, Landkönnun og landnám íslendinga í Vesturheimi, Reykjavík,
1941—1947, pp. 166—171. Holand’s remarks (“An English Scientist”, p. 206) on
Dúason’s opinion of Nicholas are inadequate if not misleading. Cf. also L. A.
Vigneras, “The Cafe Breton Landfall: 1494 or 1497”, Canadian Historical Review
XXXVIII (1957): “There is no doubt that the Franciscan friar’s alleged voyages
to the North Pole are purely the product of the imagination” (p. 226).
10. Richard Hakluyt, The Principal Navigafions Voyages Traffiques and Discoveries
of the English Nation, Glasgow, 1903, I, 301.
11. The Dictionary of National Biography succintly records what is known.