Maps, Myths, and Men: The Story of the Vinland Map / Edition 1

by Kirsten A. Seaver

Overview

The "Vínland Map" first surfaced on the antiquarian market in 1957 and the map's authenticity has been hotly debated ever since—in controversies ranging from the anomalous composition of the ink and the map's lack of provenance to a plethora of historical and cartographical riddles. Maps, Myths, and Men is the first work to address the full range of this debate. Focusing closely on what the map in fact shows, the book contains a critique of the 1965 work The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation; scrutinizes the marketing strategies used in 1957; and covers many aspects of the map that demonstrate it is a modern fake, such as literary evidence and several scientific ink analyses performed between 1967 and 2002. The author explains a number of the riddles and provides evidence for both the identity of the mapmaker and the source of the parchment used, and she applies current knowledge of medieval Norse culture and exploration to counter widespread misinformation about Norse voyages to North America and about the Norse world picture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804749633
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	06/02/2004
Edition description:	1
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Kirsten A. Seaver is an independent historian, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, London, a novelist, and a translator. She is the author of The Frozen Echo (Stanford, 1996).

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	xiii
	Acknowledgments	xv
	Note to the Reader	xxi
1.	An American Place Named Vinland	1
	America and the Medieval Norse	1
	The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation	2
	The Vinland Map	3
	Sources for the Vinland Map	8
	Guaranteeing Authenticity	13
	Showing the Map to a Wider World	16
	Father Time and Daughter Truth	17
2.	The Norse in and near North America	19
	A Flawed Source of Information	19
	Who Were the Norse?	21
	Voyaging to New Lands	23
	Far North Was Far Away	25
	No Help from the Norse	26
	Eirik the Red, Mariner and Merchant	28
	Nordrseta: The Northern Hunting Grounds	31
	Norse Relations with Arctic Natives	33
	From Arctic Greenland to Arctic North America	35
	The Vinland Voyages	36
	L'Anse aux Meadows	38
	Grapes and Grain	41
	Abandoning Vinland	42
	Continued American Connections	47
	The Literary Aftermath	53
	Disputed American Destinations	54
	Sustaining Life in Norse Greenland	59
	Everyday Life	63
	How Cold Was It?	64
	Did Hard Times Become Harder in Greenland?	66
	Tusks, Tithes, and Other Troubles	71
	The Many Names of a Much Loved Child	75
	The Cod Wars Begin	78
	Did a New Beginning Become an End?	80
3.	The Black Hole of Provenance	87
	A Child of Unknown Parentage	87
	Early Misgivings About the "Private Collection"	89
	The Spanish Connection	91
	An English Sojourn	93
	The Map's Provenance No Clearer by 1974	96
	A Muddied Pond	98
	A Companion to the Vinland Map Volume	99
	Where Did the Profits Go?	105
4.	Creating Matter from Wormholes	108
	The Joy of Discovery	108
	General Description of the Two Volumes	110
	Scrutiny by Experts	113
	Who Ordered the "Improvements"?	116
	The Bindings	117
	The Handwriting	120
	A Widening Inquiry	122
	Watermarks	124
	The Speculum Pastedowns and the Council of Basel	129
	Why the Council of Basel?	135
	Wormholes	139
5.	A Star Is Born	144
	The Vinland Map Reaches Yale	144
	The Big Secret	145
	The Big Names	147
	The Big Launch	149
	The Big Discussion	152
	Dissidents Need Not Apply	157
	The Cost of Public Stargazing	158
6.	Portrait of the Vinland Map	164
	A Map with No Equal	164
	Immediate Visual Appearance	165
	The Map Parchment and Its Flaws	168
	The Handwriting	172
	Delineacio prima pars ...	173
	The Wormholes on the Map	177
	European Medieval Ink	182
	The Vinland Map Ink Debate	186
	Modern Anatase	198
7.	The Vinland Map as a Cartographic Image	205
	A Flat Earth--or a Globe?	205
	Was Skelton a Reluctant Commentator?	208
	Many Cartographical Traditions--and None	210
	Adam of Bremen	213
	Inventio Fortunata	219
	The Influence of Claudius Ptolemaeus	222
	Claudius Clavus Niger	226
	Leading up to Circa 1440: The European View	230
	A Subtle Composite	234
	Northern Geographical Conventions	236
	Snorri Sturluson's Universe	244
	Ginnungagap and the Birth of a Cartographic Myth	247
	Navigating by the Vinland Map	253
8.	The Vinland Map as a Narrative	256
	The Roman Church at the "End of the World"	256
	A Haphazard Quest	260
	Luka Jelic	262
	The Land "Our Brothers" Saw	264
	The 1245-47 Carpini Visit to the Mongols	267
	Mounting Troubles	271
	Which Way to the Caspian Sea?	273
	Room for Prester John	277
	"A New Land"	279
	"Tartars, Mongols, Samoyeds, and Indians ..."	282
	Adding to the Vinland Myth	284
	Who "Discovered" Vinland?	286
	Missionary to the Samoyeds	289
	Further Ambiguities	293
	Searching for the Author	295
9.	The Vinland Map as a Human Creation	297
	Father Josef (Joseph) Fischer, S.J. (1858-1944)	297
	Scholarly Connections	300
	America's "Baptismal Certificate" and Its 1516 Sibling	305
	The Norse Discovery of America	313
	An Active Life	325
	Public Recognition	337
	Returning to the Norse	338
	A Moravian Castle Library	343
	Father Fischer's Choice	353
	Annus horribilis--1933	354
	Retirement	358
	Last Return to Wolfegg	368
	A Map Without a Home	371
	Notes	377
	Bibliography	439
	Index	463

Editorial Reviews

"In Maps, Myths, and Men, Kirsten A. Seaver provides a supremely well-researched and documented account of the map's nearly forty-years of public controversy....As well as providing the most detailed account and analysis of the map available, Seaver has also provided a book which allows historians and scholars to reflect more widely on the ways in which personal lives and situations interfere with and inform objective scholarship."

Itinerario

"...a fascinating and very readable investigation..."

Viking Heritage Magazine

"In a superlative piece of cross-disciplinary detective work, Norwegian independent scholar Seaver deconstructs the machinations, manipulations, and odd strokes of genius that have played into the story of the Vinland map."—Publishers Weekly


"Seaver has created the definitive portrait of the Vinland Map controversy and has shown us a route home."—Science Magazine


"...a fascinating and very readable investigation..."—Viking Heritage Magazine


"In Maps, Myths, and Men, Kirsten A. Seaver provides a supremely well-researched and documented account of the map's nearly forty-years of public controversy....As well as providing the most detailed account and analysis of the map available, Seaver has also provided a book which allows historians and scholars to reflect more widely on the ways in which personal lives and situations interfere with and inform objective scholarship."—Itinerario


"...the sustained and comprehensive argument presented here is a masterly synthesis that should represent the last word on one of the most contentious debates in modern medieval scholarship."—Speculum
"It is an enjoyable book to read, and the author writes in such an enthusiastic way that the book reads almost like a detective story."—Canadian Journal of History

From the Publisher

In a superlative piece of cross-disciplinary detective work, Norwegian independent scholar Seaver deconstructs the machinations, manipulations and odd stroke of genius that have played into the story of the Vinland map. Allegedly dating from 1440 and ostensibly showing extensive medieval Norse exploration of the North American coasts, the map rocketed out of obscurity-"the black hole of provenance"-with the publication of a lavishly illustrated volume entitled The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation in 1965. The stunning revelation of the map-and the publication of a volume prepared with peculiar secrecy by scholars from top-name institutions-received intense international press coverage, but was greeted with skepticism in many quarters. A meticulous guide, Seaver leads us through the minutiae of ink analysis, handwriting and strangely located wormholes. Her investigation culminates in the doomed Austrian monastery of Stella Matutina, where a brilliant Jesuit cartographer, Josef Fischer (1858-1944), worked on a "jeu d'esprit" that would sabotage Nazi propaganda by "proving" the global reach of the medieval Catholic church while flattering the Nazis' interest in Norse origins. Through his well-intentioned forgery, Fischer set in motion a different kind of legend. Once German soldiers forced their way into Stella Matutina, the gates opened to a world of pilfering, profiteering and eventually marketing blitzkrieg. Illus. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Seaver, an independent historian and fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London, has traveled the globe in her quest to ascertain the authenticity of the Vinland Map in Yale University's Beinecke Library. The map has been published with a companion manuscript in R.A. Skelton and others' The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation (1965; new ed., 1995). After introducing readers to the Norse colonies in Iceland and Greenland as well as contemporary reports of voyages west to North America, Seaver begins a detailed and scholarly study of the controversy surrounding the map, including its uncertain provenance, the position of its worm holes, the chemical composition of its ink, the nature of its parchment, and its relationship to the accompanying manuscript. Seaver concludes that the manuscript is genuine but that the map is a modern fake created on cleaned parchment from the manuscript. In the final and most interesting chapter, the author explores the life and career of her candidate for the map's creator, Father Josef Fischer, S.J. (1858-1944). Most suitable for academic libraries. (Index not seen.) Edward K. Werner, St. Lucie Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Pierce, FL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

"Seaver has created the definitive portrait of the Vinland Map controversy and has shown us a route home."

Science Magazine

"It is an enjoyable book to read, and the author writes in such an enthusiastic way that the book reads almost like a detective story."

Canadian Journal of History

"...the sustained and comprehensive argument presented here is a masterly synthesis that should represent the last word on one of the most contentious debates in modern medieval scholarship."

Speculum