To him everything must be free, other things to the contrary notwithstanding.
[70-1] In 1893 an American in Rome, Mr. J.C. Heywood, one of the papal chamberlains, brought out, in a very small edition (twenty-five copies), a book of photographic facsimiles of documents in the Vatican relating to Greenland and the discovery of America, _Documenta Selecta e Tabulario Secreto Vaticano_. The Latin text of those here presented may be found in Fischer, _Discoveries of the Northmen_, pp. 49-51. A translation of all was made for the Tennessee Historical Society by Rev. John B. Morris and printed in Vol. IX. of the society's organ, the _American Historical Magazine_. Using this translation, we have printed Letters IX. and X. as the only ones that contain anything of particular interest concerning the Gardar bishopric in Greenland, excepting, possibly, the following sentence from Letter II. (December 4, 1276), to the Archbishop of Drontheim: "Your Fraternity having been explicitly directed by letters apostolic to visit personally all parts of the kingdom of Norway, for the purpose of collecting the tithes due the Holy Land, has informed us that this 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).
[71-4] 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.