There was dwelling in Oxford, when Chaucer was young, a scholar known as courteous Nicholas. He lodged with an old carpenter who had married a very young wife. He had a room to himself, and was devoted to the study of astrology and mathematics. On shelves at his bed head he had several books, including the Almagest of Ptolemy, as well as an astrolabe, and angrim stones used in numeration.
The poet Chaucer and the scholar Nicholas had tastes in common. Both loved music and both studied what was then known of the sphere and the means of fixing positions. Chaucer wrote a treatise on the astrolabe addressed to his little son Lowys in 1391 and called it “brede and milke for children.” In this treatise Chaucer mentions Nicholas with great respect. We shall not be far wrong either in assuming Nicholas the scholar to have been a friend of Chaucer, or in identifying him with the Carmelite monk Nicholas of Lynn, who would take his place as England’s first Arctic explorer if his work had not been lost—a loss which is almost a national calamity.
In 1360 Nicholas of Lynn undertook an expedition to Norway and the isles beyond towards the pole, beginning from 54° N. and fixing the latitudes with an astrolabe. Hakluyt quotes Gerard Mercator as writing that an English monk and mathematician of Oxford had been in Norway and the islands in the north, describing all those places and determining their latitudes by an astrolabe. He is said to have written a work on his expedition entitled Inventio Fortunata, which is lost; and another work is attributed to him, De Mundi Revolutione. Dr Dee wrote that Nicholas made five voyages into the northern parts, and left an account of his discoveries.
Dr Nansen is the first writer I know who treats Nicholas of Lynn seriously. He shows that the work of Nicholas was known to Las Casas, who had read it, and also to Martin Behaim, who on his globe places isles all round the pole which are not shown on any older map and, Nansen thinks, are evidently taken from Nicholas of Lynn. The maps of Claudius Clavus, one of them quite recently brought to light, and other medieval maps, also probably derived their information from our forgotten Nicholas. One would give a good deal to know which were the northern islands that he visited. Evidently his work had an influence on the productions of the cartographers through the next century.
We owe much to the cartographers, and it is deeply interesting to watch their gradual acquisition of fresh knowledge, and their treatment of uncertain and disputed points. But there have been cartographers of a different kind who have invented and knowingly led students and navigators astray. If such men gain a hearing, the injury they do may endure for a century or more. Such a man was Niccolo Zeno.
This Niccolo Zeno, of a noble Venetian family, published what professed to be an account of the voyage of two of his ancestors in the far north in the service of a northern chief named Zichmni. Niccolo himself lived in the 16th century (1515–1565) and the voyages of his ancestors were supposed to have been made in the 14th century. The narrative was accompanied by an extraordinary map covered with names. It showed Greenland brought round to join Norway, Iceland, a large island called Friesland between Iceland and Greenland, lands to the west near America called Estotiland and Drogeo, and another large island in the Atlantic called Icaria. Niccolo Zeno was accepted as an authority by Mercator in his map of the world (1569) and by Ortelius (1570) and the narrative found a place in Ramusio (1574). Meanwhile the false information continued to mislead travellers and navigators. On the first English globe by Molyneux in 1572 Zeno’s Friesland and Drogeo are shown. As late as 1631 Luke Fox has “Frisland” on his polar card. The false information held its ground for a hundred years.
Among modern writers there were differences of opinion. In 1784, J. Reinhold Foster fully accepted all Zeno’s story as true, and identified Zichmni with Sinclair, Earl of Orkney. Maltebrun accepted the story, and Humboldt was inclined to accept it. Lelewel accepted it. Mr Major gave whole-hearted credence to Zeno’s statements, and wrote a standard work on the subject (1873). Desimoni (1878) claimed that Major had settled the question.
There were other writers who were more or less sceptical. Washington Irving rejected the story. Crantz and Graah, eminent Danish travellers and writers, were doubtful, and more or less incredulous. Admiral Zarhtmann of Copenhagen rejected both narrative and map, as did the learned Danish writer Steenstrup.
All this was before the discovery of medieval maps which exposed the whole imposition. These were, especially, the large map of Olaus Magnus (Venice 1539), found in the Munich library in 1886, and the Zamoiski map (1467), discovered at Warsaw in 1888; also a map of North Europe and Greenland in the MS. Ptolemy at Florence, and the edition of Ptolemy published at Ulm in 1482—the earliest printed map showing Greenland.
Most of the names on the Zeno map were supposed to be original; due to their discoveries, and not existent on any earlier map. The discovery of these earlier medieval maps, however, has disposed of that delusion. Of the 19 Zeno names on Iceland, 12 are in the Zamoiski map, 3 in the Florence map, and the others in that of Olaus Magnus. On the Cantino map in 1502 appears Frisland, placed due north of Scotland. It is a clerical error in copying Stillanda from the Cosa map. This is the way Zeno got hold of the name Frislanda. The whole was concocted by Niccolo Zeno and his publisher Marcoloni in 1558, from materials on maps then existing.
The Zeno imposture was first studied by Professor Storm, in the light of the Zamoiski and Olaus Magnus maps, and he exposed the falsities of the narrative, and the imposture of the map. The whole subject was discussed in an exhaustive work by Mr F. W. Lucas, from which the above details have been taken26. The mischief done by the Zeno forgery, while it lasted, was very serious; causing confusion in the work of cartographers as well as mistakes in the reports of navigators.
In the period of the beginning of English Arctic exploration, the instrument mainly used for finding the latitude was the astrolabe. The cross-staff had been invented, but was not in general use, nor was the quadrant with a plumb-line, though it had been used by Columbus. The astrolabe was a circular metal ring with inlet plates and discs. These plates were fitted to drop into an inner depression of the ring, the principal one being called the rete. It consisted of a circular plate marked with zodiacs sub-divided into degrees, with narrow branching limbs having smaller tongues terminating in points, each denoting the position of a star. The plates, or “tables” as Chaucer calls them, were differently marked for places having different latitudes. Within all these scales of Umbra recta and Umbra versa there is a division into 12 parts for taking and computing heights and distances by an approximate method. The alidada is a straight-edge across the ring moveable with two sights, and a pin ties them all together.
The alidada is for taking the altitude of the sun, and the rete adjusted to this altitude shows the hour of the day. To take an observation the right thumb is put into the ring of the astrolabe, and the left side is turned against the light of the sun. The alidada or rule is moved up and down until the rays of the sun shine through both sights. Then the number of degrees the alidada is raised from the little cross placed to show the east line is the altitude of the sun, read off on the outer ring. The Spaniards constructed their astrolabes small and heavy, to prevent them from being blown about, not much over five inches in diameter yet weighing 4 lbs. The diameter of the English astrolabes was six or seven inches, sometimes more.
This instrument, invented by Hipparchus and developed by Ptolemy, was in use until the days of Elizabeth. It has a peculiar interest for those who are fond of studying the history of maritime discovery, but it is by no means simple in construction and it is necessary to examine the astrolabe itself to understand it and its uses27.
Besides the astrolabe our earliest Arctic navigators were supplied with large blank globes on which they puzzled out the navigation problems, an armillary sphere, a great chart with all that was known or conjectured on it, smaller navigation charts, compasses and hourglasses, and the regiment of Medina, translated from the Spanish at the instance of the Arctic navigator Burrough. With such slight and rather unreliable help our brave seamen of the 16th century, in great peril and difficulty, found their way over the trackless ocean, a way now made easy for their descendants.