What would have been the impact had knowledge of Vinland and the Norse expeditions been popularized like the expeditions of Marco Polo?

[Mitchell Hundred]

If the sagas and stories of the expeditions of Leif Erickson had become more commonly known and publicized in non-Norse medieval Europe as were Marco Polo's expedition to far east china were, what if any impact would that have had on medieval European?

Would this have caused further expeditions and explorations into North America? Would non Norse Europeans prior to the 15th century have been able to launch any real expeditions to explore this new land in the far west?

 

[avernite]

My personal suspicion - it wouldn't have meant much.

What would they really know? Another vast, poor, distant landmass with savages and poverty. Russia had that in its north, northern Scandinavia had it, Iceland too, and sure there were occasional visits but noone seems to have cared much. I suppose relations with Greenland might've been tighter so no sudden loss of the colonies, and occasional earlier fishermen might've gone there, but no grand expeditions and empires.

Now it may've sped up westward exploration when the Portuguese started unlocking routes to the actually rich, vast, distant landmass of western Africa, but by then we're already outside medieval Europe anyway.

 

[Mitchell Hundred]

My personal suspicion - it wouldn't have meant much.

What would they really know? Another vast, poor, distant landmass with savages and poverty. Russia had that in its north, northern Scandinavia had it, Iceland too, and sure there were occasional visits but noone seems to have cared much. I suppose relations with Greenland might've been tighter so no sudden loss of the colonies, and occasional earlier fishermen might've gone there, but no grand expeditions and empires.

Now it may've sped up westward exploration when the Portuguese started unlocking routes to the actually rich, vast, distant landmass of western Africa, but by then we're already outside medieval Europe anyway.

Would it have any way shaped European perspectives on how big the earth was? One of the reasons most of the monarch's initially blew off Columbus is that he claimed (wrongly of course) the earth's circumference was much smaller than what was commonly assumed at the time.

 

[avernite]

Would it have any way shaped European perspectives on how big the earth was? One of the reasons most of the monarch's initially blew off Columbus is that he claimed (wrongly of course) the earth's circumference was much smaller than what was commonly assumed at the time.

I suppose Columbus would've looked even more foolish, yes, but I'm sure he could've just claimed the new world was actually North-East Siberia.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

This is somewhat historical, but yeah, probably not to the extent of Marco Polo.

Pre-Columbian knowledge confirmed: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/09/25/a-monk-in-14th-century-italy-wrote-about-the-americas A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas That was long before Christopher Columbus set sail That vikings crossed the Atlantic long before Christopher Columbus is well...

www.alternatehistory.com

This would definitely inspire more expeditions prior to Columbus. It's rather following the Great Man Theory to assume he'd be the first to get the idea to sail west and be the first to succeed at it.

 

[Kerney]

I suspect someone might have "discovered" America maybe a little earlier, perhaps having the Portuguese decide to try a western route or the Basque fishermen possible visits 'getting out' assuming they are true and people making connections. Perhaps whichever Scandinavian Crown that has Greenland decides to send an expedition to reinforce claims.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

A slightly early discovery of the New World would be interesting simply because of both how New World colonial holdings would shift- what if there isn't even an equivalent to the Treaty of Tordesillas, allowing colonizing there to be a Catholic free-for-all? What if there is, but it's not just one drastic split between the Iberian powers? How does this affect European history without Spain gaining a massive gold Dutch disease supply? Small-fish Basque fishermen discovering then settling Newfoundland would be interesting, as it's also a drastically different model from the Italian-navigated royal expeditions that did happen historically.

I do think, as per that above thread, you can't get a much earlier expedition, due to the technological limitations.

Navigational technology was advancing fast in the late medieval to early modern transitional era. The kinds of ships available even in say 1400 would be a poor bet for reliable transAtlantic crossings even by the "known" northern route, let alone striking across the middle of the North Atlantic in the lower latitudes leading to the Antilles. FWIW, if they gradually learned a lot empirically about Atlantic winds and currents, the way home again to places as far flung from each other as Norway to Iberia would be to join the Gulf Stream, which runs fairly close to a Great Circle route toward Britain--veering off one way on sea lanes well known in Viking times takes one to Norway, veering south, to France and Spain and Portugal.

But even if an expedition had been attempted only a few decades earlier than Columbus, it'd be very interesting:

I’d be really interested in seeing how Ahuizotl would handle European contact with the Aztecs instead of Moctezuma. It would probably be a lot more exciting with either a series of battles across central Mexico or with any Spanish lucky enough to survive a crushing attack bringing back tales of the great warriors of the triple alliance. Or, should the Tlaxcalteca stay out of it, we could see potentially amiable relations between Madrid and Tenochtitlan, at least for a brief while.

 

[cloistered scholar]

Perhaps the Catholic Church sends missionaries before European powers start carving up the continents.

 

[Atterdag]

Hard to see how that could happen. Scandinavia and the Nordic countries was a periphery region of Europe, the North Atlantic islands were the periphery of the north, and Vinland was the periphery of the North Atlantic. Adam of Bremen called it, based on the description of Sweyn Estridsen, the last land on earth beyond which there is no more.

It is entirely unlike the east. No trade flows from there, no mythical priest-kings are believed to reside there, no potential allies against the Saracens will be found there. If anything it could disencourage western exploration, if it’s already widely known that to the west are a few sparsely populated islands and nothing else. But most likely it would have no real effect.

 

[AndreaConti]

However, Vinland, in its existence was quite well known to the European intellectuals of the time: Adam of Bremen cites it, whose works, reported at the time, had a wide circulation in Germany, England and Scandinavia, was indirectly cited by Al Idrisi in the Book of Ruggero and in addition to Galvano Fiamma's Chronica Universalis, various evidences are emerging that in Northern Italy we had heard about this land and Marcland ...

Furthermore, the Hellenistic geographers, such as Hipparchus, Posidonius and Seleucus of Babylon, realized how the tidal regime of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean were remarkably different. To explain this strangeness they had hypothesized how the two Oceans were divided by an isthmus of land, on which an immense mountain range must have been present, to avoid contact between the waters: this idea had been considered canonical in medieval Italy and Spain. , in which it was hypothesized that before this isthmus there were numerous archipelagos, of which Marcland and Vinland must have been the northernmost (an argument that was also used in Salamanca against Columbus, together with that of the wrong dimensions that he had estimated of the Earth, saying that , due to the presence of this isthmus, it was impossible to reach Asia).

So in the Middle Ages a minority of educated people, not even that small, knew of the existence of Vinland, but they had no idea what it really was.

 

[Metempsychosis]

no mythical priest-kings are believed to reside there

Saint Brendan's island?

 

[Kerney]

Hard to see how that could happen. Scandinavia and the Nordic countries was a periphery region of Europe, the North Atlantic islands were the periphery of the north, and Vinland was the periphery of the North Atlantic. Adam of Bremen called it, based on the description of Sweyn Estridsen, the last land on earth beyond which there is no more.

It is entirely unlike the east. No trade flows from there, no mythical priest-kings are believed to reside there, no potential allies against the Saracens will be found there. If anything it could disencourage western exploration, if it’s already widely known that to the west are a few sparsely populated islands and nothing else. But most likely it would have no real effect.

Yet trade and centrality are fluid things. For example, the North had made a bid for a central position in the 800-900s, though a lack of coordination and an inability to finish off foes (most notably Wessex) led to them being assimilated rather than assimilating. Trade routes were tied into the larger Eurasian trade network to a great degree and the ties between say Sweden, and the Rus was cut more from them being assimilated into Slavic and Western European Spheres respectively.

A North that is more Central, say where Harald Hardratha is the Conquerer rather than William the Bastard, the North has more weight. It also has young men looking for prospects. Perhaps sailing west and eventually, someone getting lucky. To exploit the sudden riches whether it be cod or furs or whatever, better boats are designed sooner, leading to an earlier cycle of growth.

 

[Clandango]

Boat travel that doesn’t involving stopping in exotic ports doesn’t have the same zing to it as some merchant getting to meet an Emperor and be treated respectfully as a guest. Come to think of it though, anyone read the Marco Polo stuff? I am wondering if it might be like how Alexander the Great used to be so famous. He is respected nowadays still, but centuries back the European and Islamic world had him in all sorts of magic adventures or having him lowered down in a submarine. Lot more oomph to it.