Robert the Bruce and His Flemish Antecedents By Dr. Paul Belien

The tireless polymath Dr. Paul Belien kindly came to the rescue of both Mr. Gaylan Lane and myself in response to yesterday's blog posting. First, to kindly inform me that there is - as Gaylan suspected - a connection between the Scottish armorial lion and the Flemish. Second, to provide the article below. My grateful thanks to Dr. Belien not only for his permission to reprint this article (and for corrections to my translation) but also for providing some excellent pictures of the castle and lion emblem that is part of the castle construction.

July 11 is the date in 1302 when a militia of Flemish burghers defeated an army of French knights at the Battle of the Golden Spurs in a town called Kortrijk/Courtrai. The Scottish equivalent of Courtrai in 1302 is the Battle of Bannockburn which took place on June 24, 1314. At Bannockburn Scottish farmers defeated an army of English knights. Thus Scotland won its independence and the Scottish leader, Robert the Bruce, proclaimed himself king of Scotland.

Robert was born on July 11 (the date of the Battle of the Golden Spurs!) in 1274 to a Scottish family that originally came from Yorkshire England. His father, Adam Bruce, followed in the wake of William the Conqueror (the Norman duke who conquered England in 1066) from Normandy to Yorkshire. Adam’s grandson settled in Scotland. This grandson eventually became the “Father of Scotland”.

Historians recently discovered that Adam Bruce was not a Norman, but a Fleming. His father, Robert de Bruges, was a native of Leuven who in 1046 became mayor of Bruges. He was also not just any native of Leuven, but the younger son of Count Lambert I of Leuven (1015) and therefore an uncle of Geoffrey I, the first Duke of Brabant.

References

The connection with Leuven, Brabant is shown in the blue lion that the family "de Bruce " originally wore on their shields. The blue lion was used as an armorial symbol since the mid- eleventh century. It was used by the younger sons of the House of Leuven, Brabant. Robert brought this armorial crest with him to Bruges, and the city of Bruges today still retains a blue lion in the city’s armorial shield . His descendants took the lion of Louvain to England.

In 1154 Joscelijn of Leuven, the youngest son of Duke Godfrey I of Brabant was married to Baroness Agnes of Percy, a wealthy English-Norman heiress. Joscelijn adopted the name Percy and settled in England . Because he was more closely related to the line than his cousins in Brabant , the Bruces , who bore the blue lion as their armorial symbol, took another armorial sign, the red cross of St. Andrew. The latter as an armorial device was worn by the sheriff of Bruges in the early twelfth century. However, the Earl of Elgin, the head of the clan Bruce, still sports a blue lion on the top left of his armorial shield, above the red cross of St. Andrew's.

In England, the blue lion is found on the arms of Joscelijn’s descendants, the Percys. The Percys became the earls of Northumberland, played an important role in the Wars of the Roses (always on the losing side) and were – in an irony of history - entrusted with guarding the northern border of England against their Flemish Brabant distant cousins, the Bruces.

Hotspur

The lion in the Percy shield has a name. He is called "Brabant" and is listed as such in the records of the College of Arms in London. This proud Brabant lion, carved in stone, adorns the numerous castles of Percy's past along the English - Scottish border: from Egremont and Cockermouth in Cumbria to Warkworth and Alnwick in Northumberland . Especially at Warkworth one can see the impressive and massive Brabant on the castle wall facing Scotland . Warkworth is the stronghold of the most famous knight of his time, Henry Percy Hotspur, who on July 21, 1403 was killed in an attempt to take the English throne for himself. The oldest sons (and heirs) of the Dukes of Northumberland have a title which also refers to their ancestral origins; they retain the proud title of "Lord Lovaine" – Baron of Leuven.

When England became a Protestant nation in the sixteenth century, many Percys fled their country . One branch (the oldest ) returned to their ancestral home and settled in Aarschot, in Flanders. Another branch fled to Ireland and still later to the state of Mississippi in the southern United States . The famous American Catholic author Walker Percy (1916-1990) is a descendant of this line. The youngest, Protestant branch of the Percy family inherited the English titles and possessions, but died out in the male line at the death of Joscelin Percy, eleventh Earl of Northumberland, in 1670.

Joscelin Percy’s granddaughter , Elizabeth Seymour, married one Hugh Smithson , a favorite of King George III. Smithson cheated on his wife (his illegitimate son was a scientist who poured his fortune into the United States, and from which came the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.), but due to his wife's esteemed lineage, was anointed with the title of Duke by George III in 1766. Smithson asked for the title "Duke of Brabant, " but this was met with protest from the Austrian Emperor (Brabant was an Austrian possession at the time). Hence, Smithson, who took the surname of Percy, became the Duke of Northumberland. His son was known as the Viscount of Leuven ( Louvain Viscount ). His descendants still are known by that title.

Direct Descendants

The House of Leuven Brabant, alongside a Scottish (Bruce) and English (Percy) branch, also has a German branch . The youngest son of Henry V, Duke of Brabant (born1248) was the Count of Hesse, Germany. This is the reason that the graves in Hesse have a lion emblazoned on the outside. The lion of Hesse is not blue, but the background is, while the lion is white with red horizontal bars – precisely the opposite of the armorial shield of Bruges . Again, this is the lion of Brabant. The blue lion even today shines on the armorial shield of the Grand Dukes of Hesse and also in that of a younger branch of this family, the Princes of Battenberg. The Battenberg Princes, after their emigration to England, took the the name Mountbatten. The Dukes of Hesse, the Princes of Battenberg and the Mountbattens are all direct descendants in the male line of the Counts of Leuven and Dukes of Brabant.

This article was originally published in Dutch and appeared in the Flemish weekly magazine "Pallieterke" in 2004. The Dutch version (which is slightly different from this English text) can be found here:
http://www.secessie.nu/?tekst=toonhtml&artikel=904-47

The Flemings Around Magellan and the First Circumnavigation of the World - Part 2: Finance, Flanders and the Spice Trade

The Spice Islands as depicted by Magellan in his 1518 argument that they actually lay within Spain's global sphere of influence - versus Portugal's claim to them. Portuguese dominion is on the left, Spain is on the right.

In Part 1 we briefly saw that the sovereign Magellan sailed for, although correctly titled ‘King of Spain’ and (from July, 1519 on) as ‘Holy Roman Emperor’, was in fact a Fleming, born and raised. Charles V’s administration was of course dependent on financing in order to function – as all governments are and were. Expeditions like Magellan’s required real capital to fund them and that capital had to be sourced, either borrowed from merchant bankers or allocated from some existing revenue source.

As with most investment decisions taken today, a request for financing from the king meant that there had to be a reason for the funding. In this post we look at both the perceived purpose of this voyage (discovering a new route to the spice markets and plantations of Southeast Asia) and the financial backing of this venture to see yet another aspect of Flemish contributions to Ferdinand Magellan’s success.

A famous Italian author of the time, Ludovico Guicciardini, captured the essence of this connection between the Flemish, the Portuguese, the spice trade and finance in 1560:


Vasco da Gama's route across the bottom tip of the African continent to reach the spice emporiums of Calicut in India is of nearly equal importance as Columbus' westward voyages.

[One] of the notable advantages which ha[s] made the city of Antwerp so great, rich, and famous, began about the year 1503-1504, when the Portuguese, by marvelous and amazing navigation, and with warlike equipment, having, just before, occupied Calicut, made a treaty with the king of that region. They began to transport spices and drugs from India to Portugal and then to carry them from Portugal to the fairs in this city [Antwerp].

These spices and drugs were formerly brought by way of the Red Sea to Beirut and Alexandria, and from these places carried by the Venetians to Venice to supply Italy, France, Germany, and other Christian provinces. But once this commerce had been intercepted by the Portuguese, and they had sent an agent to Antwerp in the name of their king, little by little this trade attracted the Germans.

First the Fuggers, the Welsers, and Hochstaetters became interested, and perhaps before all of these Nicholas Rechtergem, already mentioned, who was the first to make an agreement at Antwerp with the agent of the king of Portugal concerning spices, and the first to send them from here [Antwerp] to Germany, where, not yet knowing anything about the new voyage of the Portuguese, the Germans were so astounded that they doubted the quality of said spices, and suspected that they were adulterated. This was because the Germans had been accustomed to furnish the people of these lands with the same drugs which came overland from Venice. At this time there were several honorable families of Spaniards in this city, such as those of Diego d’Aro [de Haro]…

Thus about the year 1516 all the foreign merchants who had been living at Bruges, one after the other…came to this place [Antwerp], with no less damage to Bruges than great profit and advantage to Antwerp.[i]

Spices to Europe were a Venetian monopoly until Vasco da Gama's return from India around Africa in 1499. Once in Venice, spices were shipped to Bruges, for further wholesaling and distribution into northern Europe.

The Spice Trade
It is important here to recall that it was only twenty years before Magellan’s departure – in 1499 – that Vasco da Gama had broken the Venetian-Arab monopoly on spices.[ii] By sailing to India by way of rounding the Cape of Good Hope, da Gama broke the Venetian-Arab monopoly on the distribution of Asian spices to Europe. Instead of hundred-pound sacks sent on a sea journey from the emporiums of India and then large camel caravans traveling at 2 miles an hour across the Arabian deserts to Mediterranean ports and a final dash avoiding pirates before reaching Venice[iii], bulk cargoes in the hundreds of tons could be tran-shipped across the Indian Ocean and, after rounding Africa’s southern tip, sail up around the western coast of Africa before docking in Lisbon.

Modern historians often view this event coming as it did at a chronologically convenient point (the year 1500) but also signaling the beginnings of European predominance globally.[iv]
Even though da Gama’s trip had taken three years to complete, and he had lost all but one ship (and the European goods that they had brought to trade sold in India at roughly 10% of their cost), the profits on the spice cargo made huge profits for investors – 60 times the cost of the expedition or over 4,700% return on investment.[v] The pepper that Da Gama purchased in Calicut, India for 3 ducats per hundredweight (which was already marked up by the Chinese, Malay, and Indian traders at each leg of the journey before it came to market in Malacca), was sold in Portugal for 80 ducats per hundredweight.[vi] In the context of broader trade numbers, at least 1,000 tons of pepper were imported annually into Europe.[vii] Moreover, it was not so much used as a casual confection, but more critically as a preservative for Autumn-slaughtered livestock, especially as the meat spoiled and rotted into the Spring.[viii] So the potential for great riches from a new channel of access to not only pepper but cloves, mace, nutmeg, and the rest[ix] was truly unimaginable.

Meet The Fuggers
Trade and finance have always had a symbiotic relationship. In early modern Europe, no less, trade was not only the engine of economic growth but also the primary source of taxes for the royal treasury. Since the royal treasury of young Charles V was seemingly always in need of extra cash, merchants who could extend loans to the sovereign, found trading privileges easier to come by.[x]

The most successful merchants of the Rennaissance were also bankers. At the pinnacle of early modern merchant bankers was the House of Fugger.[xi] The man who ran the Fuggers merchant banking house in the early 1500s was the third generation of that family to do so, Jakob Fugger.

Jakob Fugger as painted by Albrecht Durer between 1518 and 1520 - exactly the time when Magellan was preparing for and departing on the first leg of his circumnavigation.

The capital that the Fuggers had available to lend to European rulers was derived from trading profits. One large source of that profit at the Fuggers derived from their control of the European distribution of the pepper trust for Venice.

Sometimes called “Jakob the Rich”, Fugger was a German merchant banker with extensive pan-European ties. Fugger had factors in most major European cities whose location was recognized as “Fugger’s”.[xii] Jacob Fugger himself was stationed for long periods in Brugge, had a key postat Antwerp and frequently traded in merchant caravans with Bergen, Bristol and Lisbon.

An excerpt from the "Trachtenbuch" (Book of Achievements) of Matthias Schwarz. Schwarz joined Fugger's business in 1516 at the age of 19. The picture here shows Jakob Fugger telling Matthias Schwarz what to enter into the books.

For merchants connected to the court at this early stage in his reign – and in 1519, when Ferdinand sailed for the East, Charles V was only 19 – financing was an immensely profitable undertaking. “The Fuggers are said to have averaged profits of more than 50 percent per annum during the early 1520s, but as the demand [from the Hapsburgs especially] for credit rose, their [the Fuggers’] own funds proved inadequate and they began to borrow money at the Antwerp bourse rate of 6-8 percent, to which they, as creditworthy bankers, were entitled.”[xiii]

The Fuggers in today’s parlance, arbitraged the low cost of money based on their networks and reputation and lent it out at very high rates (with assets to back the cost of the loans, no less) to needy rulers. The Hapsburg royal family, of which Charles V of course was a member, had long depended upon the Fuggers for loans. Loans were provided much like pawnshops do so today: with something of value as collateral.[xiv] Often the collateral were gems, valuable paintings, or even land.[xv] If hard, transportable goods were not available as collateral, Charles V resorted to an asiento, or the right to collect certain taxes normally due to the Emperor.[xvi] Regardless of the property against which these loans were made, repayment was required in quarterly installments and “normally to be repaid in Antwerp at one of the quarterly fairs.”[xvii]

Were it not for a spectacular and opportunistic malaguetta pepper windfall on the West African coast by a Portuguese trading ship in 1485[xviii], Lisbon might have remained a backwater. But the arrival of this unexpected source of spices drew in Jakob Fugger. His arrival – and subsequent conferences with the Portuguese King and his advisors included a cartographer with deep ties to Antwerp, a Flemish wife, and a belief in a western route to the Spice islands: Martin Behaim (about whom I will write more in a future post). This visit also established a Fugger post at Lisbon (with monopoly rights to the pepper trade). The man who Jakob Fugger appointed to be his factor at the Lisbon post was Christopher de Haro of Antwerp.[xix]

Part 3 of this series will discuss Christopher De Haro of Antwerp and other Flemish contributions to Magellan's preparation for the world's first circumnavigation. Part 4 will detail the individual Flemings in the expedition.

Albrecht Durer's and Johannes Stabius' depiction of the world circa 1515, just before Magellan's circumnavigation.

Endnotes
[i] Ludovico Guicciardini, “Antwerp, The Great Market” in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.185-201, especially pp. 186-187.
[ii] Ludovico Guicciardini, “Antwerp, The Great Market” in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.185-201, especially p. 196.
[iii] “Venice at this time was not only Europe’s chief market place, but also its greatest shipbuilding center, its foremost transport agent, and one of the leading manufacturing communities, rivaling Ghent.” Charles McKew Parr, Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator: His Life and Explorations, 2nd ed., (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1964), p. 160.
[iv] For a recap of the historiography around this seminal turning point in history, see Peter Rietbergen, “Westerse geschiedschrijving en niet-wsterse geschiednis, onmogelijkheid of noodzaak, of wel: Europa in de ‘Vasco da Gama-era’” in Tijdschrift voor Geschiednis, 111e jaargang, aflevering 4, 1998, pp.533-544.
[v] Charles Corn, The Scents of Eden: A History of the Spice Trade, (New York: Kodansha, 1999), p.xxiv
[vi] Richard Humble, The Explorers, (New York: Time-Life, 1978), p.104. I have searched vainly for a more authoritative source and would welcome any suggestions on where that might be found.
[vii] Peter Spufford, Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe, (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002), pp. 380-381. Spufford says that at the end of the 14th century – 100 years before Magellan – the Venetians imported 500 tons of pepper annually and the Genoese and Catalans a further 200 tons each.
[viii] See the clearest explanation of this in Charles McKew Parr, Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator: His Life and Explorations, 2nd ed., (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1964), p. 157.
[ix] “Spices such as clove[s], cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and numerous drugs such as rhubarb, cassia, agaric, dragon’s blood, mummy, senna-leaf, colocynth, scammony, tutty, mithridate, and treacle.” See Ludovico Guicciardini, “Antwerp, The Great Market” in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.185-201, especially p. 196.
[x] See, for example, the string of translated documents online relating to Charles V’s constant borrowings from King Henry VIII in 1517 here: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=93638 'Spain: 1517', Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 2: 1509-1525 (1866), pp. 286-289. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=93638 Date accessed: 31 October 2009.
[xi] The Fugger family website: http://www.fugger.de/en/1_geschichte.htm
[xii] Albrecht Durer, the famous painter, wrote in 1520, a year after Magellan’s departure: “I have been into Fugger’s house in Antwerp. He has newly built it in very costly fashion, with a noteworthy tower, broad and high, and with a beautiful garden. I also saw his fine horses.” From Durer’s “Travel Diary,” in W.M. Conway, Literary Remains of Albrecht Durer, (Cambridge: University Press, 1889), quoted in “A Painter’s Travels” in James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), p. 230.
[xiii] William Maltby, The Reign of Charles V, (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p.72.
[xiv] For a fascinating glimpse into this process see the excerpt of a letter from the Emperor Maximilian I to Paul Von Liechtenstein, dated September, 1511, and the ‘collection letter’ from Jakob Fugger to Charles V in 1523, from J.Stieder, Das reiche Augsburg, (Munich, 1938), in Mary Martin McLaughlin (trans), “The Hapsburgs and the Fuggers”, trans. In James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.175-181
[xv] See the excerpt of a letter from the Emperor Maximilian I to Paul Von Liechtenstein, dated September, 1511, and the ‘collection letter’ from Jakob Fugger to Charles V in 1523, from J.Stieder, Das reiche Augsburg, (Munich, 1938), in Mary Martin McLaughlin (trans), “The Hapsburgs and the Fuggers”, trans. In James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Renaissance Reader, (New York: Penguin, 1982), pp.176-177. Maximillian pawned both the crown jewels (p.176) as well as “the four best chests of treasure, including our robes of investiture” (p.177).
[xvi] William Maltby, The Reign of Charles V, (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p.68.
[xvii] William Maltby, The Reign of Charles V, (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p.68. Interest rates that Charles V was charged on these loans could be as low as 12% per annum and as high as 100% per annum – such as immediately following his defeat at the Battle of Metz in 1552!
[xviii] The captain of the ship for the equivalent of a few hundred dollars in trade goods netted a profit of $4 million. See Charles McKew Parr, Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator: His Life and Explorations, 2nd ed., (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1964), p. 166.
[xix] Charles McKew Parr, Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator: His Life and Explorations, 2nd ed., (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1964), p. 167.

Copyright 2009 by David Baeckelandt. All rights reserved. No reproduction permitted without my express, written permission.

The First Flemings in America - Part One

Gentle Reader: My foray back to the historical and away from the current resumes with this posting. I have split the text into two sections due to length. The first, below, ends at about the time the Black Plague swept through Norway in 1350. The second part will cover the following 150 years of pre-Columbian Flemish contribution to the Discovery and Settlement of America.

The First Flemings[i] in America – Part One: The First 500 Years: 850-1350

The American educational system emphasizes an Anglo-centric view of history. Britain is the ‘Mother Country’ even for those of us without a scintilla of British DNA. This extends to the belief in the discovery of America.

Consider no less a voice than Edmund Burke (1729-1797) – the Anglo-Irish member of the British Parliament and advocate of American independence, government minister when the Treaty of Ghent was signed (1783) and vocal advocate of French Republican ideals. Burke’s An Account of the European Settlements in America, (1770?) captures the essence of this educational emphasis:

“We [the British] derive our rights in America from the discovery of Sebastian Cabot, who first made the northern continent in 1497. The fact is sufficiently certain to establish a right to our settlements in North America: but the particulars are not known distinctly enough to encourage me to enter into a detail of his voyage.”[ii]

Leaving aside some dramatic inaccuracies (it was John not Sebastian Cabot who reputedly made North American landfall in 1497[iii]), and ignoring other questions raised by British Isle partisans (eg, whether Irish monks landed in America in the 800s; or Prince Madog of Wales discovered and colonized the Virginia coast in the 12th century; or Richard Amerike funded exploration of the American coast and gave our continent its name in the 1480s, etc.), the fact is that other Europeans most assuredly landed in North America before John or Sebastian Cabot – and certainly before Columbus.

The best known of the first European explorers and the earliest for which the historical and archaeological record offers verification are the Vikings. Most importantly for us, the Flemish participated in the Viking exploration of America.

Norse Flanders
It should be no surprise that Flanders had ties with the Vikings. Viking raids along the Flemish coasts had occurred frequently from 820 AD until the end of the century. But the Vikings’ “most serious activity in Flanders occurred between 879 and 881.”[iv] It was during those years that Flanders itself saw not only raids but occupation by Viking bands These pagan marauders burned and pillaged churches and abducted Flemish women and children into slavery.

The base for one of the largest Viking bands in Flemish lands during the 879-881 occupation was St. Bavo’s Abbey (which they had also sacked in 851 AD) in Gent.[v] St. Bavo’s Abbey is important for several reasons. St. Bavo – St. Baaf in Dutch[vi] – lived in the late 6th/early 7th centuries and had been a dissolute Frankish warrior who reformed and proselytized. He is the patron saint of Gent (and recognized as a saint in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions of Christianity). The monastery that bears his name was built on land he donated and funds he forwarded. As we shall see later, the unique construction of this monastery would leave an impression on the Vikings quartered there late in the 9th century.

It was not only Gent that felt the wrath of the Norse. The city of Bruges/Brugge in the heart of Flanders also felt the lick of devastation and desolation. Bruges/Brugge, which came to dominate medieval Flanders and Western Europe in trade, finance[vii] and cloth[viii] for centuries, received not only the invaders through its gates but a name given by them. The municipality’s name, ‘Brugge’ in Dutch, is the modern derivation of the Old Norse word for bridge/jetty/landing place: Bryggia. In fact the first coins minted in Flanders (in 864 AD) and now found at the Gruuthuse Museum at Bruges, display these early depictions.[ix]

This suggests that the Flemish were kin in a sense to their Norse neighbors. Some historians in fact believe that Old Norse and Old Flemish were mutually intelligible at this time.[x] This may have been the reason that the first counts of Flanders, Baldwin I and Baldwin II, tacitly cooperated with the Vikings.[xi]


That feeling of linguistic kinship may also be the reason why Queen Emma, wife of King Canute the Great (who ruled Denmark, Norway, parts of Sweden, England and held tacit suzerainty over Iceland, Greenland and Vinland by 1017), was able to communicate freely with the inhabitants of Bruges when she lived there in exile (1037-1040 – under the protection of Baldwin V), and took as her personal chaplain a Flemish monk.[xii] It is thanks to Queen Emma’s close ties to the Flemish Abbey of Bertin in Saint Omer (of whom we will hear more about in a later posting) – which at that time was solidly Flemish in character, language, and allegiance) – that we have today an insight into the historical record of that period: a manuscript known as the Encomium Emmae.[xiii]


Encomium Emmae

Flemings Among the Vikings
Greenland is part of the Western Hemisphere and the North American continental land mass. The exploration and settlement of Greenland constituted first steps to reaching America. The earliest reference to Greenland in written form we have is from the one institution that throughout the Dark Ages kept records: the Church. In 831 Pope Gregory IV specifically outlined Greenland and Iceland as part of the bishopric of Hamburg, to which he appointed the Frank Anskar (801-865)[xiv]. In 864 the Pope Nicholas I confirmed that the bishopric not only included the immediate vicinity of Bremen, but also the pagan lands of the Vikings – including Iceland and Greenland.[xv] Subsequent authority is believed to also have specifically been granted for Vinland's incorporation into the Archbishop’s ecclesiastic care.[xvi]

Psalter, Flanders ca 1250 AD



These documents of course exist as parchment records. But we also know of some of the personal details to convert the pagan Vikings to Christianity thanks in part to Anskar’s right-hand man and successor, the Flemish Saint Rembert (or Rimbert), Archbishop of Bremen (830-888).[xvii] Rembert spent decades with Anskar amongst the Vikings of Scandinavia, but following Anskar’s death continued these efforts for a further twenty-three years on his own. Archbishop Rembert’s proselytizing took him from his original Torhout abbey[xviii] through Friesland (where he halted a Viking attack) to Denmark, Sweden and beyond.[xix] Rembert’s example inspired colonies of Christians to sprout despite fierce opposition. Today, among Catholics in Friesland, Saint Rembert is venerated on February 4th, to commemorate the day in 884 AD that he stood down Norse marauders.[xx]



The Episcopal see of Bremen sent forth other Flemings as well to spread the light of Christianity in the Scandinavian darkness. One Fleming, Dankbrand by name,[xxi] exactly a century after Saint Rembert’s death studied under his successor as archbishop, in 988 AD. Later, after a period of service as a warrior with the Vikings, Dankbrand took religious vows. His example converted the King of Norway, Olaf Tryggvesson, to Christianity, and Dankbrand became his court chaplain.[xxii] In 996, with the fervor of a new convert, King Olaf dispatched Dankbrand to Iceland to convert the island’s chieftains. Dankbrand concentrated his attention on the key Viking chieftain and towards the end of his three year stay, in 999, converted a principal chieftain who “became a devout believer and aided materially in the establishment of Christianity in the island.”[xxiii] It might be said then that the spread of Christianity to the Vikings owes something to Flemish fervor.[xxiv]



Modern reconstruction of medieval Hanseatic Cog



Westward to America
As many schoolchildren now know, Leif Ericsson is often given credit as the first European making North American landfall for whom we have reasonable archaeological and historic records. The date usually given for this event is circa the year 1000 AD. Archaeologists have uncovered a settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland that has the look of a Viking village. Farmers and amateur historians have also unearthed rune stones (cf the Kensington Rune Stone), metal weaponry (swords, daggers, halberds, axeheads), household implements (pottery, etc.) and even clothing.[xxv] The historical record does not dispute that there were Norsemen in America. But what it leaves out is that behind this story we find the Flemings lurking, in a typically unassertive fashion.





The view of Greenland approaching from Iceland



As his name implies, Leif was the son of Erik the Red. Erik’s sojourn from northwestern Iceland was a consequence of a three-year sentence of banishment imposed about the year 983. Erik, who had heard of earlier sojourns to a westerly land,[xxvi] spent those three years exploring and settling southwestern Greenland with a small group of retainers. When he returned home to Iceland, his description and enthusiasm inspired perhaps as many as twenty-five shiploads of Norsemen to sail with him from Iceland to Greenland in 987.[xxvii] Despite their departure from Iceland, contact between the two Norwegian colonies was steady and consistent.




Leif Ericsson was back in Norway reputedly at the court of King Olaf Tryggvesson sometime in the late 990s. It is there that he converted to Christianity. “It was only at the court of King Olaf at Trondhjem that he [Leif] submitted to baptism.”[xxviii] We do not know however, whether he was converted by the Flemish court chaplain Dankbrand or one of Dankbrand’s disciples. But that his conversion was real is manifest through his subsequent actions.

12th century Norse Catholic church ruins on today's Greenland

It is on record that Leif brought back with him a missionary priest when he returned to Greenland. Since the training to become a priest even then was a multi-year education, it is unlikely that the priest was an Icelander. From Greenland, sometime about the year 1000 AD, Leif and perhaps as many as 160 men and women landed on the North American coast. These pioneer Vikings were said to include a priest who baptized the first European child recorded to be born in North America, Snorrie Thorfinsson. It is this priest who also celebrated the first Christian service – and likely the first Christmas Mass – in the Western Hemisphere.[xxix]



The Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland



Among Leif Ericsson’s party was also at least one “south country” man – a Norse term at the time for Germanic speakers, and that might include the Flemish – who was not of Norwegian ethnicity. It is this man who legend says discovered the grapes – critical for the celebration of Mass by these new Christians in North America – that suggested the name “Vinland” for this part of North America.[xxx] Modern scholars now believe that the label Vinland applied specifically to the Cape Cod area, Rhode island, and perhaps even Martha’s Vinyard.[xxxi]





Newport Tower – St. Baaf in the U.S.?
The largest trove of the rich archaeological record of the Norsemen in North America can be found near L’Anse aux Meadows at the very tip of northern Newfoundland, immediately across from Labrador, as cited above. This site includes longhouses and other signs of permanent settlement. Within the boundaries of the modern U.S. there is only one site that has raised a strong claim to pre-Columbian European permanent settlement. This is in Rhode Island, near Martha’s Vinyard. The site is called the Newport Tower.



Newport Tower, Rhode Island

Unusual for construction found in colonial America, the Newport Tower is built of cyclopean masonry – uncut stones neatly fitted together. More unique still is the structure itself: a circular tower with fitted slots for floor timbers and an internal floor plan unlike either the English blockhouses or the churches or homes that Pilgrim and Puritan colonists built as they settled the region in the 17th century.

St. Bavo's/St. Baaf's Abbey Gent

Much ink has been spilt and scientific grant dollars expended in trying to determine the provenance of this building. An article by a noted archaeological historian, Suzanne Carlson, made the best effort I have seen of fixing the cultural origins of the Newport Tower.[xxxii] Her conclusions suggest that the tower is clearly medieval in origin. Although she does not declaratively state her preference, one option Ms. Carlson offers is that the building may be in fact an architectural clone of St. Baaf’s/Bavo’s Abbey in Gent. Recall that during their occupation of Gent the Vikings in the 879-881 period squatted in St. Baaf’s/Bavo’s Abbey. Factor in Christian fervor, Flemish pioneer missionaries and strong trade ties, and the possibility of a link directly between the builders of Newport Tower and St. Baaf’s/Bavo’s Abbey is quite credible. If true, this would be further evidence of an early Flemish presence in North America.

Side-by-side comparison of the Newport Tower (L) and St. Bavo's/St. Baaf's Abbey, Gent



Bergen and Brugge
It may have been the attraction of trade, Christian conviction, or the simple quest, but according to Adam of Bremen, writing about 1070 AD, regular troops of Netherlanders set off from the Zwin and sailed first to Scotland before touching at Iceland, Greenland and ultimately America.
[xxxiii] These seafaring visits include, in their retelling, a fair amount of fantastic happenings (eg, giants, the discovery of gold, fortified cities and the like) which might be interpreted as later additions or a medieval copywriter’s embellishments. Since little archaeological record exists to substantiate these claims, they remain a tantalizing hint of direct expeditions to the New World before Columbus from the Low Countries.[xxxiv]


Hanseatic Trade Routes ca 1200 AD from Brugge to Bergen


As students of Low Country geography will recall, the Zwin, from which these possible New World visitors from the Netherlands emerged in the 11th century, was a busy waterway. In medieval times it served a number of major towns. The most important of these market towns was Bruges/Brugge. Bruges/Brugge was “the late-medieval center of world trade”.[xxxv] As mentioned above, Bruges/Brugge – the Norse-friendly town of the 800s – sat at the center of a vast web of trade in commodities from less-developed regions (primarily in the northern and eastern regions of Europe) in exchange for finished goods – especially textiles from Flanders. The Flemish textiles consisted of dyed cloths as well as finished clothing. These goods were shipped everywhere: from Novgorod (Russia) to Africa, the Middle East, and beyond. It is thanks to its manufacturing and technological export base that Bruges/Brugge became, by the late 12th century, the “most important commercial entrepot, the major Flemish port and drapery town of Bruges.”[xxxvi]



The harbor at medieval Zeebrugge, Brugge's outlet to the sea



Leif Ericsson’s venture yielded profits from the export of felled timber and cured animal pelts. Many staple commodities that were in short supply on Greenland but also attractive in continental European markets. Steady shipments of these raw materials leftthe Vinland colony until Leif’s settlers departed en masse in 1012, after which they continued but were more sporadic.[xxxvii] Exports from Greenland to European continental merchants included not only agricultural goods such as butter, cheese, seal hides, and occasionally wool, but also specific Arctic products such as polar bear furs, whale blubber, eiderdown (gathered from birds’ nests), narwhal tusks, gyr falcons, walrus hide ropes, and, last but not least, walrus ivory.[xxxviii]




The largest volume trade in northern Europe in terms of bulk was in furs. The number one emporium for northern European goods including furs from the 12th through 15th centuries was Bruges. So these Greenland goods – and any residual from the North American coast, found eager buyers in Bruges/Brugge.


Modern Bruges/Brugge is remarkably unchanged since 1350



That said, trade tinged with Christianity remained the cornerstone of Flemish contacts with the New World. In the pre-Columbian era this is where we find our strongest archival records of Flemish contact with America. The Church – sponsoring Crusades to the Holy Lands (Flemings ‘captured’ and ruled the Byzantine empire in the 13th century) and supporting a bureaucracy that superficially united western Europe (medieval precursor of the EU?) – often levied extraordinary taxes both directly and (for an economy in which coins were not always plentiful) in kind on parishoners. Some of these records offer tantalizing clues to other early Flemish links to the New World.




The papacy often farmed out the collection of the extraordinary tithes it assessed. This practice was a cause of concern – especially because it could lead to abuse. From 1123 AD on Greenland had its own diocesan jurisdiction, the bishopric at Gardar. But because the round trip from Bergen, Norway to Gardar, Greenland reputedly took roughly five years, many functions that required quicker interaction with Europe by necessity were assumed by the bishopric of Bergen. The historic record suggests that ties between Bergen and Bruges/Brugge were close. Because, for collecting the Peter’s Pence levy in Scandinavia, Greenland and Vinland, “papal representatives had suggested that the papal monies be entrusted to loyal and honest merchants of Flanders.”[xxxix]

Gyr Falcons were literally worth their weight in gold

Pope John XXII’s tax-collector for Scandinavia in the early 14th century, one Bertrand de Ortolis, left this entry in the archives:

"Received at Bergen, Aug. 11. 1327, from the Archbishop of Drontheim [also known as Nidaros = modern day Trontheim], the tithes of the bishopric of Greenland, consisting of 127 lispfund, [1 lispfund = 20lbs] of walrus-teeth, which I sold, Sept. 6. by the advice of the Archbishop of Drontheim, and the Bishop of Bergen, to Jan D’Ypres, a Flemish merchant, for 12 livres, 14 sols Tournais, half of which has been paid to the king. In right of Saint Peter's pence, I have received for Greenland, three lispfund of walrus-teeth, which I have sold at 2 sols per pound."[xl]

Walrus ivory carved circa 1200

There is even a possibility that ties may have been too close: this may have even been a deal among friends. For example: although the deal was transacted in Bergen, both the Papal Legate, Bernardus de Ortelis, and Jan D’Ypres (Jan from Ieper) set out from the same home base in Flanders (Ortelis came from Bruges).[xli]

Since the Bergen-Bruges/Brugge connection was well established this may of course simply have been happenstance. Enough records exist to show a near-daily contact. In a letter to Aegidius Correnbitter at Bruges/Brugge on 29 September 1338 from Bishop Hakon in Bergen, the good bishop asks the merchant to sell for his account polar bear skins and dentes centinos, ‘whalefish teeth’ from a tithing in Greenland. ‘Whalefish teeth’ was the name Norwegians gave to walrus ivory.[xlii] This ivory was rare, expensive, and highly sought after for knife hafts, figurines and jewelry. The Bishop of Bergen's familiar tone and the implied regularity of their business dealings suggest that this was just one more in a series of transactions that originated with European settlers in North America and concluded in Flanders. It was certainly not the last.


Conclusion
Increased hostility from the aboriginal natives and deadly internecine quarrelling abruptly ended the first documented attempt at European colonization in North America. Future visits by the Norse and their followers continued for at least the next 250 years.[xliii] But it was not until the late 14th and early 15th century that we see substantial contributions by Flemings to the exploration and settlement of America. Please log back in later for my follow-on posting: The First Flemings in America – Part Two: 1350-1500.


Endnotes
[i] It goes without saying – but I feel I need to due to the stream of e-mails I receive from eagle-eyed historical aficionados – that my terminology of “Fleming” is meant in the broad sense to include those Dutch speakers south of the Maas River; e.g., the Dutch speakers in what is modern-day Belgium and northern France. Thus, I include Brabanters, Bruxellois, citizens of the bishopric of Liege, and Limburgers in this mix.
[ii] Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Edmund Burke, (New York: Penguin, 1999), p.237
[iii] The best authority on the Cabots exploration of North America is still Henry Harisse, John Cabot, Discoverer of North America and Sebastian His Son, (London: BF Stevens, 1896)
[iv] David Nicholas, Medieval Flanders, (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1992), p.15.
[v] ibid.
[vi] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Bavo
[vii] Bruges has been recognized as the birthplace of the stock exchange. See Donatella Calabi, “Foreigners and the City: An Historiographical Explanation for the Early Modern Period” in the Fondazione Eni Enrico MatteiWorking Papers, 2006, Paper#15, p.7. Available online at www.bepress.com/feem/paper15 . Bruges has earned the mantle as the birthplace of capitalism. See James M. Murray, Bruges, Cradle of Capitalism, 1280-1390, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
[viii] There is a huge amount of scholarship focused on this subject but one survey is Patrick Chorley, “The Cloth Exports of Flanders and Northern France During the Thirteenth Century: A Luxury Trade?”, in Economic History Review, 2nd Ser., XL, 3 (1987), pp. 349-379.
[ix] Noel Geirnaert and Ludoi Vandamme, Bruges: Two Thousand Years of History, (Bruges: Stichting Kunstboek, 1996), pp.7-8.
[x] Edward Freeman, The History of the Norman Conquest of England: Its Causes and Results, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1876), p.527.
[xi] David Nicholas, Medieval Flanders, op cit, p.18.
[xii] Harriet O’Brien, Queen Emma and the Vikings, (New York: Bloomsbury, 2005), pp.184-185.
[xiii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encomium_Emmae . Note that a sizeable percent of the population of modern Flanders - 28% - have some Scandinavian DNA. Please see Guido Deboeck, "Genetic Diversity in Flemish DNA" (2008) quoting Spencer Well's Deep Ancestry, here http://www.jogg.info/42/files/Deboeck.htm and Gerhard Mertens, "Y Haplogroup Frequencies in the Flemish Population", Journal of Genetic Genealogy, 3 (2): 19-25, 2007 found online here: http://www.jogg.info/32/mertens.pdf
[xiv] English translations of the primary documents that support this section can be found in Robert Burns Morgan’s, Readings in English Social History from Contemporary Literature – Volume IV Excerpting J. Barry Colman, O. S. B., Ed. From Pentecost to the Protestant Revolt, Vol.1 (ND:The Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland) pp. 280-283. Note also that the tide of Flemings to Norse regions was consistent and steady. "Even in the year 780 we had some emigrants. When Saint Adelhard, son of Count Bernhard and grandson of Karel Martel moved to Corbie in France to manage the abbey (780 to 814 and 821 to 826), he did not leave by himself. He was accompanied by a good number of like minded people. Ananother saint, Saint Asher (801 to 865) primate of the Scandinaviancountries, was appointed by Louis The Pious as the first archbishop ofHamburg. Since Asher was a Fleming, Louis donated to him the abbey of Torhout. Asher stayed there on a regular basis, and each time when hereturned to Hamberg a large number of Flemings followed in his wake." - from "Vlaamse Stam" (Flemish Heritage), amonthly magazine of "De Vlaamse Vereniging voor Familiekunde (V.V.F)"(The Flemish Association for Geneology). The article was contained in the Januari 1991 issue, pages 546 through 554, and authored by Marc van de Cruys.
[xv] Peter De Roo, History of America Before Columbus According to Documents and Approved Authors, Vol. I, “American Aboriginals”, (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1900), pp.45-48 – the actual transcription of the Latin text is found on p.53
[xvi] Thomas A. DuBois, Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia, (Toronto: University Press, 2008), p.31
[xvii] See the online version of Anskar’s life, titled “Vita Ansgari”, at The Medieval Sourcebook: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pgc.asp?page=basis/anskar.html
[xviii] Adam of Bremen writing in about 1070 AD.
[xix] Despite the fact that Flemish missionaries – first Catholic then Catholic and Protestant – have made an outsized contribution to the spread of Christianity, a single book has yet to be written that I am aware of on the subject. For a recent synopsis of Catholic contributions in the U.S. Midwest alone please see Bart Ryckbosch, “Belgian Missionaries in the American Midwest” in the Belgian American Historical Society of Chicago Newsletter, Vol. 4, no. 2, (December, 2008) pp. 2-8 http://www.bahsc.org/images/newsletter/bahsc_newsletter_2008_12_vol_4_n_2.pdf . For a focused discussion of the Flemish Protestant missionary effort just in the Netherlands the premier work remains J. Briels, De Zuidnederlandse Immigratie 1572-1630, (Haarlem 1978).
[xx] Löffler, Klemens. "St. Rimbert." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912.
21 Jun. 2009 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13057a.htm . There is a good explation of the history of Tourhout and the connection with Rembert here: http://www.geocities.com/heemkundetorhout/geschiedenis.htm . Note that the surname Rembert is found in the U.S. and that even a municipality in South Carolina carries the name.
[xxi] His name is also transcribed as Thankbrand, Thangbrand, Frangbrandr, etc. See for example, the Lutheran Church Cyclopedia: https://www.lcms.org/ca/www/cyclopedia/02/display.asp?t1=T&word=THANGBRAND
[xxii] Colman J. Barry, OSBB, Readings in Church History, Vol I “From Pentecost to Protestant Revolt”, 2007 reprint, pp.280-283 “Introduction of Christianity to Iceland”.
[xxiii] Jon Iordarsson Thoroddsen, Lad and Lass: A Story of Life in Iceland, translated from the Icelandic by Arthur M. Reeves, (London, 1890), pp.1-2, n.1
[xxiv] Dankbrand’s contribution seems forgotten among modern scholars. See Sigridur Juliusdottir, The Major Churches in Iceland and Norway: A Study into the Major Churches in Skalholt Diocese and Bergen Diocese in the 11th to the 15th Centuries, (Bergen, 2006).
[xxv] For pictures of the swords and implements see Hjalmar R. Holand, Explorations in America Before Columbus, (New York: Twayne, 1956), pp.132-138; text on Viking grave in Ontario pp. 101-2; on Norse halberds in America 197-202. Also, please see Hjalmar R. Holand, America, 1355-1364: A New Chapter in Pre-Columbian History, (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1946), Plates VII – X (prior to beginning of text).
[xxvi] “The Norwegian Gunbjorn is the first man whom history credits with having seen Greenland” – perhaps in the year 900s. Poul Norlund, Viking Settlers in Greenland and Their Descendants During Five Hundred Years, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1936), Klaus Reprint 1971 New York, pp.16-17.
[xxvii] ibid, p.18
[xxviii] ibid, p.29
[xxix] Note that there is credible evidence that Leif Ericsson was preceded by others to Vinland/North America. See G.J. Marcus, The Conquest of the North Atlantic, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp.59-62. That said, James Robert Enterline in Erikson, Eskimos & Columbus, (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2002), p.6, has declared, “Leif Erikson, too, was a discoverer of America. There is no longer any controversy among scholars about that.” For the fact that a great many of the Icelanders were of noble or aristocratic Norwegian blood, see ibid, pp.47-48. For a dramatization of the first Christmas in America see http://www.geocities.com/heartland/meadows/2700/story51.htm
[xxx] John Fiske, The Discovery of America, Vol. 1, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1892), pp.165-6
[xxxi] Frederick N. Brown, III, Rediscovering Vinland: Evidence of Ancient Viking Presence in America, (Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2007), Vol. I, p.183ff.
[xxxii] Suzanne Carlson, “Loose Threads in a Tapestry of Stone: The Architecture of the Newport Tower”, in New England Antiquities Research Association, Vol XXXV, No. 1, Summer 2001, Issue of the NEARA Journal; found online here: http://www.neara.org/CARLSON/newporttower.htm
[xxxiii] For Adam of Bremen in modern translation please see Francis J. Tschan, (trans. & ed.), History of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). Adam of Bremen calls these Netherlanders “Frisians” since at that time Robert of Frisia was Count of Flanders (1071-1093). For the only detailed discussion of Netherlanders sailing for America I am aware of in a modern tongue please see Charles Van den Bergh, “Nederlands Aanspraak op de Ontdekking van Amerika voor Columbus”, in Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiednis en Oudheidkunde Verzameld en Uitgegeven door Is. An. Nijhoff, VII (1850), pp.23-33.
[xxxiv] See Martinus Hamconius, writing before 1620, who claims that Netherlanders reached the mines of Mexico and settled Chile in Charles Van den Bergh, “Nederlands Aanspraak", op.cit., pp.30-33.
[xxxv] Marc Ryckaert, “Geographie eines Weltmarkets: Handel und Stadttopographie im mittelalterlichen und fruehneuzeitlichen Brugge,” in K. Friedland (ed.), Brugge Colloquium des Hansischen Geschichtsvereins, 26-29 mai, 1988, (Cologne and Vienna, 1990), pp.3-12 quoted in James M. Murray, Bruges, Cradle of Capitalism, op.cit., p.31.
[xxxvi] John H. Munro, “Flemish Woolens and German Commerce during the Later Middle Ages: Changing Trends in Cloth Prices and markets, 1290-1550“, University of Toronto, 2000, p. 3. Working Paper found online at http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/ecipa/wpa.html .
[xxxvii] Fiske, op.cit., Vol. I, pp. 166-171.
[xxxviii] Kirsten A. Seaver, Maps, myths, and men: the story of the Vinland Map, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004, p. 29.
[xxxix] Henry S. Lucas, “Mediaeval Economic Relations Between Flanders and Greenland”, in Speculum, Vol. 12 (1937), p.174
[xl] David Cranz, John Gambold, The History of Greenland: Including an Account of the Mission Carried on by the United Brethren in that Country, (London: Longman, 1820), p.254, n. xv. Note that the original Latin documents transcribed in P.A. Munch, Pavelige Nuntiers Regnskabs – og Dagboger, (Christiana, 1864), p.25 can be found online at http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA28&dq=%22Munch%22,+%22pavelige+nuntiers%22&id=nYRpAAAAIAAJ&ots=kOe8jbCybP My Latin is insufficient to correctly decipher this but if “Brugensis” means “Brugge” (which I believe it does) then it ties in even closer the link between Bruges and the New World trade. See also pp. 19, 27, and 28 in the Latin text for further references to Flemish-Greenland trade. The Flemish-Norwegian trade during this period (1282-1328) is described in the Latin text on pp. 54,-58, 100-101, 112, 117, 121-128.
[xli] Henry S. Lucas, “Mediaeval Economic Relations Between Flanders and Greenland”, op.cit., p.174
[xlii] Kirsten A. Seaver, “Desirable teeth: the medieval trade in Arctic and African ivory”, Journal of Global History, Vol. 4 (2009), pp.271-292, p.274 and p.284 quoting the Diplomatarium Norvegicum, Vol. 10, p. 30, letter to Aegidius Correnbitter in Bruges from Bishop Hakon in Bergen, 29 September 1338.
[xliii] See Holand, America, op.cit., for a detailed examination of the extensiveness of later visits. For a translation of the Kensington Runestone of 1362 please see http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6726/kensington/kensington.htm . For a remarkable series of modern maps outlining the full likely extent of Viking activity in North America through artifacts see http://www.spirasolaris.ca/sbb4g1bv.html - especially Map 4: http://www.spirasolaris.ca/1amap4.html .

Copyright 2009 by David Baeckelandt