[Sidenote: Papal letter on Greenland, 1492]
Of great interest is a letter from Pope Alexander VI.[92] of the first year of his papacy, 1492-1493, which was written in consequence of a Benedictine monk named Mathias having applied to the Pope to be appointed bishop of Greenland, and declared himself willing to go there personally as a missionary to convert the apostates. The letter runs:
"As we are informed, the church at Gade [i.e., Gardar] lies at the world's end in the land of Greenland, where the people, for want of bread, wine and oil, live on dried fish and milk; and therefore, as well as by reason of the extreme rarity of the voyages that have taken place to the said land, for which the severe freezing of the waters is alleged as the cause, it is believed that for eighty years no ship has landed there; and if such voyages should take place, it is thought that in any case it could only be in the month of August, when the same ice is dissolved; and for this reason it is said that for eighty years or thereabouts no bishop or priest has resided at that church. Therefore, and because there are no Catholic priests, it has befallen that most of the parishioners, who formerly were Catholics, have (oh, how sorrowful!) renounced the holy sacrament of baptism received from them; and that the inhabitants of that land have nothing else to remind them of the Christian religion than a corporale [altar-cloth] which is exhibited once a year, and whereon the body of Christ was consecrated a hundred years ago by the last priest who was there." For this reason, "to provide them with a fitting shepherd," Pope Alexander's predecessor, Innocent VIII., had appointed the Benedictine monk Mathias bishop of Gade [Gardar], and he "with much godly zeal made ready to bring the minds of the infidels and apostates back to the way of eternal salvation and to root out such errors," etc. Then follow exhortations to the Curia, the chancellors, and all the religious scriveners under pain of excommunication to let the said Mathias, on account of his poverty, escape all expenses and perquisites connected with the appointment and correspondence, etc.
The statements in the letter agree remarkably well with what we gather from other historical sources. In 1410--that is, eighty-two years before the date of the letter--the last ship of which we have any notice arrived in Norway from Greenland (see above, p. 118). This agrees with the statement in the letter that no ship had been there for eighty years. In 1377 the last officiating bishop of Gardar died, and six years later the news reached Norway, that is, 109 years before the date of the letter. This agrees with what is said about the altar-cloth being used a hundred years before by the last priest ("ultimo sacerdote," perhaps meaning here bishop ?) at the administration of the sacrament. The assertion that it was not until August that Greenland became free of ice and that voyages could be made thither also shows a certain local knowledge; for it was not till late in the summer, usually August, that "Knarren" was accustomed to sail from Bergen to Greenland.