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If there only were Greenlanders at Vinland, they were quite isolated from diseases that ravaged Europe. If they were settling in Vinland starting in the 1020s, like it seems, they would have had somewhat recent contact with Iceland, maybe a generation back. Lief Erikson was probably born in Iceland and would have been in his 50s if he was at Vinland in the 1020s. Greenland did not get the Black Plague that wiped out half of Norway's population and Iceland didn't get it at all until 1400 so they were somewhat isolated from diseases. I haven't seen anything that says the Greenlanders infected the Inuit people. There actually is a story in the sagas that on Lief Erikson's first voyage he had a crewmember who was infected with smallpox (newly arrived from Spain) when they arrived in Vinland. The infected Viking was driven out of their Vinland camp and may have infected local Indians. Smallpox was not common among the Vikings. There was a post-Greenlander smallpox epidemic among Inuit in Greenland in 1733.
So -- just speculating -- perhaps a ~30-year-old Erikson arrived in Vinland say around 1000 (+/-) with a smallpox infected crewmember who then infected the local Indians with a significant depopulation as a result. Vinland settlement seems to have been established in the early 1020s based on recent discoveries. So maybe the Indian population was depressed by disease from the earlier contact before the Vinland settlement was established, allowing it to survive for a number of years. No way to confirm it.
The Vikings took slaves to Greenland, and Iceland.
The Vikings took slaves to Greenland, and Iceland.
Maybe so but the people who went to Vinland were not the usual raping and pillaging Vikings but mostly Christianized Norse Greenlanders, mostly hunters, farmers, and herders that were developing a trade in walrus ivory to Europe. They were on a mission there in support of the Greenland settlements. Greenland had fewer resources than they needed so they went to Markland and Vinland in search of timber for their settlements. They apparently had some iron production at Vinland, badly needed in Greenland. There was nothing for Vikings to pillage in Labrador or Newfoundland and the native Skrælings were seemingly worse off than they were.
Times were changing and the Viking Age was ending. Remember that William the Conqueror was born around 1028 in Normandy, about the time that Greenlanders were in Vinland. He was the great-great-great-grandson of Rollo, a Viking leader who established a Viking settlement in Normandy around 918 and converted to Christianity. Iceland was being settled around 900 and Christianity was the religion, by law, in 1000. Dublin's Christchurch Cathedral was originally established around 1030 by the Viking inhabitants. In 1028 King Sitric Silkenbeard, Norse king of Dublin, went on a religious pilgrimage to Rome. The Vikings, still somewhat warlike, were being tamed and settling in for permanent occupation and making some civil connections with their long-time enemies.
I get the second part, but not the first. How can the Vikings have been less contaminated. At that time, the Vikings were going everywhere. They went to the Med, the Caspian Sea, and back home. They must have caught diseases from Arabs/Berbers, Turkic Nomads who have contact with Chinese. And of course other Euros as they took many slaves to Iceland.
The Volga flows from Moscow to the Caspian sea. Getting down is easy; getting back up more problematical.
Can still be done. Otherwise how news travel back, and more people come? How did Christian missionaries, and Arab emissaries get up there like Ibn Fadlan?
Interestingly, the Saga of Eric the Red makes it sound as if the Vikings did explore far below Eastern Canada and New England, which we today normally think of as "Vinland."
It could be that by "Vinland", the Vikings meant all of the regions south of Labrador (called "Markland" in the Sagas) that produced wild grapes (this could be the origin of the term "Vinland"). Northern Newfoundland doesn't have wild grapes, and in one part of the Sagas, the Vikings went to a land or cape south of Labrador, and then one group of them went west in order to find Vinland, implying that Vinland didn't include the cape right south of Labrador.
The spot where the Saga of Eric the Red makes it sound as if they traveled below New England is in Chapter 11:
Quote:
They had built their settlements up above the lake. And some of the dwellings were well within the land, but some were near the lake. Now they remained there that winter. They had no snow whatever, and all their cattle went out to graze without keepers.
The Carolinas are the furthest spot north on the eastern US coast that sometimes doesn't have snow. I don't know how far north snowfall began in the 11th century AD, but I imagine that New England had snow even then.
The Sagas give the impression that relations with the Amerindians went badly enough so that the Vikings had to leave this warmer area of the New World and go back to New England/Eastern Canada. There are a couple complicating factors to consider. One is that there was a major language barrier. They could try to use sign language to communicate, but it's not as effective as knowing the local language.
Another problem was that the Vikings probably weren't particularly good at inter-group relations, to put it lightly. The term "Viking" means literally "raider" in Norse. Eric the Red had gotten kicked out of muliple locations, including Iceland, for killing people, and the Saga of the Greenlander talks about a Viking woman who killed a couple other Vikings, maybe as part of competition for housing. The Sagas record how after one battle with the Amerindians, the Vikings sailed away and later found a couple Amerindians asleep and killed them, even though the Amerindians didn't do anything threatening to them. In another part of the Sagas, the Vikings abduct two Amerindian kids in Labrador and take them back to Greenland and teach them to speak Norse. On the other hand, the Vikings did literally try to settle in Vinland, bringing 100-200 people and a herd of cattle, and did trade with the Amerindians at times.
A third problem is that the Amerindians themselves weren't homogenous in culture or united. One coastal tribe could belong to one cultural group and be aggressive, and another coastal tribe could be much more pastoral and accommodating, but the Vikings might not be able to differentiate them, not knowing their language.
How can the Vikings have been less contaminated. At that time, the Vikings were going everywhere. They went to the Med, the Caspian Sea, and back home. They must have caught diseases from Arabs/Berbers, Turkic Nomads who have contact with Chinese. And of course other Euros as they took many slaves to Iceland.
The Vikings in Norway were contaminated and had indirect trade routes with the Mediterranean like you mentioned. The Vikings in 11th century Vinland would have been less likely targets for a plague because they had much less contact with the European world. Its contact was rather indirect: From Vinland to Greenland, from Greenland to Iceland, and only from Iceland to other regions, particularly Norway. By comparison, when the COVID virus broke out largescale across the world, I remember reading about a scientific community in the Arctic that wasn't infected because it was geographically cut off when the outbreak ramped up.
Quote:
Between 1347 and 1353, the entire medieval world suffered the worst epidemic in known history—what has now come to be called the Black Death. However, there were a few communities—and some entire nations—that were spared mostly during the initial mid-14th century outbreak.
Plague-free Iceland
Iceland escaped the first wave of plague and remained plague-free during the initial years of the Great Mortality. It seemed that it enjoyed a degree of natural protection simply by virtue of the fact that it was an island. ... It took plague a few years after the initial outbreak to make it to the Nordic countries, and Iceland’s trade relationships were primarily with Norway and Sweden.
But timing factored in, in another way as well. In August 1349, an Icelandic trading ship that had traveled to Norway was preparing to return to Reykjavik from Bergen with new goods on board. Just before the ship was scheduled to set sail, a plague epidemic was recognized as having broken out on board, and the voyage was canceled. This event both saved the Icelandic population and made them extremely cautious about trading with countries and communities where there was even a rumor of plague. https://www.wondriumdaily.com/how-ic...e-black-death/
The Vikings in Norway were contaminated and had indirect trade routes with the Mediterranean like you mentioned. The Vikings in 11th century Vinland would have been less likely targets for a plague because they had much less contact with the European world. Its contact was rather indirect: From Vinland to Greenland, from Greenland to Iceland, and only from Iceland to other regions, particularly Norway. By comparison, when the COVID virus broke out largescale across the world, I remember reading about a scientific community in the Arctic that wasn't infected because it was geographically cut off when the outbreak ramped up.
Extremely interesting.
But part of it may have come from relatively high levels of sanitation. The Jewish people also had a relatively low rate of plague infestation, contributing to though not causing anti-Semitism in Europe.
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