goes on to ask whether this friar was not Hugo, the Irish Minorite, who is mentioned as a traveller, but of whom nothing definite is known. He states, however, that from Lynn, whence the friar sailed, was only a fortnight's voyage, with a fair wind, to Iceland.
Hakluyt, without any apparent authority, identifies the unknown friar with Nicholas of Lynn, though the latter was of a different religious order. Fuller, in his 'Worthies,' says of Norfolk in his own punning way, "No county doth carry a top and a gallant more high," and warns "none to be offended if a friar be put before the rest," but does not tell us to what friar he is referring. Supposing the identification to he accepted, Chaucer appears to allude to him and his navigations. The Nicholas of the "Miller's Tale" owns an astrolabe, and his navigations may be jestingly alluded to in the incident of the tub.[1] This is all the more probable as the Oxford Nicholas was a friend of John of Gaunt, a distinction which Chaucer also shared.
A priori there is nothing improbable in the voyage of Nicholas, especially since there was during the fourteenth century, as we have seen, a thoroughly established trade between England and Iceland. Ranulfus Higden, however, who wrote his 'Polychronicon' in 1363, does not allude to Nicholas's voyage. His book may, of course, have been composed before the return of the voyager. Nor is there any mention in the contemporary records of Lynn. Here again their silence is not absolutely decisive, as very scanty trace remains of the many voyages to Iceland which we know from excellent authorities did really take place. Lynn was a port with great trade throughout the middle ages, and the sailing of every ship could not be recorded.
The 'Inventio Fortunata' is mentioned on the margin of a map of the world by John Ruysch, and dated 1508. "It is written in the book of the 'Inventio Fortunata' that there is a very lofty rock of loadstone beneath the Arctic Pole, thirty-three German miles in circuit. Round this flows an indrawing sea, fluid like a vase, pouring water through openings below. About are islands, of which two are inhabited. Huge and broad mountain chains surround these islands, of which twenty-four will not allow of settlement by man."[2]
- ↑ As De Costa has suggested. 'Inventio Fortunata,' 17, 18.
- ↑ "Legere est īlibro de ivētione fortvnati svb polo arctico rvpē esse excelsā ex lapide magnete. 33. miliarivm Germanorvm ambitv. Hvnc cōplectitvr mare svgenvm flvidvm instar vasis aqvā deorsv̄ per foramina emittētis. circv̄ isule sv̄t. & .e qvibos incolv̄tor dve ambivnt avtem has insulas continvi montes vasti latiq: dietis. 24. qbo negāt hominvm.
