In this series of posts I have mentioned the Welsh prince Madoc and his mythical voyages to America, Legendary King Arthur (of Camelot and Knights of the Round Table fame) and his conquest of Iceland (plus a pre-Viking Celtic peopling of Iceland c.550 AD); I also mentioned David Ingram's 2,000 mile trek from Tampico, Mexico to Nova Scotia, Canada, where he saw elephants, gigantic eagles, strange beasts, horses, cattle, sheep, and also Indians that spoke Welsh. Today's post will look into the adventures of an English priest who sailed to the North Pole. All of these myths were used by John Dee to establish the precedence and rights of Elizabethan England over America.
The Franciscan Priest who visited the North Pole in 1360 AD
There is a lost book called Inventio Fortunata which recorded the Polar adventures of a priest in the Middle Ages. It was read by cartographers of the Modern Age who recorded its existence.
First Mention: 1508 AD
It was first mentioned in a marginal note by Johannes Ruysch in his map published in 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." (Source). Loadstone is magnetite, a naturally magnetized mineral.
Second Mention: 1577 AD
This lofty magnetic island was known as Rupes Nigra, Latin words for "Rock" and "Black". As we will see below, Mercator showed it in his map. He also described it in a letter to John Deem written in 1577 (source). Mercator mentions the Franciscan friar and that he visited the Pole in the year 1360 AD.
Mercator begins his story describing the Circumpolar area and then he mentions King Arthur!:
"The islands adjacent to the North Pole were formerly called Ciliae (perhaps Thule), and now the Septentrionales
... Part of the army of King Arthur which conquered the Northern Islands and made them subject to him. And we read that nearly 4000 persons entered the indrawing seas who never returned. But in A.D. 1364 eight of these people came to the King’s Court in Norway. Among them were two priests, one of whom had an astrolabe, who was descended in the 5th generation from a Bruxellensis: One, I say: The eight (were sprung from?) those who had penetrated the Northern Regions in the first ships.
That great army of Arthur’s had lain all the winter (of 530 A.D.) in the northern islands of Scotland. And on May 3 a part of it crossed over into Iceland. Then four ships of the aforesaid land had come out of the North. And warned Arthur of the indrawing seas. So that Arthur did not proceed further, but peopled all the Islands between Scotland and Iceland, and - also peopled Grocland. (So it seems the Indrawing Sea only begins beyond Grocland). In this Grocland he found people 23 feet tall, that Is to say of the feet with which land is measured.
When those four ships returned, there were sailors who asserted that they knew where the magnetic lands (?) were."
So we have priests who descended from those who had settled the circumpolar areas during King Arthur's time. The Icelandic ships warned the king about the dangers and he didn't go on, but peopled the Orkneys, Shetlands, Faroe (between Scotland and Iceland) as well as Grocland (inhabited by giants).
The letter continues:
" [Arthur afterwards put on board a fleet of 12 ships about] 1800 men and about 400 women. They sailed north¬ wards on May 3 in the year following that in which the former ships had departed. And of these 12 ships, five were driven on the rocks in a storm, but the rest of them made their way between the high rocks on June 18, which was 44 days after they had set out. (More precisely, perhaps, some of them made their way.)
The priest who had the astrolabe related to the king of Norway that in A.D. 1360 there had come to these Northern Islands an English Minorite from Oxford, who was a good astronomer etc. Leaving the rest of the party, who had come to the Islands, he journeyed further through the whole of the North etc., and put into writing all the wonders of those, and gave the King of England this book, which he called in Latin Inventio Fortunatae, which book began at the last climate, that is to say latitude 54°, continuing to the Pole."
The letter then goes on to describe the islands, and seas, mountains, forests, short-statured people not more than 4 feet tall (1.2 m). Interestingly it tells of previous voyagers: "This Monk said that In two other places further inland he found a great piece of ship’s planking and other balks which had been used in big ships besides many trunks of trees which at some earlier date had been hewn down. So that he could say with certainty that there had formerly been habitation there but the people had now gone." and mentions Brazil trees: "All these four countries are high open lands (i.e. plateaus) except some mountains four fathom [sic] high. There are many trees of Brazil wood." A fathom is 1.8 meters or 6 ft. The text continues:
"In the midst of the four countries is a Whirl-pool... into which there empty these four Indrawing Seas which divide the North. And the water rushes round and descends into the earth just as if one were pouring it through a filter funnel. It is 4 degrees wide on every side of the Pole, that is to say eight degrees altogether. Except that right under the Pole there lies a bare rock in the midst of the Sea. Its circumference is almost 33 French miles*, and it is all of magnetic stone. And is as high as (the clouds?) so the Priest said, who had received the astrolabe from this Minorite in exchange for a Testament. And the Minorite himself had heard that one can see all round it from the Sea: and it is black and glistening. And nothing grows thereon, for there is not so much as a handful of soil on it. That was the writing and words of the Minorite, who has since journeyed to and fro five times for the King of England on business. They are to be found in a book called Inventio Fortunae, of which the Minorite himself was author."
* One French mile was known as a lieue or league, it varied according to the region (That is why the French, during the Revolution created the Metric system). It was equivalent to 2-3 miles or 3.6 to 4.8 km.
The four countries were islands that surrounded the Arctic region, they can be seen in the map below. The sea in this area was said to flow towards the pole (indrawing the water and ships into a vortex that flowed into the Earth). It was so strong, according to the letter, "that no wind can make a ship sail back against it." The Rupes Nigra island was made of magentic rock, a giant magnetic mountain that drew all of the compass needles towards the North (interesting explanation for the then unknown Earth's magnetic field). Minorite was the name given to a member of the Franciscan Order of friars, or Orders of Friors Minor, called so because minor means "lesser" in Latin and St. Francis of Assisi held that his followers should be frateres minores or "lesser brothers", living austere lives like he did.
Nicholas of Lynne
The misterious Minorite is believed to have been Nicholas of Lynne, a Franciscan friar. He was also an astronomer and mathematician who lectured in Oxford in the mid 1300s.
In this work, Hakluyt includes a chapter dedicated to Certaine testimonies concerning king Arthur and his Conquests of the North Regions and includes The voyage of Nicholas de Lynna, a Franciscan Frier, and an excellent Mathematician of Oxford, to all the Regions, situated vnder the North pole, in the yeere 1360 in the raigne of Edward the 3, king of England, the text is in Latin and also translated in the same text into English on p.249. Below is the English version:
"Touching the descriptions of the North parts, I have taken the same out of the voyage of James Cnoyen of Hartzevan Buske, which attegeth certain, conquests of Arthur king of Britaine, and the most part, and chiefest things among the rest he learned of a certain priest in the king of Norway’s court, in the year 1364. This priest was descended (In the fifth generation)’ from them which King Arthur had sent to inbabito these Islands, & he reported in the yeere 1360, a certaine English Frier, a Franciscan, and a Mathematician of Oxford, came into those Islands, who leaving them, & passing further by his magical Arte, described all those places that he sawe, & tooke the height of them with his astrolabe, according to the forme that I have set down in my map, and as I have taken it out of the aforesaid Jacob Cnoyen. He said that those foure Indraughts were drawne into an inwarde gulfe or whirlepoole, with so great a force, that the ships which once entered therin could by no means be driven backe againe, and that there is never in these partes so much wind blowing as might be sufficient to drive a cornmill. Geraldus Cambrensis hath certaine words altogether alike with these."
But John Dee seems to have believed the friar was another Franciscan known as Hugo of Ireland (Source), and Thomas Blundeville wrote in 1589 that he didn't believe that the friar had sailed to the Arctic. (Source): "Moreover the north side of the Promontorie Tabin hath 76 degrees of latitude, which place, whatsoever Plinie saith thereof in his fourth 'Booke of Histories', yet I beleeve that no Roman came ever there to describe the Promontorie. Neither doe I beleeve that the Frier of Oxford by vertue of his art of magike, ever came so nigh the Pole to measure with his astrolabe those cold parts, together with the foure floods, which Mercator and Barnardus doe describe both in the front and also in the nether end of their maps, unlesse he had some cold Deuill out of the middle region of the aire to be his guide. And therefore I take them in mine opinion to be meere fables."
Another option is that the information about the polar regions was collected by Ivar Bárdson who travelled to and from Greenland, starting in 1340, in charge of a see there. He must have had first hand information about the islands, seas, and neighboring Canada. He was in Norway around 1360 and could have met the Oxonian franciscan friar there, sharing his knowledge with him (Source).
Comments
The fantasy of the magnetic mountain island, the whirpools and subducting water at the pole make an amazing tale. The pygmies and giants also add to a story adapted to people who were transitioning from the Middle Ages to the Modern times of the Rennaisance and Humanism
The multiple islands, channels, icebergs and strong currents could portray a vision of North America: the tides along Canada's coast, the Estuary of St. Laurence River, Terranova, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and the dark forests peopled with strange Native Americans would have excited the imagination of Medieval voyagers and chroniclers.
Interestingly the Brazil tree wood used to dye and tint in Medieval Europe appears in these stories, probably sourced from Brazil in South America, but assigned to these unknown Arctic regions.
There may be an ancient true story hidden in these sagas. It is possible that there were voyages of Monks to these northern islands (Greenland, Iceland, Faroe, Shetland and Orkneys) which also originated the myth of Saint Brendan and his mysterious Island. Then there are the Arthurian folkore of conquests of the norther island which may evoke ancient Celtic voyages west towards America.
Further Reading
B. F DeCosta. Inventio Fortunata. ARCTIC EXPLORATION WITH AN ACCOUNT OF Nicholas of Lynn, Read before the American Geographical Society, Chickering Hall, May 15th, 1880. Reprinted from the Bulletin of the Society.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall ©
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