1402-4

• The Black Plague reaches Iceland.

1408

The first English fishermen visit the Iceland banks about this time, in search of cod (and competing against the Hanse), possibly as a result of the plague in Iceland

1409

• (19 April) The Marriage certificate is issued for Thorstein Olafsson's wedding at Hvalsey ("Whale Island". Eastern Settlement) by the priest Sir Paul Halvardsson and the Bishop in officialis Sir Eindridi Andresson [Norlund, Norse Ruins a Gardar; Viking Settlers in Greenland].

1410

• Olaf Thorstein, and his friends, all sail from Greenland to Norway.

1411

• Bjorn Einarsson returns from Jerusalem.

1412

• English fishermen (30 doggers) arrive in Iceland
• Queen Margarethe died, and was succeeded by her nephew Eirik of Pomerania for the Triple Crown.

1413

• An English merchantman arrives in Iceland.
• A merchant named Richard stays with Gisli Andresson and his wife, Gudrun Styrsdaughter (supposed widow of Snorri Torfason, who's been off in Greenland with Olaf Thorstein) and is staying with them when Olaf Thorstein and his comrades return to Iceland.
• There is a major fire in the Hanseatic quarter of Bergen

1415-61

• Bristol Corporate archives are missing.

About 1418

• The English by this time are getting involved with Icelandic politics, as well as with the Greenland-farers and their friends and relations.
• (A small cross of English pewter is lost at Hvalsey; and a table knife similar to Knives and Scabbards (p.89, fig.87) is lost at Gardar.)
• According to papal letter of 1448, "barbarous pagans invaded Greenland and took many slaves" [N.B. authenticity of letter is suspect].

1419

• English violence breaks out in Iceland, as they continue to push for political power.

About 1420

• Possible alternate date of writing of Skalholtsbok by Olaf Lotpsson, cousin of Sigrid Bjornsdaughter and related to Bjorn Einarsson.

1420

• Thorleif Arnason, sailing to complain to the King about the English, is attacked by an English ship, before making it to Norway. The Englishman from Hull loot and pillage in Iceland.

1422

• The Englishmen from Hull attack and rob the Royal farm at Bessastaðir.

1423

• The Englishmen from Hull attack and rob the Royal farm at Bessastaðir.

1424

• The Englishmen from Hull attack and rob the Royal farm at Bessastaðir.
• Bristol holds its foreign merchants for ransom.

1425

• Englishmen from Hull capture the governor of Iceland and his deputy.
• The Danish Cartographer, Claudius Clavus, claims to have been to Greenland sometime after this time. His maps make no note of Nordic settlers, athough he does discuss the "Karols", or Inuit [Norlund, Viking Settlers in Greenland].

1426

• John Williamson Craxton is named Bishop of Holar.

1428

• Hanse pirates raid and sack Bergen.
• The last Icelandic ship to Bergen returns home. Henceforth, they trade with Copenhagen.

1429

• Five Icelandic boys and three girls are found to have been sold into slavery in Bristol.
• Eleven Icelandic children arrive in Lynn and are being sold into slavery when they are discovered by Bishop Jon Gereksson of Skalholt, who happens to be in Lynn. He removes the children from Lynn sends them home.
• King Henry VI decrees that all English Cod merchants had to go to Bergen to trade for northern fish.
• Bishop John arrives in Iceland.

1430

• Last Icelandic medieval annals end.

1430 +/-15

• Most current dating for some of the Herjofsnes finds [Arenborg, et.al. "C-14 dating and the disappearance of Norsemen from Greenland" Europhysics News 33:3 (2002)]

1431

• Thorstein Olafsson passes a resolution against the English to be sent to the King. A Smallpox epidemic ravages Iceland. Thorstein Olafsson dies about this time.

1432

• King Eirik orders the English to free and return any people taken from northern countries. Bishop Jon Gereksson is dragged from his own cathedral in Iceland and drowned by irate Icelanders.

c.1440

• There are numerous hypotheses about what happened to the Greenlanders.  One suggests that the survivors walked across the ice and became the ancestors of the Algonquin Indians (http://hometown.aol.com/frozntrl)

1448

• Papal letter of Nicholas V refers to an attack on Greenlanders "30 years before" that took many of them captive. Now they are free and returning home, and are asking for a Priest. The Pope refers to the "fervent piety" of the Greenlanders. [N.B. authenticity of letter is suspect]

1453

• A cataclysmic volcanic eruption in the South Pacific alters worldwide weather patterns for three years.

1461

• Oldest surviving Bristol customs documents regarding Iceland.

Sometime in the 1470s

• Portuguese expedition to North may have reached Greenland?

1472-3

• A Danish-Norwegian expedition sailed for Greenlands waters led by Didrik Pining and Hans Pothorst at the insistence of the Portuguese to look for new lands to the west. They spy Eskimos east of Cape Farewell [Norlund, Viking Settlers in Greenland] [This may have taken place as late as 1476 [email from Alfredo Pinheiro Marques to MapHist and Discovery 28 March 2000]]

1475

• Date of Inuit mummies in Qibakitsoq (in Nordresetr) [National Geographic, 1985]

About 1475-80

• The Danish "Pirates" Didrik Pining and Pothorst are operating in the North Atlantic, chasing down the English (allegedly in ships outfitted by the Hanse).

1477

• Columbus allegedly sailed north to Iceland. Columbus may have claimed that the English were in Greenland.

1478

• Pining becomes royal Governor of Iceland

1480

• Thomas Croft leads an expedition searching for the "Island of Brasil" in the North Atlantic, near Greenland.

1481

• Thomas Croft leads an expedition searching for the "Island of Brasil" in the North Atlantic, near Greenland. They may have found Newfoundland.

1484

• Nearly fifty Icelanders are in service in Bristol households.
• An old manuscript (of debatable ancestry) claims that in Bergen, some 40 sailors claimed they regularly sailed to and came away with valuables from Greenland. Hanse merchants killed them (They may have been English cod merchants).

1486

• A Bristol ship sold a crew of Hanse slaves in Galway.

1492

• Papal letter of Alexander IV suggests that the people of Greenland have been abandoned by the church for so long that they've reverted to "heathen practices" [Seaver, the Frozen Echo. This may have been in a letter to the Benedictine monk Matthias Knudson offering him the See of Gardar, if he would be willing to GO there and lead the people back to Christianity [Norlund, < in Settlers>].

About 1495

• The Portuguese expedition of Pedro Pinheiro y Joao Fernandes sailed around the Newfoundland, Laborador, Davis Straights area, and may have visited Greenland [this may be the same as the 1496 Joao Fernandes Lavrador and Pedro de Barcelos expedition ][email from Alfredo Pinheiro Marques to MapHist and Discovery 28 March 2000]

1497

• John Cabot's successful expedition to the "Island of the Seven Cities" makes the location of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland common knowledge. [Joao Fernandes almost certain was on this expedition].