John Scolvus - Sources For His Alleged Existence

Sources For His Alleged Existence

It is not certain if John Scolvus really existed and whether he reached America aboard these ships. All sources mentioning him were written long afterwards. Some evidence could suggest that Scolvus did exist and sailed to some location in the North Atlantic. Primarily, a 1536 globe of cartographer Gemma Frisius depicts an area within the Arctic Circle, north of a strait dividing Terra Corterealis and Baccalearum Regio from the westward projection of Greenland. Within this area is the inscription, "Quij, the people to whom Joes Scoluss, a Dane, penetrated about the year 1476."

Spanish author Francisco López de Gómara wrote in his Historia de las Indias (1553) about la Tierra de Labrador; "Hither also came men from Norway with the pilot Joan Scoluo, and Englishmen with Sebastian Gaboto." (In the fifteenth century, Greenland was regularly called "Labrador"). Gómara had supposedly met Olaus Magnus in Bologna and Venice, perhaps in 1548. This suggests that the source of the statement about "Joan Scoluo" may have been from him.

Another possible reference to John Scolvus visiting Labrador is a document prepared in about 1575 for the first voyage of Martin Frobisher. After stating that Sebastian (should be John) "Cabotte" was sent out by King Henry VII in 1496 (should be 1497) to find the passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, and that "one Caspar Cortesreales, a pilot of Portingale", had visited these islands on the north coast of North America in 1500, the document continues: "But to find oute the passage oute of the North Sea into the Southe we must sayle to the 60 degree, that is, from 66 unto 68. And this passage is called the Narowe Sea or Streicte of the three Brethren ; in which passage, at no tyme in the yere, is ise wonte to be found. The cause is the swifte ronnyng downe of sea into sea. In the north side of this passage, John Scolus, a pilot of Denmerke, was in anno 1476." While further containing complete impossibilities, the text also contain statements that have a sure historical foundation, like the voyage of Gaspar Corte-Real.

On an English map from 1582 by Michael Lok there is a country to the north-west of Greenland, on which is written : "Jac. Scolvus Croetland.". The corresponding country on Mercator's map of 1569 is "Croclant, island whose inhabitants are Swedes by descent".

In 1597 the Dutchman Cornelius Wytfliet wrote in his Continens Indica that the northern parts of America were first discovered by "Frislandish" fishermen, and later were further explored about 1390 by the Zeno brothers. He further writes; "but the honour of its second discovery fell to the Pole Johannes Scoluus (Johannes Scoluus Polonus), who in the year 1476 — eighty-six years after its first discovery — sailed beyond Norway, Greenland, Frisland, penetrated the Northern Strait, under the very Arctic Circle, and arrived at the country of Labrador and Estotiland". It has been suggested that Polonus was a misreading of piloto from the earlier account by Gomara which Wytfliet's writings is thought to have relied on.

On the L'Ecuy globe, of the sixteenth century, it is written in Latin that between 70° and 80° N. lat. and in long. "These are the people to whom the Dane Johannes Scowus penetrated in the year 1476." The description of Scolvus as a Dane may indicate the same source as the English mention of him in 1576.

Generally, the later sources about Scolvus are less reliable, since the writers probably read the earlier accounts and more or less copied from them.