Greenland

GROENLANDIA - Broad glacial valley between Kjerulf Fjord and Hisinger Glacier.

the Windesheim priory of G. was in decline when it was definitively suppressed by the law of 15 Fructidor 1796. Its religious had distinguished themselves as copyists and writers: the Library of G. was very rich.

The Virilogium of Jean Jonchère (d. 1510), a chronicle of G., is lost. The history of G. is traced, with a great wealth of information on the religious and benefactors, by the two obituaries or necrologies, the first of which was begun in 1386 by Francone Zeedelere (d. 1401) of Lovanio; the second was compiled from 1401 to 1414 by Sayman van Wijc (d. 1438). The two precious registers were continued by other religious; the older one until 1750, the second until 1623. They were critically edited by the Jesuit Marc Dykmans.

GREENLAND. - It is the largest island (2,175 km²) in the world. The name (Grönland = "green land") was given to it by the Norsemen who first settled there in the 10th century. Only a little over 300,000 km² along the coasts are free from the immense and powerful ice sheet that covers it entirely and masks its relief.

On the less inhospitable and cold western coast live 20,013 inhabitants; only 1,371 on the eastern coast, all indigenous (Eskimos), except for 569 Europeans. Of the tiny inhabited centers, none reaches 1,000 inhabitants; the capital Godthab (western coast) has 744. The predominant occupations are fishing, hunting (whales, seals, bears), and breeding (reindeer, sheep, polar foxes). At Ivigtut, cryolite is extracted, and at Arsuk, coal. Greenland is a Danish colony, which has been under North American occupation since May 1940.

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS HISTORY. - Discovered around the year 1000 by Erik the Red. A few years later, Christianity was introduced from Norway, and the bishopric of G. was established (1124) with its seat at Gardar, near present-day Julianhaab. Initially dependent on the archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen, then on that of Lund, the diocese was placed under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Nidaros (Trondheim) in the mid-12th century. In the 13th century, Gardar counted 16 churches and 2 convents; in 1926, the ruins of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, built in 1150 by Bishop Arnaldo, were excavated. In 1261, King Haakon Haakonsson of Norway proclaimed his sovereignty over G., but after the great plague of 1348, which ravaged all of Europe, communications between G. and Norway became increasingly rare. At the same time, the Scandinavian settlers were bled dry by continuous struggles with the pagan Eskimos, who destroyed almost all the churches; repopulation was no longer possible.

No one wished to hear of G., an inhospitable land, nor did the bishops appointed by the popes intend to reside there. Around 1520, the energetic archbishop of Nidaros, Erik Valkendorf, sought to send an expedition to G. to reclaim it for civilization and the Church, but, having fallen out of favor with King Christian II, his plan could not be carried out. Only in 1721 did this Arctic land re-enter the civilized world thanks to the Norwegian Protestant pastor Hans Egede, who led an expedition to the coasts of western G. In 1776, Christian VII of Denmark declared trade with G. a state monopoly. After the Treaty of Kiel (1814), which resulted in the separation of Norway from Denmark, G. remained under Danish sovereignty, but at the end of the First World War, a dispute arose between Copenhagen and Oslo over sovereignty over eastern G., a disagreement resolved in 1933 by the Permanent Court of International Justice, which awarded sovereignty to Denmark.