This is how they thought the country looked in 1662 – NRK Vestland
– This is the oldest map that only shows Norway and nothing else. We are very proud of that.
Section leader Bjørn-Arvid Bagge shows it devoutly at the Special Collections at the University Library in Bergen.
– It is hand-colored. The colors and everything looks almost like it was done yesterday. It’s beautiful, simply.
At the top of the page it says «Norvegia Regnum» and «Nor-ryke».
– That is, “the Norwegian kingdom,” even though we under Denmark were not our own kingdom.
Hypercard anniversary exhibition
The University of Bergen is 75 years old this year. The anniversary was marked this week, among other things, with a very exclusive exhibition, both in time and scope. Three of the university’s most valued paper treasures were taken from document magazines.
The unique documents were shown publicly in just one – 1 – Day.
First for King Harald on Monday. So for the people, that is to say the people of Bergen, on Tuesday.
I add to the map of Norway the small exhibition consisted of:
359 years, but as new
The unique map of Norway was published in Amsterdam in 1662, but according to UiB is probably much older. In the same book, there are also six other map sheets that cover different parts of the country. The various dioceses have been given their color.
– The craftsmanship is fantastic. It is as if the colors have been applied healthy recently, still fresh and strong.
That’s what Cecilie Marie Gottfred, curator at the University of Bergen, says.
– These are graphic prints, carved into copper plates. The colors are layers of different minerals. The paper is handmade from old textiles, truleg cotton thread combined with other material. They really knew what they were doing. This is made to last.
– Today we are used to books turning yellow after a few years, but here the 350-year-old paper is hard to get rid of?
– This is the oldest and best paper available. Incredibly durable and soft. Modern paper contained acid which yellowed quickly and became brittle, she says.
Norway «isolated from the world»
There are even older maps that show Norway, but then as part of Scandinavia or Western Europe. So this is the first drawing of our country isolated from the rest of the world.
In this sense, Norway was then for the first time portrayed as “something for itself”, even though this was in the middle of the “Danish era” and the country was ruled from Copenhagen. 152 years before Norway tore itself free from Denmark and got its own constitution in 1814, and 243 years before the country was independent from Sweden in 1905.
It is not known who drew this world’s first map of Norway. But one knows that the map of the diocese of Stavanger in the same book is signed by Laurits Clausen Scavenius, the Danish bishop of Stavanger who died in 1626.
Her you can scroll to the different maps of Norway and the regions, and zoom in.
Dutch timber trade
The 17th century was the century of the Dutch. They had the best maps and sailed on all the world’s oceans. The book with the map of Norway and the regions was donated by the Dutch publisher Johannes Blaeu.
Bagge likes that there are small illustrations on the Dutch map.
– For example, on large world atlases you can see a map with gromme North African slave owners and slaves. In maps of Finnmark, there may be Eskimos and preferably a polar bear.
As there are quite a few found and found of Finnmark.
The Stavanger map also has such a characteristic: a lumberjack with a small tree.
– It is possible to buy the map of Norway and the various dioceses of our team. The Dutch and the English trong kart when they were going here to buy timber. Large amounts of timber.
It is said, for example, that after the city fire in 1666, London was built with Norwegian timber.
– Maybe it was to be a little hard in.
The map of Norway also opened the Norwegian coast for direct trade with the Dutch, without the king’s control and taxation. The king in Copenhagen did not like it.
Fredrik the 3rd believed around the year 1660 that the Dutch had cheated him for 300 barrels of gold, worth 30 million riksdalar, in timber for which they had not paid taxes.
This corresponded to 25 annual state budgets in Denmark-Norway at that time.
– A huge sum. The king probably smeared a little well, my Bagge.
Inaccurate men best
The map of Norway in 1662 is not exactly correct. The shape of the countryside is simply quite strange. One striking feature is that the southern tip of the country is very spiss. Agder is almost like an arrowhead or a sharp house corner.
– They have done the best they could based on the preconditions they had. That was probably how they saw it going, says Bagge.
The map shows that the Dutch were interested in the coast, and their total lack of interest in, for example, Telemark, which is just a big white spot on the map.
– This was the sailing ship era. Therefore, it is the cities that were easy to add with sailing ships that are marked on the map.
Others have said the explanation is that the Dutch fear murderous telemarketing.
Regardless: The further north or into the country one comes, the more mistakes and fewer details it becomes.
– Dovrefjell and the area towards Sweden are only outlined. The Dutch neither knew nor cared. It was the cracking indifferent what was inland there. They were looking for the timber, they.
The Dutch maps, however, were the best of their time.
– In connection with the battle of Vågen in Bergen in 1665, the Dutch sailed straight in there, while the English struggled to find their way. Maps were worth their weight in gold, in fact more valuable than gold. The first thing one did to meet the enemy in approaching waters was to try to destroy their maps, so that no one would be allowed to take over that knowledge, Bagge said.
Drvnthem and Hucklefield
Stavanger and “Berghen” are of course marked, but also, for example, “Carmen” (Karmøy) and “Store Soteren” (Sotra). Outside Stavanger it says «North Sea» (North Sea), but outside Bergen it says «Mare Germanium». The German Sea?
– I can not answer that, but we can speculate a little. Bergen was Hanseatic and German until well into the 17th century, says Bagge.
There are also map sheets of “Opsloe” (Oslo), “Hammer” (Hamar), “Drvnthem” (Trondheim) and “Finnmarchia”. Some city names are easier to decipher if you read them aloud. What about, for example, “Hucklefield” or “Soyde”?
Everything is on Marcus
All the map in order is of course digitized, just like a lot of documents, manuscripts, books, photographs and maps in the university library’s special collections.
– It is fabulous to be able to show people that we have these things. Via the portal marcus.uib.no can anyone find our older material online, says Bugge.
One conclusion: Hucklefield means Haukelifjell. Soy means Sauda.