Geographers, explorers, fisherfolk, and entrepreneurs had very different attitudes toward the extreme north and extreme south in the early modern period. Neither pole was seen as inhabitable, although interactions with Inuit and Lapps from the sixteenth century on caused Europeans to modify this view. The northern area was most often seen as a path to Cathay and the Far East, while the south was completely unknown and only glimpsed by circumnavigators like Ferdinand Magellan (Fernao de Magelhaes; c. 1480-1521) and Sir Francis Drake (1540 or 1543-1596).
Theories of the globe changed during the early modern period, affected first by the rediscovery of ancient geographical knowledge and later by exploration reports. From Aristotle and Ptolemy, most Greek and Roman commentators as well as medieval geographers believed that there was simply one continent, or oikoumene, that consisted of the known world. For Ptolemy, this oikoumene was quite large, from the prime meridian, passing through the Blessed Isles to longitude 180° east; and from 63° north latitude to 16°25' south lati
Tude. This encompassed the civilized world as Ptolemy knew it and he implied that the world and its map were complete. From 1406, with the rediscovery of Ptolemy’s Geographia, and with it the longitude and latitude coordinate system, Ptolemaic maps once again appeared. The oikoumene remained an important visual depiction of the globe, used for example by Gregor Reisch in Margarita philosophica (1504). Throughout the sixteenth century this map was modified, first by the addition of America by Martin Waldseemuller in 1507, but it was not until the world map of Gerhard Mercator, produced in Antwerp in 1569, followed by that of Abraham Oertel (Abraham Ortelius), produced in Antwerp in 1570, that a large northern and southern continent appeared.
Arctic and Antarctic. A largely imaginary map of the northern Atlantic Ocean by Nicolo Zeno that Girolamo Ruscelli included in his 1561 edition of Ptolemy’s Geography. Based on the supposed travels of Zeno’s ancestors in the North Atlantic circa 1380, the map includes a number of fictitious islands such as Frisland, Icaria, and Estotiland. The map was taken seriously by many at the time of the Geography’s publication, and these nonexistent places remained on maps for centuries afterward. Map
Collection, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University
Arctic and Antarctic. Gerhard Mercator’s famous 1595 map of the Arctic region, one of the first of that area, represents the late medieval concept of four rivers flowing into a central whirlpool around a large rock at the north pole, but also includes information gathered by polar explorers such as Martin Frobisher, John Davis, and Willem Barentz. The map also reflects the interest in finding a northwest passage between Europe and Asia, which lasted throughout the early modern period. Map
Collection, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University
At the same time, the Greek climatic theory remained important throughout the early modern period. Parmenides had postulated the existence of five climatic zones; the two polar zones were too cold to inhabit, and the torrid zone was likewise uninhabitable, leaving only the two temperate zones for human occupation. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this theory was modified,
Since explorers from Christopher Columbus on had demonstrated inhabitants in all regions. Rather, geographers claimed that climate affected temperament and that those living in the Far North were very aggressive, and lacking in culture, government, or laws. Thus, the Europeans from the temperate zone were believed better suited to manage the affairs of those both to the north and the south.
Arctic and Antarctic. On Henricus Hondius’s map of the south polar regions, which first appeared in a Dutch atlas by Jan Jansson in 1637, the supposed outline of the unknown southern continent appears faintly around the top and right of the Antarctic Circle. The string of islands to the left of the title cartouche has text indicating their discovery by Magellan. A partial outline of the coast of newly discovered Australia appears at the bottom, with the names of early explorers noted. MAP Collection, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University
Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, Europeans expanded their knowledge of the globe through exploration. They discovered the Americas and, by the end of the period, had sailed to most inhabited regions of the world. Exploration of the Arctic was carried out by northern Europeans, especially Scandinavians, Dutch, French, and English. These northern nations had fishermen who had exploited the northern seas for generations, both in the waters north of Scandinavia and Mus
Covy, and west to the Grand Banks, where the fish were so plentiful that the catch was well worth the difficult voyage. Building on the success of these fishing expeditions, although usually with other trade and geographical goals in mind, explorers began to search the north for a passage to the most desired trading location of the early modern period: Cathay. They searched for both a northeast and a northwest passage and in the process, set up trading companies and some colonial outposts.
The search for the northeast passage led around Scandinavia to Archangel (Arkhangel’sk), and to the creation of the Dutch and English Muscovy Companies in the 1550s. Although some explorers believed they had discovered unicorn horns, indicating that they were on the right track, the passage to China was never discovered, and trade with Muscovy turned out to be easier across land. The northern waters were left to the whalers.
In the west, English and French explorers were limited to northern exploration by the powerful presence of the Spanish in the more temperate zones. They also sought the wealth that the Spanish and Portuguese were amassing, both through the discovery of gold and silver in Mesoamerica and through trade with China. Through necessity, then, they sailed north, and became convinced that there was a way through the continent in that direction. Some geographers argued that there was a large northern continent surrounding the pole, with a strait below it leading to China. This strait, labeled the Strait of Anian or of the ‘‘Three Brothers,’’ appeared on Oertel’s map of 1564 and was repeated on other maps well into the seventeenth century. A number of explorers looked for this strait, and occasionally found it. The English mariner Martin Frobisher, for example, was convinced that he was sailing into the strait, on his second voyage of 1577. Explorers such as Frobisher, John Davis, and Henry Hudson all searched for this passage, and while they developed maps of the region, they were ultimately unsuccessful in their quest.
In the south, interest in a polar continent was almost nonexistent until the end of this period. Both Magellan and Drake sailed south around the Americas and in the process saw what they thought might be a southern unknown continent. In 1520 Magellan proceeded through the strait that now bears his name, passing between mainland South America and Tierra del Fuego. He thought that the latter was the tip of a much larger continent, especially because geographers such as Mercator had argued that a southern continent would be necessary to balance the Eurasian landmass in the Northern Hemisphere. Magellan’s interest, however, was not with this continent, but rather in the path to the Spice Islands (Moluccas). Drake’s later circumnavigation, beginning in 1577, also passed through the Strait of Magellan and again, Drake believed Tierra del Fuego to be part of a much larger landmass. After clearing the strait, however, Drake’s ship was blown farther south, and it began to look as if there was a cape below, like that around Africa. The first search for Terra Australis Incognita was undertaken by the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603-1659), who in the 1640s explored the north coast of Australia and discovered Tasmania and New Zealand. The push to discover the great southern continent, however, did not begin until the eighteenth century.
The Arctic and Antarctic were not the primary focus of Europeans in this period, but rather a means to other ends. Voyages there were dangerous and not particularly prosperous. However, theories ofthe existence ofthese continents led to colonization and exploration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By then, the discoveries of the Pacific seemed more appealing than those in the Far North, and the southern continent gained attraction while the northwest passage became a less important quest.
See also Cartography and Geography; Exploration.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Source
Ortelius, Abraham. Theatrum orbis terrarum. Antwerp, 1570.
Secondary Sources
Andrews, Kenneth R. Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630. Cambridge, U. K., and New York, 1984.
Parry, J. H. The Age of Reconnaissance: Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement, 1450 to 1650. London, 1963.
Whitfield, Peter. New Found Lands: Maps in the History of Exploration. New York, 1998.
Lesley B. Cormack
World History
