Ærkebiskop Erik Valkendorf og kortlægningen af det yderste nord i begyndelsen af 1500-tallet

This article examines how the North was perceived and described during the Renaissance, particularly in the early 1500s. The northernmost border of the known Christian world began to be described on maps of the 15th and early 16th centuries as part of the Renaissance endeavour to describe the world cartographically. In particular, the article focuses on Norwegian Archbishop Erik Valkendorf’s (c. 1465–1522) descriptions of the North and their significance for the contemporary perception of the Arctic and Greenland, in a European context. The article argues that Valkendorf’s descriptions had a greater impact than previously thought on the perception of the North, and the people who lived there, outside Scandinavia. Particularly important in this respect was the connection between Valkendorf and the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller’s map, which is presented for the first time in the article. At the same time, the article points out that the existing knowledge was allegedly spread through international networks of scholars, diplomats and clergy, which have not been seriously explored in this context before.