We came across this little plaque in King’s Lynn in Norfolk, and I was intrigued. I discovered that Nicholas was a famous mathematician and astronomer as well as being a monk. He was born in about 1330 and died at the age of sixty in 1390. In the days before surnames people were often identified by the place they came from, so it is likely that although Nicholas was an academic at Oxford University, he probably originated from King’s Lynn. If this is so, which seems likely, he would be very familiar with sea travel as Lynn was a major port in those days.
When he was about thirty, Nicholas may have voyaged into the north Atlantic, probably reaching as far as the Arctic Circle when he was about thirty years old. He certainly wrote a book called Inventio Fortunate, A Fortunate Discovery about his voyages. Sadly there are no known copies, although as late as the seventeenth century Henry Hudson used the book when he set off to explore the Arctic, and it seems that the book did indeed give a pretty accurate description of North-East Canada and Greenland. It is thought that Columbus himself might also have had a copy. Some think Nicholas merely met someone else who had travelled north, and recounted his experiences as if he himself had been the voyager… It’s a better story to imagine Nicholas himself going exploring!
Lois Elsden 