Hans Pothorst
{{Short description|German-Danish sailor and privateer (c. 1440 – 1490)}}
Image:Pothorst.jpg church painting of Hans Pothorst and his coat of arms, c. 1493. The banner held by the man to the right says Hans Pothorst, and the one to the left says Dellf maler ("Dellf painter").{{cite web|url=http://www.oresundstid.dk/arkiv/arkivalt.aspx?id=591&tekst=1400-tallet&standard=J|work=Øresundstid|title=Kalkmalerier: Kirkerummet|access-date=2 May 2010|language=da}}]]
Hans Pothorst ({{circa}} 1440 – 1490){{cite web|work=Den Store Danske Encyklopædi|url=http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Rejser,_geografi_og_historie/Gr%C3%B8nland/Gr%C3%B8nlands_samfund,_kultur_og_historie/Hans_Pothorst|title=Hans Pothorst|language=da|access-date=20 November 2010}} was a privateer, likely from the German city Hildesheim.
In 1925, researcher Sofus Larsen proposed that Pothhorst may have landed in North America, along with Didrik Pining, in the 1470s, almost twenty years before Columbus' voyages of discovery.{{cite web |title=Expedition to Newfoundland 1472 |url=https://www.medieval.eu/expedition-newfoundland-1472/ |website=Medieval Histories |access-date=18 May 2021 |date=2016-04-07}} English and American scholars now view this as unlikely but the theory has more support with Nordic and Portuguese historians (since both sides have a clear bias for either position the consensus is that is neither proven nor disproven and likely unprovable).{{cite book |last1=Seaver |first1=Kirsten A. |title=The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America, ca. A.D. 1000-1500 |date=1996 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-3161-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5qonlDkZW3MC&dq=Sofus+Larsen+pining&pg=PA200 |access-date=16 December 2022 |ref=200-201 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Jensen |first1=Janus Møller |title=Denmark and the Crusades, 1400-1650 |date=30 April 2007 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-474-1984-6 |page=181 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w-GvCQAAQBAJ&dq=Sofus+Larsen+pining&pg=PA186 |access-date=16 December 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Mills |first1=William James |title=Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia |date=2003 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-422-0 |page=185 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYdBH4dOOM4C&dq=Sofus+Larsen+pining&pg=PA185 |access-date=16 December 2022 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Diffie |first1=Bailey Wallys |title=Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415-1580 |date=1977 |publisher=U of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-0-8166-0782-2 |page=449 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hBTqPX4G9Y4C&dq=Sofus+Larsen+pining&pg=PA449 |access-date=16 December 2022 |language=en}}
Biography
In what little is known about Pothorst, he is often linked with Didrik Pining. Like Pining, Pothorst was likely from Hildesheim.Hughes, 2004, p. 507. Pothorst's service on the Hamburg warship Bastian seems to have been officially terminated on 1 July 1473. Sometime in the 1470s, Pining, Pothorst and Corte-Real were sent by King Christian I of Denmark on a naval expedition to the North-Atlantic. During the later years of the reign of Christian I, Pothorst and Pining are said to have distinguished themselves "not less as capable seamen than as matchless freebooters."Nansen and Chater, 1911.
Pothorst's home in Denmark is presumed to have been Helsingør, where his coat of arms and a simple portrait were painted (possibly shortly after his death) among eight ceiling frescoes in the local St. Mary's Church. The ceiling ensemble remains one of the most celebrated 15th century Danish artworks, and if Pothorst funded its creation as it has been assumed, historians note that he must have been rather wealthy.
Later, he is mentioned as a privateer, and in the Skibby Chronicle Pothorst and Pining are mentioned among many pirates who "met with a miserable death, being either slain by their friends or hanged on the gallows or drowned in the waves of the sea."Nansen and Chater, 1911.
See also
References
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Sources
- {{Cite journal |last=Hughes |first=Thomas L. |date=2004 |title="The German Discovery of America": A Review of the Controversy over Pining's 1473 Voyage of Exploration |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4140980 |journal=German Studies Review |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=503–526 |doi=10.2307/4140980 |jstor=4140980 |issn=0149-7952|url-access=subscription }}
- {{Citation|title=In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early Times|url=https://archive.org/stream/innorthernmistsa02nansuoft/innorthernmistsa02nansuoft_djvu.txt|first1=Fridtjof|last1=Nansen|first2=Arthur G.|last2=Chater|year=1911|publisher=Frederick A. Stokes co.|pages=124–129}}
{{Pirates}}
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Category:Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
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