Markland

Markland is the name given to one of three lands on North America's Atlantic shore discovered by Leif Eriksson around 1000 CE. It was located south of Helluland and north of Vinland.

Although it was never recorded to be settled by Norsemen, there were probably a number of later expeditions from Greenland to gather timber. A 1347 Icelandic document records that a ship has come off course and ended up in Iceland in the process of returning from Markland, without further specifying where Markland is.

Location

Markland has been suggested to have been part of the Labrador coast in Canada, as Labrador lies in the heavily forested taiga region of the Northern Hemisphere north of the location of Vinland on the island of Newfoundland. However, the climate and hence the vegetation in this particular region may have changed significantly since the sagas were conceived - see Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.

The particular part of the Labrador coast is difficult to pinpoint, as Helluland has been placed everywhere from Baffin Island to the northern Labrador coast beyond Groswater Bay to the southern Labrador Coast.

Markland (surname)

Markland is a surname of the following people:

Markland (Scots)

A markland or merkland (Scottish Gaelic: Marg-fhearainn) is an old Scottish unit of land measurement.

There was some local variation in the equivalences, for example, in some places eight ouncelands were equal to one markland, but in others, such as Islay, a markland was twelve ouncelands. The markland derived its name from the old coin the Merk Scots (cognate with German mark and various other European coinages, see Mark (money)), which was the annual rent paid on it, and so it was calculated by this, rather than its actual area. Originally a Scots mark or merk was 13s 4d (160 pence), but the Scottish coinage depreciated against the English, and by the 18th century a Scots merk was worth only 13 ¹/₃d sterling - one-twelfth of its original value. Although such coins were abolished by the Acts of Union 1707, some stayed in circulation for decades, and the names themselves remained in common use for centuries.

See also