The decline and abandonment of the so called Eastern Settlement in Greenland soon after 1400 has been explained hitherto as a consequence of the early stages of the so-called ‘Little Ice Age’ in the later middle ages. However this view looks as if it will be modified at least by new evidence from research into other environmental factors that affected the colonists..
In addition to the cooling of the climate there were rising sea levels throughout the period 1000 to 1400 leading to coastal flooding in the areas of Scandinavian settlement as reported by a researcher last year in another Live Science report which can be seen at Epic sea level rise drove Vikings out of Greenland
Now US researchers working on a site close to one of the medieval settlements have also found evidence of increasing drought in the period. So as it certainly got colder further north, as the coastlands flooded and with the water supply in doubt the colonists must have felt increasingly beleaguered and eventually drifted away or perhaps finally evacuated the region for the more temperate climes of Iceland. Indeed they must have been a hardy lot to have stuck it out so long.
The history of the medieval Catholic bishopric and its cathedral - there was a resident bishop until 1378 and nominal one thereafter until the Danish-Norwegian reformation - can be read on Wikipedia at Garðar, Greenland and at Garðar Cathedral Ruins. That is, incidentally, and by several centuries margin, the oldest cathedral in the Americas.
There is more about the history of the medieval Norse in Greenland and the ecclesiastical life of the community in another Wikipedia article on the Western Settlement
The article about the latest research is from Phys Org and can be read at Rewriting the history books: Why the Vikings left Greenland.
There is also an article about this project on the Mail Online at Vikings left Greenland in the 15th century due to drought, study says
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