MEDIAEVAL MAPS
We cannot pass from the subject of mediaeval exploration without a
word on the really delightful, if ignorant, maps of the period, for
they illustrate better than any description the state of geography
at this time. The Ptolemy map, summing up all the Greek and Roman
learning, with its longitudes and latitudes, with its shaped
continents and its many towns and rivers, "indicates the high-water
mark of a tide that was soon to ebb."
With the decline of the Roman Empire and the coming of Christianity
we get a new spirit inspiring our mediaeval maps, in which Jerusalem,
hitherto totally obscure, dominates the whole situation.
The _Christian Topography_ of Cosmas in the sixth century sets a new
model. Figures blowing trumpets representing the winds still blow on
to the world, as they did in the days of Ptolemy, but the earth is
once more flat and it is again surrounded by the ocean stream. Round
this ocean stream, according to Cosmas, is an outer earth, the seat
of Paradise, "the earth beyond the ocean where men dwelt before the
Flood."
Although these maps of Cosmas were but the expression of one man's
ideas, they served as a model for others.
There is, at Turin, a delightful map of the eighth century with the
four winds and the ocean stream as usual. The world is divided into
three--Asia, Africa, and Europe. Adam and Eve stand at the top; to
the right of Adam lies Armenia and the Caucasus; to the left of Eve
are Mount Lebanon, the river Jordan, Sidon, and Mesopotamia. At their
feet lie Mount Carmel, Jerusalem, and Babylon.
[Illustration: THE TURIN MAP OF THE WORLD, EIGHTH CENTURY.]
In Europe we find a few names such as Constantinople, Italy, France.
Britannia and Scotland are islands in the encircling sea. Africa is
suitably represented by the Nile.
Of much the same date is another map known as the Albi, preserved in
the library at Albi in Languedoc. The world is square, with rounded
corners; Britain is an island off the coast of Spain, and a beautiful
green sea flows round the whole.
An example of tenth-century map-making, known as the Cottoniana or
Anglo-Saxon map, is in the British Museum. Here is a mixture of Biblical
and classical knowledge. Jerusalem and Bethlehem are in their place
and the Pillars of Hercules stand at the entrance of the Mediterranean
Sea. The British Isles are still distorted, and quantities of little
unnamed islands lie about the north of Scotland. In the extreme east
lies an enormous Ceylon; in the north-east corner of Asia is drawn
a magnificent lion with mane and curling tail, with the words around
him: "Here lions abound." Africa as usual is made up of the Nile,
Alexandria at its mouth, and its source in a lake.
[Illustration: A T-MAP, TENTH CENTURY.]
[Illustration: A T-MAP, THIRTEENTH CENTURY.]
There is another form of these early maps. They are quite small and
round. They are known as T-maps, being divided into three
parts--Europe, Asia, and Africa. Jerusalem is always in the centre,
and the ocean stream flows round.
[Illustration: THE HEREFORD MAPPA MUNDI OF 1280. Drawn by Richard de
Haldingham and Lafford, who was Prebendary of Lincoln (hence his name
Lafford) before 1283, and Prebendary of Hereford in 1305. The original
map hangs in the Chapter House Library of Hereford Cathedral. In it
the original green of the seas reproduced here as green has become
a dark brown by age.]
After the manner of these, only on a very large scale, is the famous
_Mappa Mundi_, by Richard of Haldingham, on the walls of the Hereford
Cathedral of the thirteenth century. Jerusalem is in the centre, and
the Crucifixion is there depicted. At the top is the Last Judgment,
with the good and bad folk divided on either side. Adam and Eve are
there, so are the Pillars of Hercules, Scylla and Charybdis, the Red
Sea coloured red, the Nile and the Mountains of the Moon, strange beasts
and stranger men.
With the Hereford map came in that pictorial geography that makes the
maps of the later Middle Ages so delightful.
[Illustration: THE KAISER HOLDING THE WORLD. From a twelfth-century
MS.]
"This is indeed the true way to make a map," says a modern writer.
"If these old maps erred in the course of their rivers and the lines
of their mountains and space, they are not so misleading as your modern
atlas with its too accurate measurements. For even your most primitive
map, with Paradise in the east--a gigantic Jerusalem in the
centre--gives a less distorted impression than that which we obtain
from the most scientific chart on Mercator's projection."
[Illustration: THE "ANGLO-SAXON" MAP OF THE WORLD, DRAWN ABOUT 990
A.D. This map, which is found in one of the Cotton MSS. in the British
Museum, is a geographical achievement remarkable in the age which
produced it. It may perhaps be the work of an Irish scholar-monk. It
shows real knowledge and scientific insight in one of the gloomiest
of the "dark ages" of Europe.]