Medieval Maps

Like Mandeville's Travels, maps were vehicles for conveying all sorts of information -- zoological, anthropological, moral, theological, and historical -- not just geographical.

They presented a synchronic view of the world

• Pagan and Christian
• Secular and sacred

These medieval maps were not maps in our sense of the word. They were more diagrams in which any sort of relevant information might be portrayed in the corresponding spacial position. But they became increasingly geographical in the 15th century as maps started to be used more for actual travel rather than simply as teaching tools.

Mappae Mundi-- "maps of the world" were often called "Cloths of the world"

• arose in the 13thc
• were a particularly English genre.

These large maps could hang behind altars or on walls simply as decoration or as freestanding works of art and learning. They could

• edify,
• instruct, and
• act as symbols of the Deity.

Most of the largest mappae mundi were produced in England. The earliest maps, before 15thc, derive primarily from one or two basic diagrams. They show a circle representing the world.

• Zonal or climatic maps
  • have north at the top and
  • are divided by seven horozontal strips which represent frigid, temperate and torrid temperature zones north and south of the central ocean river.
• T-O or tripartite maps
  • have East at the top and
  • are divided by a T-shape into the three continents --
    • Asia at the top,
    • Europe on the left, and
    • Africa on the right.
  • A variant is the quadripartite map which adds the continent of the Antipodes, on the right, separated by the ocean river from Asia and Africa.
  • The Hereford mappa mundi (1.3 meters across) derives from T-O maps.

Maps did not necessarily develop from the basic to the more elaborate. In fact some of the earliest maps are very elaborate in terms of what they show. Many early T-O maps show islands, cities, rivers, mountains and other geographical figures.

The Hereford Mappa Mundi

If we examine the Hereford map (produced ca. 1280s), we can readily discern some of the major concerns of medieval cartographers and, thereby, the concerns of medieval people unfamiliar with the outside world.

• Protruding labels (M,O,R,S) mark the limits of the material world
• Mermaid in Mediterranean
• Jerusalem at center (not all medieval maps place it there)
• Circle w/crucified Chrst outside
• Old Testament scenes depicted
  • Noah at Mt Ararat;
  • Babylon w/Tower of Babel;
  • Red Sea colored red w/Moses receiving stone tablets
• New Testament scenes
  • Stable at Bethlehem
  • Scenes from Lives of Apostles & early church history
    • Augustine standing in the church at Hippo
• Drawings from writings about different lands
  • creatures from Pliny's Natural History and Physiologus
    • monstrous beings
      • dog-headed cynocephali or the
      • the sciopods
  • Places in France from a series of Medieval itineraries
  • routes used by Florentine merchants to carry English wool from Bordeaux to Italy,
  • the pilgrim route to Compostella, & other North/South routes

What can we say about the feeling of map makers toward the unknown?

• Monstrous races suggest fear and prejudice
• Jerusalem as bellybutton suggests theocentric view
• Not as concerned about geography as about edification
• All of life is a pilgrimage

Once navigational charts called Portolans bagan to be incorporated into 14thc maps like those of Venetian cartographer Pietro Vesconte (1320s), coastlines, especially in the Mediterranean, began to look more as we know them today.

These portolans were

• specifically designed to map the coasts for sailing vessels navigating the shores and
• had scant information about inland regions, although Spanish Potolans had more inland material than did Italian ones.

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