nearly every case the East occupies the top of the map. Neither parallels nor meridians are indicated, nor is there a scale. Other features frequently met with are the Paradise in the Far East, miniatures of towns, plants, animals, human beings and monsters, and an indication of the twelve winds around the margin.
Fig. 7.—Map of Albi
(8th century).
The oldest rectangular map of the world is contained in a most valuable work written by Cosmas, an Alexandrian monk, surnamed Indicopleustes, after returning from a voyage to India (535 A.D.), and entitled Christian Topography. According to Cosmas (fig. 6) the inhabited earth has the shape of an oblong rectangle surrounded by an ocean which breaks in in four great gulfs—the Roman or Mediterranean, the Arabian, Persian and Caspian Sea. Beyond this ocean lies another world, which was occupied by man before the Deluge, and within which Cosmas placed the Terrestrial Paradise. Above this rise the walls of the heavens like unto the tent of the Tabernacle. Far more simple is a small map of the world of the 8th century found in a codex in the library of Albi, an archiepiscopal seat in the department of Tarn. Its scanty nomenclature is almost wholly derived from the “Historiae adversum paganos” of Paulus Orosius (418). Far greater interest attaches to the so-called Anglo-Saxon Map of the World in the British Museum (Cotton MSS.), where it is bound up in a codex which also contains a copy of the Periegesis of Priscianus. Map and Periegesis are
Fig. 8.—Anglo-Saxon Map of the World (9th century).
copies by the same hand, but no other connexion exists between them. More than half the nomenclature of the map is derived from Orosius, an annotated Anglo-Saxon version of which had been produced by King Alfred (871–901). The Anglo-Saxons of the time were of course well acquainted with Island (first thus named in 870) Slesvic and Norweci (Norway), and there is no need to have recourse to Adam of Bremen (1076) to account for their presence upon this map. The broad features of the map were derived no doubt from an older document which may likewise have served as the basis for the map of the world engraved on silver for Charlemagne, and was also consulted by the compilers of the Hereford and Ebstorf maps (see fig. 11).
Fig. 9.—T map from Isidor of Seville’s Origines.
The map or diagram of which Leonardo Dati in his poem on the Sphere (Della Spera) wrote in 1422 “un T dentre a uno O mostra il disegno” (a T within an O shows the design) is one of the most persistent types among the circular or wheel maps of the world. It perpetuates the tripartite division of the world by the ancient Greeks and survives in the Royal Orb. A diagram of this description will be found in Isidor of Seville’s Origines (630), see fig. 9.
T maps of more elaborate design illustrate the MS. copies of Sallust’s Bellum jugurthinum; one of these taken from a codex of the 11th century in the Leipzig town library is shown in fig. 10.
The outlines of several medieval maps resemble each other to such an extent that there can be no doubt that they are derived from the same original source. This source by some
Fig. 10.—Map illustrating Sallust’s Bellum jugurthinum (11th century, Leipzig).
authors is assumed to have been the official map of the Roman Empire, but if we compare the crude outline given to the Mediterranean with the more correct delineation of Ptolemy, who was certainly in a position to avail himself of these official sources, such an assumption is untenable. The earliest delineation of the description has already been referred to as the Anglo-Saxon map of the world. Next in the order of age, follows the oval map which Henry, canon of Mayence Cathedral, dedicated to Mathilda, consort of the emperor Henry V. (1110). Of far greater importance is the map seen in Hereford Cathedral. It is the work of Richard of Haldingham, and has a diameter of 134 cm. (53 ins.). The “survey” ordered by Julius Caesar is referred to in the legend, evidently derived from the Cosmography of
