The Ebstorf Map was an example of a mappa mundi (a Medieval European map of the world). It was made by Gervase of Ebstorf, who was possibly the same man as Gervase of Tilbury, [1] some time between 1234 and 1240.
The Ebstorf Map was an example of a mappa mundi (a Medieval European map of the world). It was made by Gervase of Ebstorf, who was possibly the same man as Gervase of Tilbury, [1] some time between 1234 and 1240.
The map was found in a convent in Ebstorf, northern Germany, in 1843. [2] It was a very large map, painted on 30 goatskins sewn together and measuring around 3.6 by 3.6 metres (12 ft × 12 ft)—a greatly elaborated version of the common medieval tripartite map (T and O), centered on Jerusalem with east at the top.
The head of Christ was depicted at the top of the map, with his hands on either side and his feet at the bottom. [3] Rome is represented in the shape of a lion, and the map reflects an evident interest in the distribution of bishoprics. [1]
There was text around the map, which included descriptions of animals, the creation of the world, definitions of terms, and a sketch of the more common sort of T and O map with an explanation of how the world is divided into three parts. The map incorporated both pagan and biblical history. [3]
The original was destroyed in 1943, during the Allied bombing of Hanover in World War II. [4] There survives a set of black-and-white photographs of the original map, taken in 1891, and several colour facsimiles of it were made before it was destroyed. [3]
The arguments for Gervase of Tilbury's being the mapmaker are based on the name Gervase, which was an uncommon name in Northern Germany at the time, and on some similarities between the world views of the mapmaker and Gervase of Tilbury. The editors of the Oxford Medieval Texts edition of Gervase of Tilbury's Otia Imperialia conclude that although their being the same man is an "attractive possibility", to accept it requires "too many improbable assumptions". [1]
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Cartography is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
Saint Veronica, also known as Berenike, was a widow from Jerusalem who lived in the 1st century AD, according to extra-biblical Christian sacred tradition. A celebrated saint in many pious Christian countries, the 17th-century Acta Sanctorum published by the Bollandists listed her feast under July 12, but the German Jesuit scholar Joseph Braun cited her commemoration in Festi Marianni on 13 January.
In folklore, a werewolf, or occasionally lycanthrope is an individual who can shape-shift into a wolf, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction, with the transformations occurring on the night of a full moon. Early sources for belief in this ability or affliction, called lycanthropy, are Petronius (27–66) and Gervase of Tilbury (1150–1228).
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A mappa mundi is any medieval European map of the world. Such maps range in size and complexity from simple schematic maps 25 millimetres or less across to elaborate wall maps, the largest of which to survive to modern times, the Ebstorf map, was around 3.5 m in diameter. The term derives from the Medieval Latin words mappa and mundus (world).
Gervase of Tilbury was an English canon lawyer, statesman and cleric. He enjoyed the favour of Henry II of England and later of Henry's grandson, Emperor Otto IV, for whom he wrote his best known work, the Otia Imperialia.
The earliest known world maps date to classical antiquity, the oldest examples of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE still based on the flat Earth paradigm. World maps assuming a spherical Earth first appear in the Hellenistic period. The developments of Greek geography during this time, notably by Eratosthenes and Posidonius culminated in the Roman era, with Ptolemy's world map, which would remain authoritative throughout the Middle Ages. Since Ptolemy, knowledge of the approximate size of the Earth allowed cartographers to estimate the extent of their geographical knowledge, and to indicate parts of the planet known to exist but not yet explored as terra incognita.
Pons de Capduelh was a troubadour from the Auvergne, probably from Chapteuil. His songs were known for their great gaiety. He was a popular poet and 27 of his songs are preserved, some in as many as 15 manuscripts. Four of his cansos survive with musical notation.
The Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq, commonly known in the West as the Tabula Rogeriana, is an atlas commissioned by the Norman King Roger II in 1138 and completed by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in 1154. The atlas compiles 70 maps of the known world with associated descriptions and commentary of each specific location by Al-Idrisi.
Various species of mythical headless men were rumoured, in antiquity and later, to inhabit remote parts of the world. They are variously known as akephaloi or Blemmyes and described as lacking a head, with their facial features on their chest. These were at first described as inhabitants of ancient Libya or the Nile system (Aethiopia). Later traditions confined their habitat to a particular island in the Brisone River, or shifted it to India.
Gervase of Ebstorf is best known as the author of the Ebstorf Map, a medieval mappa mundi created between 1234 and 1240.
Wandlebury Hill Fort, also known as the Wandlebury Ring, is an Iron Age hillfort located on Wandlebury Hill in the Gog Magog Hills, Cambridgeshire, England, to the southeast of Cambridge. Now a country park, it was the most important of three hillforts in the downs.
Otia Imperialia is an early 13th-century encyclopedic work, the best known work of Gervase of Tilbury. It is an example of speculum literature. Also known as the "Book of Marvels", it primarily concerns the three fields of history, geography, and physics, but its credibility has been questioned by numerous scholars including philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who was alerted to the fact that it contains many mythical stories. Its manner of writing is perhaps because the work was written to provide entertainment to Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV. However, many scholars consider it a very important work in that it "recognizes the correctness of the papal claims in the conflict between Church and Empire." It was written between 1210 and 1214, although some give the dates as between 1209 and 1214 and numerous authors state it was published c.1211. These earlier dates must be questioned, however, as the Otia contains stories that take place in 1211 and later. S. E. Banks and James W. Binns, editors and translators of what is considered to be the definitive version of the Otia, suggest that the work was completed in the last years of Otto IV's life, saying "it seems most likely [...] that the work was sent to Otto sometime in 1215", due to the inclusion of the death of William the Lion, King of Scotland, which took place in 1214, and the fact that King John was still living while it was written; John died in 1216.
Carl Rümpler was a German publisher, based in Hanover. He and his publishing company of the same name published a high number of works in the 1850s–1870s. He published many books related to myths and tales such as Gervase of Tilbury's medieval encyclopedia Otia Imperialia in 1856, he also published works such as Herman Grimm's Leben Michelangelo in two volumes between 1860 and 1863 amongst many others.
The aerial bombings of Hanover are a series of eighty-eight air raids by Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) on the German city of Hanover during World War II. Collectively these air raids killed 6,782 persons, predominantly civilian residents. Around 1,000 aerial mines, 34,000 high explosive bombs, 900,000 incendiary bombs and 50,000 fire bombs were dropped. The most destructive and deadly air raid on Hanover was conducted by the RAF on the night beginning 8 October 1943, killing 1,245 persons, and is an example of carpet bombing of suburban and residential civilian targets laid out in the Area Bombing Directive of 14 February 1942.
De situ terrae sanctae is a short 6th-century report of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Its author is identified in a 9th-century manuscript as a German archdeacon named Theodosius.
The airship of Clonmacnoise is the subject of a historical anecdote related in numerous medieval sources. Though the original report, in the Irish annals, simply mentioned an apparition of ships with their crews in the sky over Ireland in the 740s, later accounts through the Middle Ages progressively expanded on this with picturesque details. First the ships were reduced to one ship over Teltown from which a crewman threw and then recovered a fishing-spear. Then the scene shifted to the abbey of Clonmacnoise, and later to Britain, and the fishing-spear was changed to an anchor which snagged on some feature of a church. The sailor who climbed down to release it was also said to be in danger of drowning in the thicker air of this lower world. The story was retold by Seamus Heaney in a well-known poem collected in his 1991 volume, Seeing Things.
Evelyn Edson is an author, medievalist, and professor emerita of history. She is known for her three books on the history of cartography.
Tarn Wadling was a lake between Carlisle and Penrith, near the village of High Hesket in Cumbria, England. In the Middle Ages, it was famous for its carp, but it was drained in the 19th century, and is now no more than a depression. The name remains today in a small woodland governed by the Woodland Trust.
