The Sawley map, formerly known as the 'Henry of Mainz' map, is the earliest surviving mappa mundi (world map) made in England.[1] It was made between about 1180 and the early 13th century.[2] The map is the frontispiece of a copy of the Imago mundi of Honorius of Autun. It is oriented with east (and the Garden of Eden) at the top and the island of Delos at the centre.[1]
The map takes up the second page (folio 1v) of manuscript 66 at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.[2][3] The first folio is of thicker vellum than the rest of the manuscript.[3] The manuscript was probably copied at Durham Priory before being given to Sawley Abbey (now in Lancashire) in the early 13th century.[1][2] The map is oval in shape, with winged figures (angels, not winds) decorating the four corners of the rectangular page.[1][3] It measures about 30 by 20 centimetres (11.8in ×7.9in).[4] Across the top of the page is a faint ex libris in Latin: Liber s[an]c[t]e Marie de Salleia, 'book of Saint Mary's of Sawley'.[5][6]
The map depicts three continents—Asia, Africa and Europe—surrounded by a world ocean. It is in colour, with green representing the ocean and purple the rivers. Mountains are depicted as series of red lobes. Places are marked by circles, square and pictographic symbols, such as towers or, in the case of Jerusalem, a temple.[7] Delos, at the centre, was noted for its pagan temples. It is depicted as a circle surrounded by smaller circles (the Cyclades). Orkney is depicted in the same way.[8]
The Sawley map is usually grouped with other encyclopaedic mappae mundi of the same period, such as the Hereford map and the Ebstorf map (the latter destroyed by bombing in the Second World War).[2][4] It contains much fanciful material and many pieces of information derived from the Bible and the classics.[1] It may belong to a northern French tradition, if it was copied from the mappa mundi which Bishop Hugh of Le Puiset bequeathed to Durham Priory in 1195.[9]
The misattribution of the map to Henry of Mainz, possibly the future Archbishop Henry I, stems from a misreading of the prologue, which states that this version of the Imago mundi was edited by Henry in 1110. It does not mention the map, which is not an integral part of the Imago but was created decades later.[10] Whether or not the Cambridge MS. 66 version of the text was even edited by any Henry of Mainz has been challenged.[11][12] No other manuscript of the Imago contains a copy of the Sawley map or one like it.[12] The only thing that can be said for certain of the connection between the Sawley map and the accompanying text is that they could be found bound together at Sawley shortly after 1200.[13]
Delano-Smith, Catherine; Kain, Roger J. P. (1999). English Maps: A History. University of Toronto Press.
Dragnea, Mihai (2021). "Constructions of Christian Identity in the Northern Periphery: The Sawley World Map in Twelfth-Century England". The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 72 (4): 1–25. doi:10.1017/s0022046920002596.
Harvey, P. D. A. (1997). "The Sawley Map and Other World Maps in Twelfth‐century England". Imago Mundi. 49 (1): 33–42. doi:10.1080/03085699708592857.
Licini, Patrizia (2007). "A Full Image of a Cultural Space: The Sawley Mappa Mundi as a Global Memory Hypertext". In Ulrich Knefelkamp; Kristian Bosselmann-Cyran (eds.). Grenze und Grenzüberschreitung im Mittelalter: 11. Symposium des Mediävistenverbandes vom 14. bis 17. März 2005 in Frankfurt an der Oder. Akademie Verlag. pp.470–489. doi:10.1524/9783050049892.470.
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).
Fra Mauro, O.S.B. Cam., (c.1400–1464) was an Italian (Venetian) cartographer who lived in the Republic of Venice. He created the most detailed and accurate map of the world up until that time, the Fra Mauro map.
The Cantino planisphere or Cantino world map is a manuscript Portuguese world map preserved at the Biblioteca Estense in Modena, Italy. It is named after Alberto Cantino, an agent for the Duke of Ferrara, who successfully smuggled it from Portugal to Italy in 1502. It measures 220 x 105 cm.
A T and O map or O–T or T–O map, also known as an Isidoran map, is a type of early world map that represents world geography as first described by the 7th-century scholar Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) in his De Natura Rerum and later his Etymologiae (c. 625)
The Hereford Mappa Mundi is the largest medieval map still known to exist, depicting the known world. It is a religious rather than literal depiction, featuring heaven, hell and the path to salvation. The map is drawn in a form deriving from the T and O pattern, dating from c. 1300. It is displayed at Hereford Cathedral in Hereford, England. The map was created with the intent of its being appreciated as an intricate work of art rather than as a navigational tool. Sources for the information presented on the map include the Alexander tradition, medieval bestiaries and Monstrous races tradition, as well as the Bible.
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.
Sawley Abbey was an abbey of Cistercian monks in the village of Sawley, Lancashire, in England. Created as a daughter-house of Newminster Abbey, it existed from 1149 until its dissolution in 1536, during the reign of King Henry VIII.
The Book of Roads and Kingdoms is a group of Islamic manuscripts composed from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. They emerged from the administrative tradition of listing pilgrim and post stages. Their text covers the cities, roads, topography, and peoples of the Muslim world, interspersed with personal anecdotes. A theoretical explanation of the "Inhabited Quarter" of the world, comparable to the ecumene, frames the world with classical concepts like the seven climes.
Francesco Rosselli was an Italian miniature painter, and engraver of maps and old master prints. He was described as a cartographer, although his contribution did not include any primary research and was probably limited to engraving, decorating and selling manuscript maps created by others. He created many maps, including one of the first printed maps of the world to incorporate the discoveries of Christopher Columbus in the Americas. The attribution of prints to him is the subject of debate, as different engraving styles are used. This may be the result of different artists in his workshop, or of his and his shop's ability to use different styles.
Nicolaus Germanus was a German cartographer who modernized Ptolemy's Geography by applying new projections, adding additional maps, and contributing other innovations that were influential in the development of Renaissance cartography.
Henry, in German Heinrich, was the archbishop of Mainz from September 1142 until his deposition in June 1153.
The Gough Map or Bodleian Map is a Late Medieval map of the island of Great Britain. Its precise dates of production and authorship are unknown. It is named after Richard Gough, who bequeathed the map to the Bodleian Library in 1809. He acquired the map from the estate of the antiquarian Thomas "Honest Tom" Martin in 1774. Numerous copies of it have been made, with an interactive online version created at Queen's University, Belfast. It measures 115 by 56 cm.
Liber Floridus is a medieval encyclopedia that was compiled between 1090 and 1120 by Lambert, Canon of Saint-Omer. The text compiles extracts from some 192 or so different works.
The Psalter World Map or the Map Psalter is a small mappa mundi from the 13th century, now in the British Library, found in a psalter. No other records of psalters found from the Middle Ages have a mappa mundi.
Leo Bagrow was a Russian-born historian of cartography, founder of the journal Imago Mundi. He grew up in Russia, and initially pursued a career within the Imperial Russian Navy. In naval service, he traveled extensively to conduct surveying work. During this time, he encountered the historical map collection of Arctic explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld in Helsinki and became interested in the history of mapmaking.
The Worksop Bestiary, also known as the Morgan Bestiary, most likely from Lincoln or York, England, is an illuminated manuscript created around 1185, containing a bestiary and other compiled medieval Latin texts on natural history. The manuscript has influenced many other bestiaries throughout the medieval world and is possibly part of the same group as the Aberdeen Bestiary, Alnwick Bestiary, St.Petersburg Bestiary, and other similar Bestiaries. Now residing in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, the manuscript has had a long history of church, royal, government, and scholarly ownership.
Harley MS 3686 is an early 15th-century Venetian hand-written re-creation of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographia. It is part of the Harleian Collection at the British Library.
Virtual Mappa (VM) (https://sims2.digitalmappa.org/36) is a collaborative digital humanities project that collects, annotates and networks medieval mappamundi using the Digital Mappa resource. The project is open access, hosted and published by the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and in collaboration with the British Library. The project is currently directed by Martin Foys and Heather Wacha, and continues to grow as new contributors join the project and edit new medieval maps.
The V-in-squaremap is a highly schematic type of mappa mundi in use in Europe during the Middle Ages. It is based on and usually found in conjunction with the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville.
Latin 7478 is a medieval astronomical manuscript preserved as a part of the Latin collection in Bibliothèque nationale de France. It is an elaborated and amended version of John of Gmunden’s Kalendarium (Calendar), a widespread cyclic calendar used to get reliable syzygy times for liturgical and astrological purposes.. One of the key features of this manuscript is its codicological format: in contrast to the traditional codex, organised in quires, Latin 7478 is composed of individual folded leaves attached together, which are to be unfolded and read from the outer edge to the stub. This type of codex has received the name of “bat-book” by Johan Peter Gumbert.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
