28 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



and Western sources, the latter being obtained for him by 

 royal order. It is generally assumed that they were written 

 reports by sailors and merchants. But his description, for 

 example, of the English coasts has some striking resemblances 

 to the outline of the earliest marine charts, though the names 

 do not correspond. As will be shown in the next chapter, these 

 are considered to have orio^inated about a.d. 1250. Were these 

 charts based on material similar to Idrisi's, or should their 

 origin be set back a century.'' This is another problem which 

 would well repay investigation. 



If the direct influence of Arab cartography on western 

 Europe was not great, works on astronomy and mathematics 

 translated from the Arabic, as will be seen later, stimulated 

 progress from the thirteenth century onwards. 



It is clear that by a.d. 1300, apart altogether from the great 

 advance in sea charts discussed in the next chapter, carto- 

 graphy was beginning to emerge from its 'dark ages'. There is 

 certainly no clean break at this date, for features of the medieval 

 mappae mundi persisted for long in Renaissance maps. But 

 widening horizons presented greater incentives to the carto- 

 grapher, and spurred him to the solution of more complex 

 problems than had faced his medieval predecessor, confined 

 by poor communications to western Europe, threatened on 

 almost all sides, and dependent on the restricted resources of 

 monastic libraries. 



REFERENCES 



Bagrow, L., The origin of Ptolemy's 'Geographia'. {Geografiska Annaler 



27, 1945, 318-87.) 

 Bevan, W. L. and Phillott, H. W., Medieval geography; ... the Hereford 



Mappa Mundi, 1873. 

 Fischer, J., Claudii Ptolemaei Geographiae Urbinas Graecus 82 (with 



commentary). 4 vols., 1932. 

 Klotz, a., Die geographischen Commentarii des Agrippa und ihre Uber- 



reste. {Klio 24, 1931, 38-58, 386-^70.) 

 Miller, K,, Mappae mundi; die altesten Weltkarten. 6 pts. Stuttgart, 



1895-98. 



Itineraria Romana, Stuttgart, 1916. 



Myres, J. L., An attempt to reconstruct the maps used by Herodotus. 



(Geogr. Journ., 8, 1896, 605-31.) 

 Thomson, J. O., Ilistory of ancient geography, 1948. 



Uhden, R., Zur Herkunft und Svstematik der Mittelalterlichen Welt- 

 karten. (Geogr. Zeits., 37, 1931, 320-40.) 



