26 MAPS AND THEIR MAKERS 



The largest and most interesting surviving example of the 

 cii^ular world map is the mappa mundi now preserved in 

 Hereford Cathedral. Though dating from as late as circa 

 A.D. 1300, it is clearly but the last in a long chain of copies. 

 One of the links is the Hieronymus map of about a.d. 1150, 

 a portion of a world map now in the British Museum. There 

 are several reasons for holding that it derives from a Roman 

 original, apart from inscriptions upon it which associate it 

 with Orosius, the fourth-century writer, and refer to the 

 survey of the world by 'King' Agrippa. Broadly, the area it 

 represents corresponds to the limits of the Roman Empire 

 with an extension to include the conquests of Alexander the 

 Great. The provincial boundaries shown correspond fairly 

 closely to those of the time of Diocletian. The shapes given to 

 certain countries resemble those assigned to them in popular 

 writers of Roman times, and some groups of the named towns, 

 though jumbled up on the map, correspond to sections of the 

 Antonine Itinerary. Accepting this Roman pedigree for the 

 Hereford map, we must allow that it had undergone significant 

 alterations at the hands of Christian theologians. The centre 

 of the map is Jerusalem, not a very serious distortion, since the 

 centre of the original may well have been in the vicinity of 

 Rhodes. It is disputed whether the Roman map was oriented 

 with the east at the head, but this would not be a difficult 

 alteration, and it enabled the Christian scribe to show the 

 terrestrial paradise in a position of honour. Again, the area of 

 Palestine has been considerably enlarged, as one of the objects 

 was to depict sites hallowed in Holy Scripture. 



The general scheme resembles that of the T-0 maps, though 

 somewhat distorted by the emphasis placed on Palestine, Asia 

 Minor, etc. Rome, Antioch, and Paris are drawn very con- 

 spicuously, the prominence of the latter suggesting that one 

 of the 'links' had been the work of a French scribe. Other 

 cities and towns are represented by conventional drawings of 

 towers and gates; mountains and rivers are numerous, the 

 former in a conventionalized profile. Most of the space, which 

 would otherwise be empty, is filled with neatly executed draw- 

 ings depicting themes from the popular histories and bestiaries 

 of the time. Indeed the whole is as much an encyclopedia of 



