CLASSICAL AND EARLY MEDIEVAL HERITAGE 25 



deriving ultimately from the Agrippa model, of which the 

 Hereford mappa mundi is an example. * 



The contrast often drawn between 'practical' Roman and 

 'scientific' Greek cartography tends to be exaggerated. While it 

 is true that Greeks had arrived at a more scientific conception 

 of the essentials, methods of obtaining the requisite data 

 lagged behind theory. It was only at the end of the period that 

 Greek cartography culminated in the work of Claudius 

 Ptolemy, and even then it had serious limitations. It is not 

 difficult to believe that to the Romans a map based upon the 

 foundation of the road system was more acceptable than the 

 work of the Greek geographers, however scientifically conceived. 



Space does not permit the examination in great detail of 

 early medieval cartography: but certain points should be kept 

 in mind. For several centuries, geographical knowledge was at 

 a standstill, if not in retreat. Consequently geography and, to 

 a greater extent, cartography became merely a routine copying 

 of the accepted authorities, into which an increasing number of 

 errors were introduced. Many of the so-called maps of this 

 period were reduced and simplified diagrams, inserted in 

 standard descriptions of the known world. A common type 

 are the numerous so-called T-0 maps, in which, oriented with 

 the east at the head, the O represented the boundary of the 

 known world, the horizontal stroke of the inset T the approxi- 

 mate meridian running from the Don to the Nile, and the 

 perpendicular stroke the axis of the Mediterranean. Other 

 versions of this occur in a rectangular frame, which may have 

 been adopted as more economical of space, or as complying 

 with Biblical references to the 'four corners of the earth'. 



The main type of circular world map, or mappa mundi, which 

 was perpetuated through this period appears with little doubt 

 to be related, though distantly, to the world map of Agrippa, 

 modified to bring it into conformity with orthodox Christian 

 theology. Here again there are some variations in shape, for 

 example, the map of Henry of Mainz in Corpus Christi College 

 Library, Cambridge, is elliptical; this shape may have been 

 adopted to fit more conveniently on the page of the manuscript. 

 In any event, the content of such maps does not vary signifi- 

 cantly from that of the circular type. 



