362 Proceedings of the Roj/al Irish Academy. 



they show a wonderful knowledge of the coasts outside the Mediterranean, 

 and are truly harbingere of the dawn of that great revival of learning, dis- 

 covery, and commerce by which our modern states and life arose. In these, from 

 a very early period, Ireland was not neglected ; and I attempt in this paper 

 ^even if crudely and imperfectly) to try to attract Irish scholars to the large, 

 fascinating, and almost imexplored fields, of which I only cross the border- 

 land. It is a subject on whose issues it is easy to say too much or too little ; 

 I think it better to risk the first danger, and trust to the reader's tolerance. 



If we take the Haldingham map at Hereford Cathedral and compare it with 

 one of the " Portolan maps," a generation later, the contrast is most striking. 

 Tlie earUer map is a marvel of erudition and such geographical knowledge as 

 men could acquire in a cloister ; it is marked by a considerable knowledge of 

 the Bible, the classics, and writers down to Orosius. "We see in its centre 

 Jerusalem, with the Crucifixion, the ceuti-al point of the world in all the 

 minds of mediaeval Eui-ope. We see Eden at the top, in the land of sunrise ; 

 the Tower of Babel, the Labyrinth of Crete, the shell-like whirlpool of 

 Chary bdis, the conspicuous Eed Sea (painted scarlet), and a crowd of strange 

 men, monsters, and animals. Ifow let us turn to the Pisan map of 1300 to 

 1306, or those of Carignano, Yeseonte, or Dulcert, all falling within the same 

 thirty years. The outline of Eui-ope is mainly correct ; where the earlier 

 map attaches importance to ii-relevant matters, the later ones are strictly 

 practical The cartogi-aphers attached little importance to monsters. Scripture 

 events, or " the anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their 

 shoulders " ; but, while sometimes showing them, they regarded as all- 

 important the close-packed fringe of names along the coasts. These were 

 derived fi-om seafarers, and compiled for seafarers, showing the way from port 

 to port, as the epithet pm-tolano implied,' not by monks, to amuse the aimless 

 studies of the learned ; although the draughtsmen were usually monks like 

 Carignano, Bianco, and Era Maui-o. POgrims going to the Holy Land through 

 France and Italy may have helped ; but it is doubtful, and there seems to be no 

 e\"idenee. 



The " original map " is unknown p so far as Ireland is concerned, the series 

 of names is so closely similar in the lesser (as well as in the more obA-ious) 



' PartoUno is also used for a sailing directory or book of courses ; it is here used (as ty Xordenskiold) 

 for a coasting-map. These maps are very numerous ; some 400 are mentioned in " Studi biograpldci 

 deUa Gcografia in Italia " (Fzielli and Amat. di S. filippo Eoma, 1882, vol. ii " ; "Mappamundi, 

 Portolani," &c.) ; " Facsimile Atlas," p. 46 ; also KreUchmer's " Italian Portolans" and Fischer's 

 lists. 



' Nordenskiold adopts the name " Normal Portolan " for it. The fourteenth -century maps are 

 from one onginal. The knowledge of Greenland points to an early date before communication ceased 

 between it and Scandinavia ; the name-indications point to about 1290. 



