First full collection on the seven most significant English mappae mundi
from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Mappae mundi (maps of the world), beautiful objects in themselves, offer
huge insights into how medieval scholars conceived the world and their
place within it. They are a fusion of "real" geographical locations with
fantastical, geographic, historical, legendary and theological material.
Their production reached its height in England in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, with such well-known examples as the Hereford map,
the maps of Matthew Paris, and the Vercelli map.
This volume provides a comprehensive Companion to the seven most
significant English mappae mundi. It begins with a survey of the maps'
materials, types, shapes, sources, contents, conventions,
idiosyncrasies, commissioners and users, moving on to locate the maps'
creation and use in the realms of medieval rhetoric, Victorine memory
theory and clerical pedagogy. It also establishes the shared history of
map and book making, and demonstrates how pre-and post-Conquest monastic
libraries in Britain fostered and fed their complementary relationship.
A chapter is then devoted to each individual map. An annotated
bibliography of multilingual resourcescompletes the volume.
DAN TERKLA is Emeritus Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan
University; NICK MILLEA is Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, University
of Oxford.
Contributors: Nathalie Bouloux, Michelle Brown. Daniel Connolly, Helen
Davies, Gregory Heyworth, Alfred Hiatt, Marcia Kupfer, Nick Millea, Asa
Simon Mittman, Dan Terkla, Chet Van Duzer.
