The Cotton Mappa mundi as analogue to the Albi world map
p. 195-210
Texte intégral
1The Cotton Mappa mundi is one of the best-known and most widely reproduced medieval world maps. Since the 19th century it has been the subject of frequent reference in scholarly works, which have reiterated its putative derivation from an ancient or late antique world image1 as well as the insight it provides into geographical knowledge in England before the Norman Conquest2. Yet attention given to the map has tended to be passing, and many questions remain3. The following pages will first look at the Cotton Mappa mundi in detail, before comparing it with the Albi Mappa mundi and the world map found in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 6018, fols. 63v-64. While firm conclusions are not always possible, such a comparison can help to illuminate the transmission of early medieval maps, and their relationship to the wider textual culture of which they formed a part.
2The Cotton map was originally the last item in the manuscript now known as British Library, Cotton Tiberius B.V (1), a lavishly illustrated compilation whose major texts are the Marvels of the East in English translation as well as in Latin ; a calendar with text in Latin verse accompanying images of the labours of the month ; Cicero’s translation of the star catalogue known as Aratea ; and Priscian’s fifth- or sixth-century translation of Dionysius of Alexandria’s Periegesis tes oikoumenes (Geographical description of the known world).4 These items, along with numerous smaller extracts, lists, and tables, indicate that broadly compustistical and cosmographical interests lay behind the manuscript’s compilation. The manuscript can be dated confidently to the first half of the 11th century, and on palaeographical evidence more precisely to the second quarter of the century.5 Its provenance remains uncertain : the two principal candidates are monastic scriptoria at Christ Church, Canterbury, and Winchester. Internal evidence can be found to support either attribution ; the manuscript also possesses connections with Glastonbury Abbey, and the possibility of the circulation of material between all three of these institutions cannot be ruled out.6
3The map itself is oriented to the east (fig. 1). It shows the known world of Asia, Europe and Africa, surrounded by ocean, with a prominent Mediterranean and Black Sea basin. The Red Sea and Nile appear in red, while mountain ranges are shown in green. Asia comprises the top half of the map, from Taprobana in the far east to Asia minor and Palestine in the west ; major features include Babilonia, the “montes Armenie” with Noah’s ark, an indication of the passage of the Israelites across the Red Sea, and a Holy Land dominated by the division of Israel between the twelve tribes. The representation of Africa is notable for the apparent preservation of Roman provincial boundaries, as well as the prominence of the cities of Carthage and Alexandria. The representation of Europe, which similarly preserves provincial boundaries around the Danube, is dominated in the south by Rome and Ravenna on the Italian peninsula, and Constantinople to the east. Most scholarly attention, though, has been drawn to the map’s large and apparently accurate representation of Britain, which appears in a kind of North Sea region, featuring the Orcades, “Island”, and Norwegians.7
Fig. 1 — The Cotton Map, East at the top

© British Library, London, Cotton Tiberius B.V (1), fol. 56v
The Cotton Map : Sources and contexts
4The Cotton map’s principal source is the description of the known world that commences Paulus Orosius’ early fifth-century Historiae adversus paganos. Orosius’ Historiae was transmitted widely across monastic centres in Europe, and from an early stage the work’s geographical introduction began to circulate independently (as attested by the manuscript of the Albi map, Albi, Médiathèque Pierre-Amalric 29).8 The Historiae was notably translated into Old English around the end of the 9th century, with its geographical section significantly expanded to include a detailed description of Germania and Scandinavia.9 A great deal of the nomenclature on the Cotton map derives from the Latin Orosius (there is very little to suggest the influence of the Old English Orosius), and the debt to the Historiae extends to formal features.
5Brief examples must suffice to make this point. In Africa, the map shows two Niles. One begins near the Red Sea, travels past the island of Meroe, and then beyond Alexandria to the Mediterranean. The other Nile commences to the south of the Atlas mountains, proceeds east, then disappears and re-emerges further to the east in a large lake. From this point the river continues past Mount Climax (“mons climax”), then passes Getulians, Ethiopians, and Ethiopian deserts (“ethiopica deserta”) to its south, before terminating in Upper Egypt (“egiptus superior”). The correspondence with Orosius is very close. He identifies two theories about the Nile. The first is that it emerges from the Red Sea, flows to the west around Meroe, then turns north into Egypt. The other theory is that the river has its source in the Atlas mountains, then flows east, is submerged in sands, then re-emerges, and proceeds through Ethiopian deserts before turning “left” into Egypt.10 Orosius allows both theories to stand, and so does the map. A second example of the map’s correspondence to Orosius’ description is found in its representation of Spain. The Cotton map’s depiction of Spain as triangular, with Brigantia marked at its far north-west corner, is in accord with Orosius, who specifies the triangular shape of Hispania, and identifies one of its corners with Brigantia, a Galician city whose lighthouse looks towards Britain.11 In Asia, the map corresponds quite closely with Orosius’ description of Asia Minor, including representation of “Docusa” (Orosius’ “Dagusa”), Cappadocia and Armenia, and it is consistent with his ordering of provinces both to the east and west of the Euphrates. Inscriptions in India and the far north-east accord with the text of the Historiae.12
6Sources other than Orosius certainly inform the Cotton map, but before discussing instances of clear influence it is necessary to consider the map’s apparent alignment in its manuscript context with Priscian’s translation of the Periegesis. In the current state of the manuscript, the map appears on fol. 56v, immediately prior to the beginning of the Periegesis on fol. 57. The incipit of this version of the Periegesis encourages thoughts of a direct connection between poem and map :
Incipit liber pergesis [sic] id est de situ terrae prisciani grammatici urbis romae caesariensis doctoris, quem de priscorum dictis excerpsit ormistarum. sed et huic operi de tribus partibus, videlicet asia affrica europa, mappam depinxerat aptam. In qua nationum promontoriorum fluminum insularum que situs atque monstrorum formatur honeste.
Here begins the Liber Periegesis, or, the Description of the Earth, of the grammarian Priscian of the imperial city of Rome, which he gathered from the ancients’ descriptions of the world. He also drew a map fitting for this work about the three parts [of the world], that is, Asia, Africa [and] Europe. In which map the location of peoples, mountain ranges, rivers, islands, and monsters is creditably depicted.
7However, the relationship of the map to the Periegesis is not as straightforward as their proximity and this incipit suggest. In the manuscript’s original state the map did not appear alongside the Periegesis, but rather at the very end of the manuscript. It is only as a result of post-medieval rebinding that it occupies its current position.13 Moreover, as observers since Joachim Lelewel have noted, the content of the Cotton map does not correspond particularly closely to the description of the world in the Periegesis.14 Should any connection between the map and the Periegesis be rejected, therefore ? One point should be considered before doing so. This is that there is a record of at least one other manuscript in an English context which contained a copy of the Periegesis accompanied by a Mappa mundi. A thirteenth-century catalogue of the library of Glastonbury Abbey records two copies of the Periegesis : one is described as “old but legible” (“vetus sed legi potest”), the other as in good condition and “with a map” (“cum Mappa mundi”).15 Some material in Cotton MS Tiberius B.V (1) is known to have a Glastonbury provenance ; moreover, the incipit linking the liber Periegesis with a “mappa apta” is attested only in English manuscripts, and none earlier than the Cotton manuscript.16 The presence of an old copy of the Periegesis, presumably without map, and a copy in good condition with map suggests the hypothesis that it was at Glastonbury that a Mappa mundi similar to the Cotton map was added to illustrate the Periegesis, occasioning the composition of the incipit. The use of the term “ormista”, typically associated with Orosius’ description of the world, further suggests the possibility of a conflation of Priscian’s description and the geography of Orosius, which would be consistent with the appearance of the Cotton map’s largely Orosian world image in the same manuscript as the Periegesis.17 There are, in short, reasons to think that the Cotton map’s connection with the Periegesis is not accidental, and may derive from a Glastonbury model. That said, the Cotton map cannot be said to derive in any direct sense from the text of the Periegesis.
8Certain inscriptions on the Cotton map clearly indicate the use of non-Oro- sian sources. The influence of Book 14 of Isidore’s Etymologiae is apparent in some inscriptions in Asia and Africa,18 hardly surprising given that early medieval commentators used Isidore to expand on the spatial reference they found in Orosius.19 Two or three inscriptions in the far north – “turchi”, “griphorum gens”, and perhaps “gog et magog” – appear to derive from the eighth-century Cosmographia of Aethicus Ister.20 A prominent lion in north-eastern Asia beneath the inscription “hic abundant leones” is unattested in other mappae mundi, and probably derives from the Liber Monstrorum, according to which the Indus possesses white lions with huge manes and bodies the size of bulls.21
9The two most significant additions to the map’s Orosian frame occur in the Holy Land, and in north-western Europe. Orosius notably omitted any detailed description of Palestine and failed even to mention Jerusalem in the course of his geographical description. Such an absence clearly demanded supplementation. It is now possible to identify the means by which the Cotton map did so, thanks to Thomas O’Loughlin’s study of a map that illustrates a passage of commentary on the Book of Joshua.22 The commentary, on the entire Bible, dates to the first half of the 8th century and may be Irish in origin.23 The map, which appears in a ninth-century manuscript (Paris, BnF lat. 11 561), illustrates the divisions of the tribes around the river Jordan, as outlined in Joshua (fig. 2). Nine tribes and the “half tribe” of Manasse appear to the west of the river ; two tribes – Gad and Ruben – and the other half tribe of Manasse are to the east. The map shows several cities, including Jerusalem (“hierusalem”), Hebron (“cebron”), Bethlehem, and the former location of Jericho (“ibi fuit hiericho”), the past tense according with its destruction in the Book of Joshua. The Cotton map uses the same structure and a similar division of the tribes. Gad, Ruben and the half tribe of Manasse appear east of the Jordan ; six tribes, and the other half of the Manasse, appear to the west. Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron (“ebron”), and Jericho (“hiericho”) all appear on the Cotton map, as they do on the Joshua commentary map ; the Cotton map’s “Cesarea Philippi” seems to equate to the Joshua commentary map’s “Cades”. The correspondence between the two images is not exact, but it is close enough to suggest that at some point in its transmission a compiler welded the exegetical map to the Orosian world image, thereby increasing significantly its representation of Old Testament topography.
10The other site of significant supplementation is in north-western Europe. Within Britain and Ireland, the cities of London, Winchester, and Armagh, along with the “camri”/“cumri” in the north, and “cantia” in the south clearly represent later additions. Five of the map’s inscriptions are in Old English : the ethnonym “Sudbryttas” (southern Britons, or Bretons) ; “Island” ; the “Scridefinnas” and “Neronorroen” ; and “Sleswic”.24 The marking of Schleswig is unusual, and must be read in combination with the designation of the Slavs (“Sclaui”) to the east of an unmarked river, probably the Elbe. The context for the appearance of “Sleswic” and “Sclaui” seems to be the spread of Christianity through successive missions, and the recurrent conflicts between Carolingian and Ottonian rulers and the pagan Slavs from the 9th century onwards.25
Fig. 2 — Figura terre repromissionis, North at the top

© Gallica, BnF, Paris, lat. 11 561, fol. 43v
11Much about the Cotton map remains uncertain. Apart from the question of its provenance, some features of the map suggest that it is incomplete or even unfinished. The absence of any toponym to mark Gaul is striking, as is the lack of any indication of Germania other than Schleswig and the Sclavi. Many islands, including all in the Mediterranean and Black Seas, are unnamed, and a number of toponyms on the map appear to be garbled.26 Nevertheless, certain aspects of the map can be asserted with confidence. The Cotton map as we have it was undoubtedly produced by an English scribe. It is highly unlikely that it was compiled for the first time in the 11th century ; instead, internal evidence points to a series of additions to a frame which may be as old as Orosius or his own exemplar, or which could have been constructed on the basis of Orosius at a later date. Its mode – like most mappae mundi – is accretive, adding elements judiciously to a self-consciously ancient foundation.
The Cotton map, the Albi Mappa mundi, and the Vatican “Easter Tables” map
12The Cotton map offers a valuable point of comparison with two earlier maps : the Albi Mappa mundi, and the world map in Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 6018, fol. 63v-64. Both of these maps pre-date the Cotton map, but all three ultimately derive from earlier models, and all three bear intriguing resemblances, as well as some notable differences. The Albi Mappa mundi has often been noted alongside the Cotton map,27 but the two have rarely been compared in detail. At first glance they share little in common. The Albi map does not possess the level of detail found on the Cotton map, with schematic representation of coastlines, relatively few cities, and just six islands (fig. 3). Structurally, it differs from the Cotton map in aligning the Caspian sea with the Persian Gulf on a north – south axis (the Gulf appears in the south-east on the Cotton map), while features such as the Italian peninsula are far less prominent on the Albi map. Nevertheless certain points of connection between the two do exist. Firstly, the Albi map has connections with both Orosius’ description of the world and the Periegesis of Dionysius.28 A copy of the description of the world from the first book of Orosius’ Historiae appears in the same manuscript as the Albi map, along with other geographical material : a list of winds and seas, the names of provinces compiled in the 5th century by Polemius Sylvius, the Notitia Galliarum, and De Nominibus Gallicis. However, although this proximity to Orosius’ description of the world encouraged some scholars to see the Albi map as an “Orosian” world map,29 in fact its correspondence with the Historiae is far less than can be found on the Cotton map, both in terms of its toponomy and its representation of topographical features. The text of Orosius is then perhaps best seen as complementing the Albi map rather than directly informing it. More recently it has been suggested that the shape of the Albi map accords better with the description of the earth in the Periegesis, where land is described as “bifido sed brachia litore pandens” (stretching its arms with the shoreline split in two).30 Again, this general resemblance is difficult to substantiate at the level of the map’s detail. Ravenna, Atenas, Gotia, Phison, Judea, Jerusalem, Sina, Alexandria, and Mauritania are not mentioned in the Periegesis ; other toponyms on the Albi map appear rather in the form of ethnonyms in the poem.31 It may be safer to agree that the Albi map in all probability descends from a classical model, but one that has undergone some simplification. Could this classical model be something similar to the model that – one might conjecture – lies behind the Cotton map ? At first glance the divergence in toponymy between the two maps would suggest otherwise. Of the 51 names on the Albi map, only 27 appear on the Cotton map. However, if the names of Mediterranean islands and seas (generally not named on the Cotton map) are omitted, and allowance made for rivers marked on the Cotton map but not named, the correspondence is closer : of the 38 places, peoples or natural features marked on Albi (excluding Mediterranean islands and seas), 33 appear on the Cotton map. The only names that appear on the Albi map but not on the Cotton map are Gallia, Italia (the latter at least unnecessary, given the prominence of Rome), Achaia and Judea (the latter surely implied by the twelve tribes of Israel), and Numidia.
Fig. 3 — The Albi Mappa mundi, East at the top

© Médiathèque Pierre-Amalric, Albi, ms. 29 (115), fol. 57v
13That said, the locations of places and peoples are in some cases significantly different on the two maps,32 and only in some instances are places aligned in similar ways, perhaps the best example being the relationship between Jerusalem and Alexandria. In fact the dissimilarities between the maps are more revealing than the similarities. The Albi map could be understood as offering insight into what an ancestor of the Cotton map looked like before supplementation of the Holy Land and northern Europe. An underdeveloped representation of Judaea of the kind found on the Albi map may have been what confronted an earlier redactor of the Cotton map, who responded by inserting the map of the twelve tribes designed to illustrate the Joshua commentary. In the north, both maps provide an extension of classical knowledge, albeit in different ways. The Cotton map’s elaboration of Scandinavia and the British isles has no equivalent on the Albi map. On the other hand, both maps show a run of provinces in northern Europe, some of which are unfilled, strongly suggesting reliance on earlier models.
14Some further insight into the histories of the Cotton and Albi maps can be gleaned from the world map in Vat. lat. 6018 (fig. 4). This map, which appears to have been copied between 762 and 777, is contained in a collection of computistical material related to the calculation of the date of Easter.33 It shows evident affinities with the Cotton map in its river structure in Asia and Africa, where its representation of the Nile strongly resembles the Orosian depiction of eastern and western branches of the river followed on the Cotton map. In northern Europe, the Vatican map shows interesting correlations and divergences from the Cotton and Albi maps. All three maps show a broadly similar structure in northern and eastern Europe (table 1). This structure is at its most schematic on the Albi map. There, following the designation of “Barbari” to the west of the Caspian sea, a series of six provinces or regions runs north of the Danube towards the Rhine (Renus) in the west ; the first of these provinces is labelled “Gotia”, but the following five (four rectangular, the final forming a triangle with the Rhine) are unmarked. On the Vatican map the Rhine (Renus Flumen) and the Danube (Danubius fl.) similarly combine to form the limits of a series of provinces or regions. The sequence, from east to west, is as follows : Scithia inferior ; C[ivitas] Theodosia ; Alania ; Dacia ; Gothia ; Hucusque Scithia ; Germania superior ; Germania inferior. The Cotton map marks but does not label the Rhine, and appears to mislabel the Danube. Nevertheless, it is not hard to perceive a similar structure. A series of provinces or regions extends from Gog and Magog, the Turchi and the “griphorum gens” west of the Caspian, then a blank province, the Tanais river and the Montes Riphei, Scithia, the Bulgarii, Dacia ubi et gothia, Sclavi, Sleswic. Anca Dan has suggested that the blanks on the Albi map can be filled, by comparison with the description of a now lost Bobbio Mappa mundi, with the ethnonyms Suevi, Wandali, Tungres, Frisones, and Saxones,34 a sequence resembling that of the St-Sever Beatus world map (Dacia ; Uuandali ; Saxonia ; Frisia). However we fill the blanks, one observes certain differences in strategy within a shared structure. The Cotton map introduces Aethicus-derived names (Gog and Magog ; Turchi ; griphorum gens) to the region west of the Caspian marked more generically “Barbari” on Albi. West of the Tanais, the Cotton map seems more interested than the others in an “updated” sequence, with Sclavi and Sleswic apparently replacing the Vatican map’s two Germaniae, and the “Balgarii” seeming to substitute the Vatican map’s “Alani”, albeit with the retention of the classical Scithia, and the Orosian “Dacia ubi et gothia”. What can be concluded is that all three maps derive from a model or models with a sequence of regions beyond the Danube, but that these models presented certain difficulties of transmission, leading to the omission and replacement of toponyms and ethnonyms. That, perhaps, is no surprise, given that this far northern region extended the known world beyond the reach of classical sources.
Fig. 4 — Vatican map (or Vatican « Easter Tables » Mappa mundi), South at the top

© Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana [2022], Vatican, Vat. lat. 6018, fol. 63v-64
Table 1 — Northern toponyms on three medieval world maps (east to west)
Albi Mappa mundi | Vatican ‘Easter Tables’ Map | Cotton Mappa mundi | |
Between Caspian Sea and Tanais | Barbari | Ircania ; Regio Amazonum ; Albania | Gog et Magog |
Gotia | Iberia | Turchi ; Griphorum gens | |
West of Tanais towards Rhine | — | Scithia inferior ; C[ivitas] Theodosia ; Alania |
Scithia |
— | Dacia | Bulgarii | |
— | Gothia ; Hucusque Scithia | Dacia ubi et gothia | |
— | Germania superior | Sclavi | |
— | Germania inferior | Sleswic |
15It can also be observed that the Vatican and Cotton maps show fairly close similarities in their representation of the Italian peninsula and south-eastern Europe. The Vatican map positions Pannonia, Dardania, and Dalmatia to the south and east of the Danube; the Cotton map does the same, albeit with the largest manifestation of the Danube not labelled, and the addition of “hunorum gens”, “histria”, and Thrace.35 Italy itself is, on the Vatican and Cotton maps, divided by a river (Vatican map : the Po) or a mountain range (Cotton map : the Apennines, without label), with Rome the dominant city on the peninsula (joined by Ravenna, Salerno, and Lucca and Luna on the Cotton map). The point here is not of course to argue that the Cotton map is a direct copy or adaptation of the Vatican map, merely that they show signs of descent from a common model.
16Finally, and to complicate matters further, elements in the toponomy of the Cotton map plausibly connect it to the anonymous eighth-century Ravenna Cosmographia. In the Scandinavian region, the Cotton map shows a large island, which is marked “Island” at its eastern end and “Scridefinnas” at its western end. Nearby a peninsula, marked “neronorroen”, extends from continental Europe. This configuration corresponds to a statement by the Ravenna cosmographer that the contemporary name for “Dania” is the “patria Northomanorum”, and that it is located next to the Scridefinni (“iuxta ipsos Serdefennos”).36 It is suggestive too that the same section of the Cosmographia notes the “unorum gens”, although there are of course several other possible sources for the Cotton map’s “hunorum gens” in central Europe. Elsewhere on the Cotton map, a select number of toponyms suggests an affinity with its close contemporary, the St-Sever Beatus world map. Three are in Asia minor : Ninive, Cesaria, and “Tarso Ciliciae”.37 There is more than one possible source for these names, but it is notable that the latter appears in exactly the same form on the St-Sever Beatus. On the Italian peninsula, Pavia, Ravenna, Lucca and Luna appear on both the Cotton and the St-Sever Beatus maps, but on few other world maps of the period ; not on the St-Sever Beatus, but present in the sub-group of Beatus manuscripts that has been grouped together as “Beatus family IIb”, is the Cotton map’s “Salerna”.38 Other aspects of the St-Sever Beatus, such as the detailed representation of Gaul, are of course absent from the Cotton map.
17While I remain unconvinced that the Cotton map (or any of these maps) can with any great certainty be connected with specific ancient authors, such as Eratosthenes or Dionysius, or even late antique authors such as Eucherius of Lyon,39 it seems highly likely that they retain certain formal elements that do descend from late antique originals. On the Cotton map these elements include the representation of Britain, whose shape can be tentatively, but not conclusively, linked with Ptolemy’s Geographia,40 and whose rivers (if they are rivers) could be understood to subdivide Britain into five provinces, in the manner of a Roman provincial structure.41 Similarly, the Cotton map’s provincial borders in Africa, and some of those in Asia Minor and central Europe, plausibly derive from a Roman-era original. What is also evident from the Cotton and Beatus mappae mundi in particular is the way in which late antique models were subject to interpretation and adaptation. In this regard one could posit an era of refashioning in the 9th and 10th centuries, postdating, that is, the Albi and Vatican maps, when maps started to bear more clearly the fruits of exegesis and the consolidation of monasticism in the Latin west, and when in the case of the Cotton map they allowed for the representation of the spread of Christianity into the north and north-west of Europe.42
Notes de bas de page
1Joachim Lelewel, Géographie du Moyen Âge, Brussels, Pilliet, 1852, vol. 1, pp. 10-13. Eugène Cortambert, “Quelques-uns des plus anciens monuments géographiques du Moyen Âge conservés à la Bibliothèque nationale”, Bulletin de la Société de géographie, ser. 6, 14, 1877, pp. 337-363 : 355-362 ; Konrad Miller, Mappae mundi : die ältesten Weltkarten, 6 vols., Stuttgart, Jos. Rothsche Verlagshandlung, 1895-1898, vol. 3, Die kleineren Weltkarten, pp. 29-37 ; Paul D. A. Harvey, Medieval Maps, London, The British Library, 1991, pp. 21-25 ; Evelyn Edson, Mapping Time and Space : How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World, London, The British Library, 1997, pp. 16-17, 74-77 ; Patrick Gautier Dalché, La Géographie de Ptolémée en Occident (ive- xvie siècle), Turnhout, Brepols, 2009, p. 90 ; Pascal Arnaud, “Mapping the Edges of the Earth : Approaches and Cartographical Problems”, in Alexander V. Podossinov (ed.), The Periphery of the Classical World in Ancient Geography and Cartography, Leuven, Peeters, 2014, pp. 31-57 : 32.
2Fabienne L. Michelet, Creation, Migration, and Conquest : Imaginary Geography and Sense of Space in Old English Literature, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 154-157 ; Martin K. Foys, “The Virtual Reality of the Anglo-Saxon Mappamundi”, in id., Virtually Anglo-Saxon : Old Media, New Media, and Early Medieval Studies in the Late Age of Print, Gainesville, University Press of Florida, 2007, pp. 110-158 ; Irmeli Valtonen, The North in the Old English Orosius : A Geographical Narrative in Context, Helsinki, Société Néophilologique, 2008, pp. 221-251 ; Helen Appleton, “The northern world of the Anglo-Saxon Mappa mundi”, Anglo-Saxon England, 47, 2018, pp. 275305 ; Alfred Hiatt, ‘An Anglo-Saxon World View ? The Cotton mappa mundi reassessed’, Viator 51.2, 2020, pp. 93-129.
3The most detailed study of the entire map and its contexts to date remains Patrick McGurk, “The Mappa mundi”, in Patrick McGurk, David N. Dumville, M. R. Godden, Ann Knock (eds.), An Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany (British Library Cotton Tiberius B.V. Part I), Copenhagen, Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1983, pp. 79-87.
4The manuscript is online : http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx ?ref =Cotton_MS_Tiberius_B_V/1 [consulted 4 November, 2020]. For full description and discussion of the manuscript see P. McGurk et al., An Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany, op. cit.
5P. McGurk, “Palaeography and Illumination”, in P. McGurk et al., An Eleventh-Century AngloSaxon Illustrated Miscellany, op. cit., pp. 28-39 : 33 (“perhaps nearer to 1050 than to 1025”) ; most recently Peter A. Stokes, English Vernacular Minuscule from Æthelred to Cnut circa 990 – circa 1035, Cambridge, Brewer, 2014, pp. 73-74 (“second quarter of the eleventh century, if perhaps earlier rather than later in the date range”), pp. 132-133.
6While a general scholarly assumption operates in favour of Christ Church, Canterbury, the matter has not been conclusively resolved. See P. McGurk, “Conclusion”, in P. McGurk et al., An Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany, op. cit., pp. 107-109, for a helpful summary ; on the Glastonbury connections David N. Dumville, “The Catalogue Texts”, in P. McGurk et al., An Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany, op. cit., pp. 55-58.
7See e.g. F. L. Michelet, Creation, Migration, and Conquest, op. cit., p. 157 (“the Anglo-Saxon mapmaker grants his own country a new, regional centrality”).
8Lars Boje Mortensen, “The Diffusion of Roman Histories in the Middle Ages : A List of Orosius, Eutropius, Paulus Diaconus, and Landolfus Sagax Manuscripts”, Filologia Mediolatina, 6-7, 1999-2000, pp. 101-200 : 114.
9The Old English Orosius, ed. by Janet Bately, London, Oxford University Press, 1980, 1.1 (pp. 8-21).
10Pauli Orosii Historiarum adversum paganos libri vii, ed. by C. Zangemeister, Vienna, 1882, 1.2.27-33 (pp. 7-8).
11Pauli Orosii Historiarum…, op. cit., 1.2.69-72 (p. 11).
12Pauli Orosii Historiarum…, op. cit., 1.2.13-50 (pp. 6-9).
13P. McGurk, “The History of the Manuscript”, in P. McGurk et al., An Eleventh-Century Anglo-Saxon Illustrated Miscellany, op. cit., pp. 25-27.
14J. Lelewel, Géographie du Moyen Âge, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 10 ; K. Miller, Mappae mundi : die ältesten Weltkarten, op. cit., p. 31 ; E. Edson, Mapping Time and Space…, op. cit., p. 76.
15R. Sharpe et al. (eds.), English Benedictine Libraries : The Shorter Catalogues, London, The British Library, 1996, B39 no. 169k (p. 188) : “Priscianus gramaticus de situ et nominibus terrarum cum Mappa mundi. bon(us)” ; no. 296 (p. 204) : “Priscianus de situ orbis. uet(us) set legi potest”. This point is argued at greater length and with more speculation by Dan Terkla, “Books and Maps : Anglo-Saxon Glastonbury and Geospatial Awareness”, in D. Terkla, N. Millea (eds.), A Critical Companion to English Mappae Mundi of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, Woodbridge, 2019, pp. 44-67.
16The same incipit appears in British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian B. XXV, fol. 77v. The copy of Priscian’s Periegesis in this early twelfth-century manuscript from Christ Church, Canterbury, follows a copy of Julius Solinus’ Polyhistor, and is clearly copied from Cotton Tiberius B.V (1) : Paul Van de Woestijne (ed.), La Périégèse de Priscien, Bruges, De Tempel, 1953, pp. 24-25.
17The origins of the term “ormista” are not certain : The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London, 1975-2013, s.v. “ormesta”.
18For example, “Taprobana habet x ciuitates bis in anno metita fruges” (Historiae, 1.2 ; Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae XIV : De Terra, ed. by O. Spevak, Paris, 2011, XIV. iii.6) ; “mons aureus” (Etymologiae XIV, XIV.iii.7) ; “Tingui metropolis” (Etymologiae XIV, XIV.v. 12) ; “Zugis regio ipsa est et affrica est enim fortis sed uberior bestiis et serpentibus plena” (Etymologiae XIV, XIV.v. 8) ; “amnis misica” (see Etymologiae XIV, XIV.v. 9).
19O. Szerwiniack, “Un commentaire hiberno-latin des deux premiers livres d’Orose, Histoires contre les païens”, Archivum latinitatis Medii Aevi, 51, 1992-1993, pp. 5-137.
20The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister, ed. and trans. by M. W. Herren, Turnhout, Brepols, 2011, pp. 30, 32.
21Liber monstrorum, ed. by F. Porsia, Bari, Dedalo, 1976, V.1 (p. 220).
22Thomas O’Loughlin, “Map and Text : A Mid Ninth-Century Map for the Book of Joshua”, Imago Mundi, 57, 2005, pp. 7-22.
23The Reference Bible, Das Bibelwerk : inter Pauca problesmata de enigmatibus ex tomis canonicis, ed. by Gerard MacGinty, Turnhout, Brepols, 2000, pp. X-XI.
24For discussion of their significance see Valtonen, The North in the Old English Orosius, op. cit., pp. 231-248.
25Gerd Althoff, “Saxony and the Elbe Slavs in the Tenth Century”, in Timothy Reuter (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 3 c. 900-c. 1024, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 267-292 : 278-292.
26For example, “aniclea” (repeated twice) ; “Naper flda” ( = “Danaper fl”) ; “Bartiminaciu” (for Barcelona) ; “moren porgus” (unknown).
27P. McGurk, “The Mappa mundi”, Art. cit., p. 80 ; Leonid S. Chekin, Northern Eurasia in Medieval Cartography : Inventory, Text, Translation, and Commentary, Turnhout, Brepols, 2006, pp. 126-131.
28The most forceful account of the Albi map’s ancient origins is given by Anca Dan, “La mappemonde d’Albi – un pinax chôrographicos”, Revue du Comité français de cartographie, 234, 2017, pp. 13-44.
29David Woodward, “Medieval Mappaemundi”, in John B. Harley, David Woodward (eds.), The History of Cartography, volume 1 : Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 286-370 : 347.
30Patrick Gautier Dalché, “Mappemonde”, in Matthieu Desachy (dir.), Le scriptorium d’Albi. Les manuscrits de la cathédrale Sainte-Cécile (viie-xiie siècle), cat. expo., Albi, médiathèque Pierre-Amalric (13 septembre-15 décembre 2007), Rodez, Rouergue, 2007, pp. 24-27 : 27 ; Dan, “La mappemonde d’Albi…”, Art. cit., p. 27.
31For example, Ethiopia/Aethiopes, Nomedia/Nomades, Britania/Britanni, India/Indi etc.
32Compare the locations of “Babilonia”, and Albi’s northern “Barbari” against the Cotton map’s “barbari getuli”.
33Leonid S. Chekin, “Easter Tables and the Pseudo-Isidorean Vatican Map”, Imago Mundi, 1999, 51, 1999, pp. 13-23.
34Dan, “La mappemonde d’Albi…”, Art. cit., p. 33.
35Both McGurk (“The Mappa mundi”, Art. cit., p. 82) and Chekin (Northern Eurasia…, op. cit., p. 129) observe the interchanging of Dardania and Dalmatia on the Vatican map and the Cotton map.
36Ravennatis Anonymi Cosmographia, in Itineraria Romana, vol. 2, ed. by J. Schnetz, Stuttgart, Teubner, 1990, I.xi (p. 10) ; IV. xiii (p. 53).
37Paris, BnF, lat. 8878, between fols. 45-46 ; K. Miller, Mappae mundi : die ältesten Weltkarten, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 41-61 ; S. Sáenz-López Pérez, The Beatus maps : the Revelation of the World in the Middle Ages, Burgos, Siloé, 2014, pp. 283-293 provide transcription of toponyms on the map.
38S. Sáenz-López Pérez, The Beatus maps…, op. cit., p. 290.
39See Dan, “La mappemonde d’Albi…”, Art. cit., building on P. Gautier Dalché, “Eucher de Lyon, Iona, Bobbio : le destin d’une mappamundi de l’antiquité tardive”, Viator, 41, 2010, pp. 1-22.
40P. Gautier Dalché, La Géographie de Ptolémée…, op. cit., p. 90.
41Neither the subdivision of Britain into four provinces following the reforms of Diocletian, nor its division into five provinces, as recorded in the late imperial Notitia Dignitatum and the Laterculus of Polemius Silvius, accord precisely with the island’s representation on the Cotton map. However it is possible to see a schematic division between two southern provinces, two midland provinces, and a northern one. See Notitia Dignitatum accedunt Notitia urbis Constantino- politanae et Laterculi Prouinciarum, ed. by O. Seeck, Berlin, Weidmann, 1876, pp. 111, 249, 260.
42For elaboration of this argument see Hiatt, “An Anglo-Saxon World View ?...”, Art. cit.
Auteur
-
Alfred Hiatt
Queen Mary, University of London

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Creative Commons - Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
Marquer la ville
Signes, traces, empreintes du pouvoir (xiiie-xvie siècle)
Patrick Boucheron et Jean-Philippe Genet (dir.)
2013
Église et État, Église ou État ?
Les clercs et la genèse de l’État moderne
Christine Barralis, Jean-Patrice Boudet, Fabrice Delivré et al. (dir.)
2014
La vérité
Vérité et crédibilité : construire la vérité dans le système de communication de l’Occident (XIIIe-XVIIe siècle)
Jean-Philippe Genet (dir.)
2015
La cité et l’Empereur
Les Éduens dans l’Empire romain d’après les Panégyriques latins
Antony Hostein
2012
La délinquance matrimoniale
Couples en conflit et justice en Aragon (XVe-XVIe siècle)
Martine Charageat
2011
Des sociétés en mouvement. Migrations et mobilité au Moyen Âge
XLe Congrès de la SHMESP (Nice, 4-7 juin 2009)
Société des historiens médiévistes de l’Enseignement supérieur public (dir.)
2010
Une histoire provinciale
La Gaule narbonnaise de la fin du IIe siècle av. J.-C. au IIIe siècle ap. J.-C.
Michel Christol
2010