Early
P.D.A. Harvey. Mappa Mundi: The Hereford World Map. London and Toronto: British Library and U of Toronto P, 1996. 58pp. ISBN 0-8020-7945-8 Cloth.
James Cummings
University of Leeds
engjcc@leeds.ac.uk

Cummings, James. "Review of Mappa Mundi: The Hereford World Map." Early Modern Literary Studies 4.2 (September, 1998): 15.1-8 <URL: http://purl.oclc.org/emls/04-2/rev_cumm.html>.

  1. When I was fortunate enough to visit Hereford a few years ago, I made sure to visit the Hereford Mappa Mundi exhibition. This wonderful thirteenth century map had recently been moved into a new climate-controlled container and I was surprised to find out that it held the map vertically, as I had assumed it would be better for a map to lie horizontally or at a low angle. Perhaps keeping the map under tension is better for its conservation. I begin by mentioning this new case because, while it may help preserve the condition of the map, it is certainly not conducive to those wishing to view it. As the air-conditioning unit which controls the map's humidity and temperature is at the base of the container, the section containing the map starts around three or four feet off the ground. Given that the Mappa Mundi is about five feet in height, this means that the important images at the dimly lit top of the map are some eight or nine feet off the floor.

  2. Owing to this highly unsuitable viewing environment, P.D.A. Harvey's book, as well as the large facsimile posters that the exhibition sells, takes on a new importance for an academic audience. Harvey is well known in the field of historical cartography and has published such works as The History of Topographical Maps: Symbols, Pictures and Surveys and more recently Medieval Maps. Although a slim volume, this popular work on the Mappa Mundi is, nevertheless, a good starting point for an introduction to medieval maps.

  3. The Hereford Mappa Mundi, while neither Early Modern nor very literary, is a very important artifact which has significant implications for literary studies, and most importantly, the study of early English drama. The use of maps in analogies comparing aspects of the theoretical exploration of Early Modern texts has become increasingly more common in constructing narratives concerning theatrical history. While Ernst Robert Curtius traced the concept of the theatrical metaphor of "the world as stage" back as far as Plato, the importance of the contemporary "world-view" to the study of any historically-situated text has been re-established in many recent studies of early drama. A brief discussion of "world-pictures" and early English drama can be recognised in the placing of Margreta de Grazia's article as the first chapter of the recent A New History of Early English Drama. That the Mappa Mundi, and similar maps, was a controlling image that influenced the way in which Early Modern playwrights, actors, audience viewed the world has been recently re-examined by Martin Stevens, in his article "From Mappa Mundi to Theatrum Mundi: The World as Stage in Early English Drama." While the map is not the territory, the cartographic expressions of our world view are shaped by our perceptions of the world. In understanding earlier maps we gain a sense of the developing tradition of "world-pictures" from which Early Modern cartographers, playwrights, and others were introducing innovations.

  4. Harvey's work begins with a chapter on "The Map and Its History" which not only describes the content of the map and how it should be interpreted, but also details what is known about the making of the map and its author, Richard of Holdingham. This chapter concludes with an interesting examination of the subsequent history of the map to present day, including a discussion on the triptych in which the map may have originally been kept. While this case is now lost, a late-eighteenth century drawing of it is reproduced by Harvey.

  5. The second chapter, on "The Map and Its Relatives," is less about the map itself than a short discussion on the history of medieval and Roman world maps. While not exhaustive in its treatment, this section examines other T-O maps and compares them to the Hereford Mappa Mundi. This chapter finishes with a lengthy and extremely useful discussion on the English family of maps including the mid-fourteenth century "Gough Map of Britain." One of the benefits of this chapter is that it is amply supplied with good photographs of the maps under discussion. This gives the reader a brief experience of a variety of maps, thus allowing the Hereford Mappa Mundi to be placed within a context of cartographical tradition which allows an appreciation of later maps.

  6. The final chapter, discussing "The Map and Its Sources," examines the content of the map itself. It surveys the Bible and early church history (as depicted on the map), and then turns to a consideration of those authors who were used as geographical authorities in the Middle Ages. This section explains some of the interesting mythological monsters and more curious features of the map. This chapter concludes with a discussion of whether ancient or medieval itineraries were used in the construction of the map.

  7. The work finishes with two appendices. The first transcribes (with translations) the inscriptions found outside the frame of the map. The second details those reproductions that have been made of the map. A select bibliography organised by topic provides suggestions for those wishing to know more about the map itself or medieval cartography in general.

  8. Although the text is detailed and scholarly, the real benefit of Harvey's work is the numerous photographic reproductions of details that are now difficult to see given the map's new case. This book is of benefit as an introductory work on medieval maps, but is not designed to be as exhaustive as Harvey's own Medieval Maps, which may be more desirable for scholars wishing to explore in-depth the traditions from which Early Modern cartography developed.

Works Cited

Responses to this piece intended for the Readers' Forum may be sent to the Editor at EMLS@UAlberta.ca.


© 1998-, R.G. Siemens (Editor, EMLS).

(RGS, LH 3 November 1998)