#medieval maps

Explore 10 medieval maps of Britain—from early mappae mundi and Ptolemaic charts to portolans, the Gough Map, and the Catalan Atlas—revealing how England, Scotland and Wales were drawn in the Middle Ages.

What a get! have a detail of some sea monsters and a complete, Super High Definition medieval map full of both sea and land monsters! Worth looking at for HOOOUURSS.

(summary from James Ford Bell Library):

"Carta marina, a wallmap of Scandinavia, by Olaus Magnus. The caption reads : A Marine map and Description of the Northern Lands and of their Marvels, most carefully drawn up at Venice in the year 1539 through the generous assistance of the Most Honourable Lord Hieronymo Quirino."

mappa mundi

from the "rylands beatus", a copy of beatus of liébana's 8th c. commentary on the apocalypse of st john, spain, late 12th or early 13th c.

'England is set in a Sea of Darkness. It is a considerable island ... most fertile, its inhabitants are brave, active and enterprising, but all is in the grip of perpetual winter.'

Here be Medieval Sea Monsters

This sea pig, which was compared to heretics that distorted truth and lived like swine, lived in the North Sea on Olaus Magnus’s 1539 Carta Marina, a lushly illustrated map that inspired many after it.

An ichthyocentaur (parts human, horse and fish) plays a viol on a map of Scandinavia from the 1573 edition of Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum. The sea surrounding Scandinavia showed sailing ships and this traditionally peaceful ichthyocentaur, perhaps suggesting safe passage.

Polypus (meaning “many-footed”) was used to describe many animals, from the lobster to the centipede to the octopus. While Olaus Magnus (1539) drew a giant lobster here, his text describes an octopus, showing the true confusion about what lived in the sea.

Explore the Ryukyu Kuniezu—three massive 17th-century maps of the Ryukyu Kingdom—now online in high resolution, with zoomable details of Okinawa and the island chains, plus the Wako Zukan pirate scroll.