Cars

cartographic perspectives Number 3, Fall 2002 Irony," which was published six years before he wrote "Mappemounde" (1939, in Birney 1985, 56-59). It may, therefore, have been his intent to contrast "Mappemounde" ironically with one of its inspirations: "To Rosemounde" couldn't differ more from Birney's melancholy, heavily stressed verses. Birney clearly chose the word mappemounde for its cartographic impli- cations. To use the words of the Chaucerian editor, Walter Skeat, Rose- mounde is the shrine of all beauty "as far as the map of the world ex- tends" (Skeat [1899] 1952, 549). Writing in the second half of the fourteenth century, Chaucer imagined the earth that was portrayed in contemporary world maps—an island "cercled" by the ocean/sea (cf. Tomasch 1992). Historians call such maps mappaemundi, "maps of the world," which is the plural form of the medieval Latin mappa mundi (du Cange 1954, 5:255). Ap- proximately 1100 mappaemundi survive of those made in Europe between the fifth and the mid-fifteenth centuries. Some are little more than sketches of a "T-O" shaped world: they show the earth as an ocean-embraced circle of land ("O") divided by the cross-like intersection ("T") of the Mediterra- nean Sea with the Don (Tanais) and Nile rivers forming the boundaries of the three known continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe. Other mappaemundi are adorned with hundreds of names, pictures, and legends. Still others portray the earth divided into five (later seven) zones, with frigid polar regions, temperate zones, and a central uninhabitable belt at the equator known as the perusta zona ("the burnt up zone"). Most represent the world as a Christian allegory, featuring prominent figures from the Old and New Testaments alongside characters from classical mythology and ethnog- raphies. Although gradually modified by trade and travel, mappaemundi continued to superimpose Christian theological views about space upon Greco-Roman conceptions of geography. Even during Chaucer's time, in the late Middle Ages, many world maps resembled those made in the thirteenth century and earlier (Harvey 1991, 37; Delano-Smith and Kain 1999, 15-22). Birney's "Mappemounde," Mappaemundi, and Early English World Maps Birney displays his familiarity with mappaemundi throughout "Mappe- mounde." 5 His reference to "scribe" reminds us that the vast majority of mappaemundi illustrated the Bibles, psalters, and encyclopedic treatises produced in cathedral communities and monastic scriptoria ("writing- rooms"). Monks, trained as scribes, copied these texts by hand and drew the accompanying maps (Woodward 1987, 286 and 324; Campbell 1987, 428-29). Birney's emphasis upon the cardinal directions reflects their prominence on mappaemundi. Although zonal mappaemundi had varying orientations, most medieval world maps feature east at the top because the Bible locates the earthly paradise there (Genesis 2:8; Isidore of Seville, Etymologies 14.3.1-2). "East" represents man's early innocence and the promise of everlasting life in Heaven. "West," by contrast, symbolizes the world's decay and the eternal damnation of sinners in the depths of Hell (see below, and Baritz 1961). Birney's nadders suggest the dragons lurking in the west, below the world's frame on the diminutive Psalter map, made around 1300 (Figure 1, page 65). Though illustrating a book of Psalms, the Psalter map is distinctly apocalyptic. It displays Christ above, in the east, flanked by angels; below, in the west, two dragons represent Satan and his emissaries. In "Mappemounde" Birney multiples the dragons, locating them in the east and west, and calling them nadders, which means "devils" as well as "serpents" or "dragons." "Writing in the second half of the fourteenth century, Chaucer imagined the earth that was portrayed in contemporary world maps—an island "cer- cled" by the ocean/sea." "Birney displays his familiarity with mappaemundi throughout 'Mappemounde.'"

• Cover