THE COSMAS MAP
Many maps prepared in the Middle Ages sum up the prevailing knowledge, or rather ignorance, of the world. One of the earliest specimens that has come down to us was made in the sixth century, by Cosmas, an Alexandrian monk. It exhibits the earth as a rectangle surrounded by an ocean with four deep gulfs. Beyond this ocean lies another world, the seat of Paradise and the place "where men dwelt before the Flood." The rivers which flow from the lakes of Paradise are also shown. Figures holding trumpets represent the four winds.
[Illustration: GEOGRAPHICAL MONSTERS
From an early edition of Sir John Mandeville's Travels. Shakespeare
(Othello, I, iii, 144-145) refers to:
"The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.">[
THE HEREFORD MAP
A map made about seven hundred years later, and now preserved in Hereford Cathedral, shows the earth as a circular disk with the ocean surrounding it. In the extreme east—that is, at the top—lies Paradise, Jerusalem occupies the center, and below it comes the Mediterranean, liberally supplied with islands. The Black Sea appears as a narrow body of water, and even the British Isles are strangely distorted to fit the circle. Such a map could have been of little use to travelers; it simply satisfied a natural curiosity about the wonders of the world.
OPENING UP OF ASIA
The crusades, more than anything else, first extended geographical knowledge. As a religious movement they led to pilgrimages and missions in Oriental lands. With the pilgrims and missionaries went hard-headed traders, who brought back to Europe the wealth of the East. The result, by 1300 A.D., was to open up countries beyond the Euphrates which had remained sealed to Europe for centuries. This discovery of the interior of Asia had only less importance than that of the New World two centuries later.
LEGEND OF PRESTER JOHN
What specially drew explorers eastward was the belief that somewhere in the center of Asia existed a great Christian kingdom which, if allied to European Christendom, might attack the Moslems from the rear. According to one form of the story the kingdom consisted of the Ten Tribes of Israel, [5] who had been converted to Christianity by Nestorian missionaries. [6] Over them reigned a priest-king named Prester (or Presbyter) John. The popes made several attempts to communicate with this mythical ruler. In the thirteenth century, however, Franciscan friars did penetrate to the heart of Asia. They returned to Europe with marvelous tales of the wealth and splendor of the East under the Mongol emperors.