CHAPTER XIX
MEDIÆVAL MAPS
We cannot pass from the subject of mediæval exploration without a word on the really delightful, if ignorant, maps of the period, for they illustrate better than any description the state of geography at this time. The Ptolemy map, summing up all the Greek and Roman learning, with its longitudes and latitudes, with its shaped continents and its many towns and rivers, "indicates the high-water mark of a tide that was soon to ebb."
With the decline of the Roman Empire and the coming of Christianity we get a new spirit inspiring our mediæval maps, in which Jerusalem, hitherto totally obscure, dominates the whole situation.
The Christian Topography of Cosmas in the sixth century sets a new model. Figures blowing trumpets representing the winds still blow on to the world, as they did in the days of Ptolemy, but the earth is once more flat and it is again surrounded by the ocean stream. Round this ocean stream, according to Cosmas, is an outer earth, the seat of Paradise, "the earth beyond the ocean where men dwelt before the Flood."
Although these maps of Cosmas were but the expression of one man's ideas, they served as a model for others.
There is, at Turin, a delightful map of the eighth century with the four winds and the ocean stream as usual. The world is divided into three—Asia, Africa, and Europe. Adam and Eve stand at the top; to the right of Adam lies Armenia and the Caucasus; to the left of Eve are Mount Lebanon, the river Jordan, Sidon, and Mesopotamia. At their feet lie Mount Carmel, Jerusalem, and Babylon.
| THE TURIN MAP OF THE WORLD, EIGHTH CENTURY. |