ANCIENT MAP.
Plate XI.
with the Tree of Life, and Adam and Eve. Above is the Last Judgment, with the Virgin interceding for mankind. Jerusalem appears in the centre of the map; and near it, the crucifix is planted on “Mount Calvary.” Babylon has its famous tower; Rome bears the inscription, “Roma caput mundi tenet orbis frena rotundi;” and Troy is described as “Troja civitas bellicosissima.” (These four cities were regarded as the most important in the world: Troy, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was a favourite subject of romance.) The British Isles occupy a considerable space; and Hereford, with its cathedral, is by no means obscurely placed. A great part of the map is filled with inscriptions taken from Solinus, Isidore of Seville, and others; and with drawings of the monstrous animals and peoples which the mediæval cosmography supposed to exist in different parts of the world. The monkey is assigned to Norway; the scorpion to the banks of the Rhine; and the “oroc” (aurochs) to Provence. Lot’s wife, the labyrinth of Crete, the columns of Hercules, and Scylla and Charybdis, should also be noticed. “The portrait of Abraham is seen in Chaldæa, and that of Moses on Mount Sinai. Amid the deserts of Ethiopia St. Anthony is recognised, with his hook-beaked satyrs and fauns. St. Augustine in his pontifical habit marks the situation of his own Hippo[39].”
The history of this very remarkable map is uncertain. It was discovered, probably about a century ago, under the floor of Bishop Audley’s Chapel; and Dean Merewether suggested (but apparently without the slightest authority) that it might have served originally as an altar-piece[40].
In the church is preserved a very curious chair of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, closely resembling those often represented in early sculpture and painting. It is formed in great measure of little turned balusters; and may be compared with a chair figured by M. Viollet-le-Duc[41] from sculpture at Auxerre. The Hereford chair (which at first sight looks like work of the seventeenth century, but is undoubtedly early, and a most valuable remnant of antiquity) may perhaps have served as the bishop’s throne, before the construction, in the fourteenth century, of that now in use;—or it may have been the bishop’s chair at the altar.
XXIV. A door at the eastern end of the south nave-aisle opens to the cloisters, of which only two walks, the east and south, remain. The west walk was pulled down in the reign of Edward VI. to make room for the
THE CLOISTERS, WITH THE LADIES’ ARBOUR.
Plate XII.