TITLE: The Cottoniana or Anglo-Saxon Map
DATE: ca. 995 A.D.
AUTHOR: from Priscian 's Periegsis
DESCRIPTION: The Cottoniana does not appear to belong to any
one of the identifiable Families of medieval maps. It is far removed from
all of the members of the Beatus group (Slide #207);
it is equally far removed from the school to which the Ebstorf, Psalter
and Hereford plans appear to belong (Slides
#223, #224, #226). Nor
has it any relation with the various types of Zone/Climate maps which are
known under the names of Macrobius, Sallust, or T-O diagrams (Slides
#201, 205 ). The map itself occurs in a copy
of Priscian's Periegesis, a 5th century manual of geography based
upon an earlier treatise. The manuscript which contains the map (Cotton
MSS, Tib. B. V.) is made up of various pieces, collected by Sir Robert Cotton
in 1598. The map is on folio 56, and is immediately followed by a copy of
Priscian's Latin version of the Periegesis of Dionysius, De situ terrae
Prisciani Grammatici, quem di priscorum dictis exerpsit Ormistarum,
written in the same hand as appears on the map. However, the map stands
in no special relationship to the work that it professedly illustrates.
It is, indeed, more closely linked with Paulus Orosius' Universal History
(out of the 146 legends, 75 occur in Orosius; 75 contain the textual basis
of the whole map, and all of its names of countries, with few exceptions
); it also has certain obligations to Pomponius Mela's De Chorographia
[Cosmography] of 40 A.D., St. Isidore of Seville, and the topographical
writings of St. Jerome; and finally it bares some indications of a much
later time, the age of the discoveries and the migration of the Northmen
in the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries. The correspondences of various names
and descriptions in Adam of Bremen afford at least a possibility that the
former sometimes drew from the same originals as the great northern annalist,
while some of the names in the British Isles, in Gaul, and in the Far East
and northeast, support the 10th century date, which most scholars are inclined
In its presentation of the world as a whole, this map adopts a roughly square
form measuring 21 X 17 cm, and in this one respect it recalls some of the
less desirable aspects of examples of the Beatus derivatives (Slide
#207, Ashburnham). However, though of small size, it is one of the most
unique of all medieval world-pictures. In the execution of this right-angled
design there is all the difference between the narrow perspective of an
uncompromising symmetry found in most of the maps of its period (such as
the T-O designs), and a certain respectable, if not highly developed, knowledge
and scientific insight reflected in this map. It portrays, with comparative
fullness and accuracy, various places, regions, and natural features elsewhere
omitted, or misunderstood in cartography until a much later date. In fact
there is hardly any map from the Middle Ages, before the appearance of the
portolani, which can be compared with the Cottoniana in its
detailed delineation of various coastlines.
In geographical content, it is one of the few medieval maps not to center
on Jerusalem, as did the majority of highly theocratic maps of the age.
The bulbous projection of land on the coast, north of Jerusalem, is perhaps
meant for Carmel. Some idea, though exaggerated, of the Syrtes on the North
African coast is evidently possessed by the cartographer. Its eastern limit
is the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. Asia is shown at right angles to the coast
of North Africa, an inferior representation when compared with such earlier,
though uncirculated, renderings of Ptolemy. In Africa, the lakes east and
west of the Lacus Salinarum near the north coast are noteworthy; like Brigantia
(of Lighthouse fame) in the northwest of the Spanish peninsula. Mons
Clinax [-max] in the middle of the South African coast, is perhaps a
misty reference to the "Chariot of the Gods", as described by
Hanno and the Greek and Latin geographers who copied him; while the two
small unnamed isles, west of Mount Atlas, are probably intended for the
Of purely inland geography, unconnected with the coast, there is not much
in the European region of this map: the Huns, Dalmatia, Dardania, Histria,
and Tracia, all circling around Pannonia. What is now European Russia is
here contracted to a mere neck of land. The Caspian Sea, inaccurately opening
into the Northern Ocean, is of unusual size. However, this is apparently
the first map to add to the knowledge of Ptolemy with regards to northwestern
Europe. England, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark (Neronorweci or Neronorroen),
and France are better drawn on the Cottoniana than any other medieval
map. The British Isles are prominently depicted with Ireland oriented east-west,
vice north-south. Scotland is curiously twisted to the left instead of to
the right, as in Ptolemy. There is also no small comparative merit in the
land of the Scrito-Finns and Island, representing present-day Scandinavia,
and in Sicily, whose three angles appear; the north coast of Asia Minor
is likewise good. On the other hand, the western Mediterranean is rather
crude and very contracted. France is so squeezed between Spain and Italy
that its south coast almost disappears, except for the Gulf of Lyons, which
is fairly well delineated. In Greece the name Macedonia seems to be written
over Morea; Athens and Attica are widely separated.
In Asia there is much more inland geography, chiefly connected with the
Twelve Tribes and Biblical history. To the west of the Caspian Sea can be
found Gog and Magog, adjoined by the Turchi; the Bulgari is
placed between the Danube and the Arctic Ocean; and Taprobane occupies
the place usually given to the Terrestrial Paradise.
A lost Roman province map may have been the source of the divisions so clearly
marked in Asia Minor, in Central and Southeastern Europe, and in North Africa.
The Biblical loans may be traced in many names and also in certain aspects
of the general plan. Indeed, it is obvious that here the design was not
merely indebted to the Scriptures for details such as almost all medieval
maps exhibit, but it was also, to a large extent, devised for a special
Biblical lesson - a picture of the settlement of the Twelve Tribes of Isreal.
Other Biblical connections, traceable especially in the center of the map,
include (directly or indirectly) not only the Twelve Tribes and Jerusalem,
but also Bethlehem, Babylon, Tarsus, Caesarea Philippi, and the Ark of Noah
(among the vignettes). Most of the Biblical names found on the Hereford,
Lambert, Henry of Mainz, the Psalter, and Ebstorf maps are perhaps, in many
cases, borrowed directly from this earlier Anglo-Saxon work. There are several
names and features which show striking independence of any other known map
authority of the earlier Middle Ages. Among these are five names in Britain:
Camri or Cambria, and Marinus-portus in the northwest;
Kent, London, and Winchester on the southern shore; and Arma or Armagh
in Ireland; the Sud-Bryttas [South Bretons] in northern Gaul; the
Golden Mountain of the Far East and the Boreani and abundant lions
of the northeast of Asia.
The comparative excellence of the Cottoniana is perhaps due to its
being the production of an Irish scholar-monk living in the household of
the learned and travelled Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury (992-994), with
whose Itinerary, from Rome to the English Channel, the present design
has several curious resemblances. In the British isle of the pre-Norman
period, there is no school of learning art, or science comparable to that
which sprang from the Irish Church of Patrick, Colomba, and Ardan; and the
insertion of the name of Armagh, so rarely found in medieval maps,
strengthens the view that there we have the handiwork of a student who was
trained in Irish schools, or derived his knowledge from men so trained.
The coloring of the Cottoniana is grey for most seas; red is used
not only for the Red Sea (top right), but also for the Persian and Arabian
Gulfs, the Nile with its delta and other African rivers and lakes; and bright
green is used for all mountains. The handwriting is small and difficult,
with peculiar formation of various letters, i.e., C is written like an R,
O like A, R like P and A.
LOCATION: British Library, Cotton MS. Tiberius B.V., fol. 56v.
*Beazley, C., The Dawn of Modern Geography, volume III, pp. 559-563, 608-611.
*Harvey, P.D.A., Medieval Maps, Plate 19 (color).
*Nebenzahl, K., Maps of the Holy Land, p. 30, Plate 8 (color).
*Tooley, R.V., Maps and Mapmakers, pp. 13, 48.
* Glorious Age of Exploration, p. 168.