The Routledge Handbook of Material Culture in Early Modern Europe

Early Medieval maps of England, 2023

It is unclear how these the earliest English maps were constructed but these charts are quite sophisticated and have been designed and constructed on their accuracy is much higher than what would have been expected for medieval maps. It can be therefore assumed that there existed a system of navigational artifacts that people relied on in these early times and was later transformed into maps. These maps could not have been made without something it imitated in its making. Things like stones and crosses by the road as can be seen in many Celtic and Anglo-Saxon towns and by the roadside, might have been local information to the traveler, and might therefore been seen as early medieval navigational assistance marks. Smaller artifacts as well as detailed jewelry and bronze brooches that will be the focus of this text, might also have been navigational assistance tools that the travelers could take with them on their journeys. There are examples from Roman time that might give an indication of how such navigational pieces might be simple and at the same time giving a strong perspective over a rather large area of land and then there are later examples from the Early Medieval times aligned with the earliest known maps and modern maps as well.

Since prehistoric times, the allure for the inhabited world has always been of interest to mankind. This clearly states that from the earliest times, maps have played a significant role in human history. In present times both these maps and their makers serve as powerful medium to revive forgotten personalities and historical events. The history of map making shows that during ancient times, mapmaking was basically a form of decorative art but the most decorative maps have been produced during the middle age times. Mappe mundi and portolan charts were the two traditions found in the European world. But Muslim scholars were still following Ptolemy " s method and also incorporating writings of travelers and explorers. Through this paper we are making an attempt to have a retrospective view on maps of medieval times and how they laid foundations for scientific modern cartography.

As-yet untaught syllabus on the early modern travel through historical accounts and cartography, including travelers and maps to and from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Main assignment a travel blog using Esri Story Maps. Since this was also part of my candidacy exams, a detailed discussion of choices behind the readings and assignments is included.

The English Historical Review, 2021

a member of the presiding committee and scientific board of the Mediävistenverband. Her publications explore medieval canon law and Roman law, the city of Rome, gender and women's history as well as social space, cartography, and travel reports. Geographically, her focus is on Germany, Italy, and the Mediterranean world. Her latest book discusses the sixteenth-century cartographer Battista Agnese (WBG 2017).

The Cartographic Journal, 2004

After Helen Wallis died, I was fortunate enough to acquire, from her brother, a (relatively small) number of maps that had once belonged to her. Among them were a number of maps by Herman Moll, the German-born map-maker who worked in London from the late 1670s until his death in 1732. On one of these (I have it still), a rather handsome two-sheet map, A New and Accurate Map of Spain and Portugal, dated 1711, Moll filled an otherwise blank corner with a quite extraordinary attack on his colleagues in the London map trade. Neatly and carefully engraved, in his usual exquisite lettering, he gives a verdict:

Journal of Material Culture, 2010

Contextual and interpretive approaches have broadened perspectives on historical cartography since the 1980s, but maps still continue to be understood as a means of encoding and communicating spatial information and ideas. These established approaches to maps, however, are embedded in modernist assumptions and may misrepresent the function and meaning of maps, especially in contexts such as Renaissance Europe. This article considers the meaning of the magical associations and aspects of Renaissance maps from a relational perspective. It is argued on historical and theoretical grounds that maps engaged, and were recognized to engage, directly with the workings of the world and thus exercised causations of a magical kind. The explicit magical associations of cartography waned towards the end of the 17th century, but the magic of maps became hidden rather than lost in the process.

The Historical Review/La Revue Historique, 2015

How were maps conceived in the Middle Ages? Using the words "map", "travel" and "exploration", historians must be wary of anachronism. Medieval maps, like ours maps, are always materialized thought-objects and are thus interpretations of the world, inevitably variable and subject to criticism; in this respect, "modernity" has neither invented nor changed anything. The article addresses some anachronisms about the role of mappae mundi in mental journeys, their function in maritime travels and their role during the great "discoveries"; it claims that no other pre-modern civilization, except perhaps the Chinese, was ever so imbued with cartographic culture. * This text is a revised version of a keynote lecture presented at the Leeds International Medieval Congress, 2010 (Travel and Exploration, 12-15 July 2010). 1 G. J. Marcus gives the best account of the Vikings' navigational practice in The Conquest of the North Atlantic, Woodbridge 1980, pp. 106-116; I deliberately refrain from talking about the so-called "sunstone" and the supposed effects of the polarized light. 2 In medieval French, voyage at first meant "path", "road", then "pilgrimage" and "crusade" and frequently holds military connotations; see F. Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle, 10 vols, Paris 1881-1902.

2019

Exploring places with maps The National Archives of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. A new law, new premises, a new way of working … (Nicola Boothby) Looks at books Le langage des géographes. Termes, signes, couleurs des cartes anciennes (1500-1800) by by François de Dainville | Preface by Hélène Richard, Jean-Louis Tissier and Cécile Souchon (Christiane De Craecker-Dussart) Brabantia Ducatus | Geschiedenis en cartobibliografie van het Hertogdom Brabant tot 1795 by Mario Dorigo & Mathieu Franssen (Eric Leenders) The Da Vinci Globe by Stefaan Missine (Wouter Bracke) Franz Ritter von Hauslab, der gelehrte Offizier by Jan Mokre (Wulf Bodenstein) Pictures at an Exhibition Pictura Loquens (Jean-Louis Renteux) Miscellaneous Bears with measuring chains … (Nicola Boothby) The Map Room at the Royal Library of Belgium has a new reading room. Or not? (Wouter Bracke) History and Cartography Chronograms in cartography – an excursion into dates (Francis Herbert) Nieuwe Caart van de Rivier van Glasgow (John Moore) How I Got Into Cartography Interview with Angeliki Tsorlini (Luis A. Robles Macías)

In his acclaimed book Elements of Cartography, first published in 1969, the late American geographer Arthur Robinson stated that “maps are to be looked at while charts are to be worked on.” What Robinson intended to emphasize with this sentence is that maps and charts are constructed with different purposes in mind: while maps are basically a source of geographical information, which one can retrieve just by looking at them, charts were specifically designed to support the practice of navigation and facilitate graphical work. Although Robinson’s definition is remarkably synthetic and expressive, it doesn’t tell the whole story, namely about the profound differences between these two cartographic paradigms. How those differences contributed to shape the history of maps and charts will be the subject of my presentation, which will focus on three different periods: the Middle Ages, when the first nautical charts were produced in the Mediterranean; the age of the great discoveries, when the newly discovered lands were first shown to the amazed eyes of the European nations through nautical charts; and the time of the Gerard Mercator, when the great Flemish cartographer proposed his famous projection to mariners. I will show how the image of the world conveyed by nautical charts in each of these three periods could hardly be considered as truthful, as far as the shape and size of the lands were concerned. This was not because of the limitations of the surveying and charting methods of the time - although they had certainly a relevant influence - but owing to a critical difference regarding what should be understood by an accurate depiction of the Earth, in the eyes of geographers and navigators. In some instances these differences of opinion lead to conflict and resentment. In other occasions, they materialized into apparently unsolvable technical obstacles. Only today can we see through the mist caused by the very subtle technical questions that the protagonists of the past couldn’t interpret correctly, and fully understand the reason for all the conflicts and misunderstandings: the intrinsically different nature of maps and charts.