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A Tale of Two Mappae Mundi: The Map Psalter and its Mixed-Media Maps

This thesis investigates small-scale mappae mundi, world maps, created in the thirteenth-century, which record the historical, mythical, social, and religious reality of the world for wealthy English patrons. My research focuses on two maps found in a Psalm book (British Library Add. MS 28681, f. 9 and f. 9v) on either side of a single page. One depicts the world in typical mappae mundi fashion, with Jerusalem at the centre of a network of cities, topographic features and monstrous creatures while the other lists place names and geographic descriptions. The maps depict the world in very different manners, one textually and the other visually, but their placement on the same leaf emphasizes their connection. This work explores the iconography, socio-historic context and literary precedence of mappae mundi in order to comprehend the distinct need for mixed-media to represent and understand a complex worldly existence in thirteenth-century England.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OGU.10214/3662
Date18 May 2012
CreatorsLa Porte, Melissa
ContributorsMarner, Dominic
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Rightshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/

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