By Joy Ndamukunda
This is a map of Hereford Mappa Mundi. It is the largest known surviving medieval map that shows the whole known world through a Christian European lens. Scholars believe it was made around the year 1300 and shows the history, geography and destiny of humanity as it was understood in Christian Europe in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. It is a religious representation of heaven, hell, and the way to salvation; it is not a literal picture. The map is pivotal in our understanding of late medieval English cartography and sense of place.
The map was produced in a style that is derived from the T and O pattern. Rather than being a tool for navigation, the map was made as an elaborate piece of art. East is at the top of the map, South is on the right, West is at the bottom with North on the left. At the center of the Mappa Mundi is Jerusalem, the center of the Christian world. The continents are illustrated with drawings of cities and towns, classical mythology (including the Minotaur), Biblical events, plants, animals (including camels, elephants and lions), birds (such as parrots and a phoenix) and people. The top of the map shows Christ sitting at the Day of Judgement, flanked by angels.
Modern scholarship connects the map to the propagation of Lord Chancellor of England and Bishop of Hereford Thomas de Cantilupe’s cult and to the rationalization of the 1290 expulsion of Jewish people from England. A horned Moses and a depiction of Jewish people worshiping the Golden Calf in the shape of a Saracen demon are two examples of antisemitic imagery. Also, the map appears to reinforce patriarchal beliefs. Images include the wife of Lot being transformed into a salt pillar because she looked back at the city of Sodom and Gomorrah as her family was fleeing.
During the medieval era, this map would have served as a tool to reinforce the beliefs of those visiting the cult of Cantilupe in Hereford Cathedral. The Hereford Mappa Mundi is a cartographic depiction of medieval Christian English ideologies around the “Other,” through its negative depiction of Jewish people and women.
Sources:
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Hereford-Mappa-Mundi/
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240214-mappa-mundi-the-greatest-medieval-map-in-the-world
https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/library/library_exhibitions/schoolresources/exploration/mappa_mundi