The Evesham World Map c1400, lay for a long time unrecognized and unresearched, in the College of Arms, on the back of vellums citing the family pedigrees of King Henry VI nad ine Sir Ralph Boteler.

The map was commissioned for Evesham Abbey c1390 and although without a specific geographical purpose or text, it strikes a pose as probably one of the first of a kind of English, ‘patriotic’ map, in which it places England as an important place in the world.

It includes the Garden of Eden at the top and the Tower of Babel at the bottom, with the towers of Jerusalem somewhere midways but see how large it portrays the newly seized Calais. It’s much bigger than Rome and look at the size of Bruges and Cologne, Their size swollen to show the importance of the trading link to England.

Finally, the settlement of Taddiport in Devon, given unusual prominence and why? It was the home town of the map’s maker………



Source: via HELEN on Pinterest

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.