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The British Isles in the Nautical Charts of the XIVth and XVth Centuries

1926; Wiley; Volume: 68; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1782003

1475-4959

Michael Cameron Andrews,

Historical Geography and Cartography

ONE of the most remarkable features of the early nautical charts is the comparative accuracy in their representation of the Mediter? ranean basin. In sharp contrast with the confused, inaccurate, often symbolical, and always theoretical delineation in contemporary Mediaeval Mappae Mundi, the work of the marine cartographers, although strictly limited in scope, stands out conspicuously as the earliest attempt to produce a map of practical utility. Although in the period we are about to examine, their excellence was little appreciated by learned geographers, who continued to rely upon ancient models, maps of the marine type began to find their way, as supplements, into the Ptolemaic Atlases. With the change of outlook that is characteristic of the sixteenth-century renaissance of geography they were increasingly used to expand the restricted area and correct the established errors of ancient cartography ; and they constitute one of the elements of our modern maps. The lack of examples before the end of the thirteenth century makes it difficult to form any clear idea as to the origin and development of the nautical chart of the Mediterranean. Bearing in mind the want of suitable instruments and the elementary methods of hydrographical survey practised at this early period, it is difficult to believe that a map of such correct general form and relative proportions, with so many coastal details and such a wealth of place-names, could have been de? veloped in rather less than half a century. But other considerations may perhaps lead us to accept, as a provisional hypothesis, the view which supposes that the prototype of the portolan charts was put together from partial coastal sketches in the last half of the thirteenth century. It is certain that the work was completed by the end of that century ; for the model then in use was copied with but little alteration, except in detail, for the next three hundred years. But if the source and growth of the Mediterranean chart are still subjects for speculation and discussion, the materials at our disposal happily permit of a greater certainty for the regions outside the Straits of Gibraltar.