The Original Placement of the Hereford Map

Dan Terkla

Thanks to antiquarians, historians of cartography and, more recently, scholars working in what the late J. Brian Harley might have called the interarts disciplines, we know an enormous amount about the Hereford mappa mundi, which has been displayed in Hereford Cathedral since its creation in the late thirteenth century (Plate 1). However, in part because of the dearth of archaeological, dendrochronological and documentary evidence, we have had no firmly grounded theories about the map's original placement or its function as the centrepiece of an elaborate triptych. The assessment of new as well as old evidence offered here is intended as a contribution toward a solution to this problem. ABSTRACT: Although antiquarians, historians of cartography, palaeographers and art historians have written about the Hereford mappa mundi for more than three hundred years, we know little about its original placement or use. This paper relies on new masonry and dendrochronological evidence and the...

This article was downloaded by: [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] On: 30 December 2014, At: 09:36 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rimu20 The Original Placement of the Hereford Mappa Mundi Dan Terkla Associate Professor of English a Illinois Wesleyan University , Bloomington, U.S.A. Published online: 17 May 2010. To cite this article: Dan Terkla Associate Professor of English (2004) The Original Placement of the Hereford Mappa Mundi , Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography, 56:2, 131-151, DOI: 10.1080/0308569042000238064 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0308569042000238064 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions The Original Placement of the Hereford Mappa Mundi DAN TERKLA Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 ABSTRACT: Although antiquarians, historians of cartography, palaeographers and art historians have written about the Hereford mappa mundi for more than three hundred years, we know little about its origi- nal placement or use. This paper relies on new masonry and dendrochronological evidence and the system of medieval ecclesiastical preferments to argue that this monumental world map was originally exhibited in 1287 next to the first shrine of St Thomas Cantilupe in Hereford Cathedral’s north transept. It did not function as an altarpiece, therefore, but as part of what I call the Cantilupe pilgrimage complex, a conglom- eration of items and images which was for a time one of England’s most popular pilgrimage destinations. In this location, the map would have added to the complex’s attractive power and served as a multi-media pedagogical tool. KEYWORDS: England, Hereford Cathedral, Lincoln Cathedral, Bishop Richard Swinfield, Richard de Bello, Richard of Haldingham and Lafford, St Thomas Cantilupe, altarpiece, Cantilupe pilgrimage complex, mappamundi (mappa mundi), pedagogy, pilgrimage, shrine, tomb, triptych. Thanks to antiquarians, historians of cartography Four different types of evidence allow me to and, more recently, scholars working in what the contend that the map was originally displayed in late J. Brian Harley might have called the inter- the Cathedral’s north transept next to the shrine arts disciplines, we know an enormous amount of Thomas Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford (1275– about the Hereford mappa mundi, which has been 1282), and that there it was part of what I call the displayed in Hereford Cathedral since its creation Cantilupe pilgrimage complex: (1) dendrochrono- in the late thirteenth century (Plate 1).1 However, logical dating of the map’s original oak backboard in part because of the dearth of archaeological, by Dr Ian Tyers of the University of Sheffield dendrochronological and documentary evidence, in January 2004; (2) the records of ecclesiastical we have had no firmly grounded theories about preferments that benefited Hereford churchmen the map’s original placement or its function as the Richard Swinfield and Richard de Bello; (3) centrepiece of an elaborate triptych. The assess- palaeographical work done on the map by ment of new as well as old evidence offered here Malcolm Parkes and Nigel Morgan; and, no less is intended as a contribution toward a solution to important, (4) masonry evidence that I noted in this problem. Hereford Cathedral’s north transept during the i Dan Terkla is an associate professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, U.S.A. Cor- respondence to: Dr. Dan Terkla, English House, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois, U.S.A. Tel: (1) 309-556-3649. Fax: (1) 309-556-3545. E-mail: <terkla@iwu.edu>. Imago Mundi Vol. 56, Part 2: 131–151 © 2004 Imago Mundi Ltd ISSN 0308-5694 print/1479-7801 online DOI: 10.1080/0308569042000238064 132 D. Terkla ‘Hereford and Other Mappamundi’ conference, about the inhabited parts of the earth as it was held at Hereford Cathedral in 1999.2 Taken conceived in Europe during the Middle Ages’.7 together, these different categories of evidence This, the largest extant thirteenth-century mappa support parallel if inchoate placement theories mundi, was originally fixed with a copper strip and advanced by Marcia Kupfer, Valerie I. J. Flint and nails to the central panel of an oak triptych case, Naomi Reed Kline and incorporate work done of which only the central panel survives (Plate 2). by Martin Bailey and Scott Westrem.3 I hope my The dimensions of this panel allow us to deter- theory will also generate a fresh discussion about mine the size of the triptych’s missing wings, or the map’s use in situ, lead to a reconsideration doors, and Ian Tyers’s dendrochronological study of the power of the places in which it has been allows accurate dating of the central panel’s displayed and put an end to the long-standing component parts: the six oak planks, the timber Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 argument that the map, as the central element of a framing pieces and the oak-leaf mouldings triptych, functioned as an altarpiece in Hereford currently attached to the panel’s apex. 8 Cathedral. As is well known, the earliest recorded sighting This essay has six sections, with the first four of the map in its triptych dates from c.1682, when providing the contextual foundation for the fifth Thomas Dingley reported seeing it in the Cathe- and sixth. Section one, The Triptych, primarily dral Library.9 During its first major restoration at presents empirical data about the Hereford mappa the British Museum in 1855, crucial elements of mundi and its wooden casing, although documen- the panel’s decoration were removed, as the diary tary evidence and informed speculation play their of Sir Frederic Madden, Keeper of the Manuscripts parts.4 Section two, The Cantilupe Pilgrimage at the Museum, reveals. There was Complex, outlines my theoretical reconstruction a scroll ornament or border . . . introduced on each of the Cathedral’s north transept and relies in side the dragon-shaped animal that so often appears in MSS executed about 1300. This ornament at once almost equal parts on empirical data, documentary fixed the date of the frame itself, and it was therefore evidence and informed speculation. Section three, not without extreme surprise and regret that I found the whole of the whitewash had been removed (and Convergent Chronologies, presents biographical with it the ornamental border), so as to show the information about the four men likely to have wood beneath.10 been involved in the map’s creation and traces We also know from Richard Gough’s eighteenth- lines of patronage to support my contentions about century report that the triptych’s original doors the map’s placement and sets my argument’s had the Annunciation painted on their inside temporal parameters. Section four, Triptych surfaces.11 The doors were removed, in all likeli- Support, introduces masonry evidence to situate hood, ‘between 1780 and 1800’.12 There are no the triptych case in its original location and thus accounts, to my knowledge, of what might have leads into section five, Placement and Purpose, been painted on the outside of each door. which argues against the myth of the map in its In 1948, the central panel was done away with, triptych as an altarpiece. Section six, A Likely Story, perhaps on the advice of the president of the pulls together the various threads of evidence to Royal Geographical Society, and the map was offer an alternative to that myth. mounted on wood from London churches bombed during the Second World War.13 In a letter dated The Triptych 10 October 1947, regarding ‘worm activity in the The Hereford mappa mundi, now on permanent form of new fresh worm holes through the surface display in the Cathedral’s New Library Building, ‘is of the skin’, the president recommended to the a sophisticated textual and pictorial representation Very Reverend Dean of Hereford, Dr. Burrows, of the world, combining nearly 1,100 inscriptions, that ‘the whole frame should be dealt with at most of them in Latin, taken from various Classical once, preferably destroyed; it has no artistic merit and medieval texts with nearly as many painted whatsoever: moreover the finials, crochets and scenes and symbolic decorations’ (Plate 1).5 The Victorian gothic embellishments are broken and map, which ‘was drawn on the carefully prepared shabby’.14 Although, thankfully, the president’s hide of a hefty calf’, measures roughly 163 cm advice was ignored, the central panel was rele- by 137 cm.6 It presents the viewer with a wealth gated to the Cathedral’s former stable, where of ‘cosmographical, ethnographical, geographical, Martin Bailey and Raymond Kingsley-Taylor, historical, theological, and zoological information chapter clerk, found it in 1989. Until December The Hereford Mappa Mundi 133 2003, the panel was on display in the Cathedral’s former cloister. The panel was taken off display in December 2003, in preparation for Ian Tyers’s dendrochrono- logical dating. Tyers’s work confirms that the six planks of unequal width which form the central panel were taken from straight-growing oaks ‘in or near Herefordshire’, felled as early as 1265 or as late as 1311.15 In addition, ‘[I]f we assume the panel is constructed from fresh or relatively unsea- soned material (the clean and long toolmarks and Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 the extent of the thinning carried out on the outer two boards [of the central panel] suggest that this is a reasonable conjecture) then the usage-date Fig. 1. Hereford Cathedral. Detail of the central panel of the Hereford mappa mundi triptych without the map, probably lies within the same period’.16 Tyers also showing the conical hole left by the compass foot used confirms that the plain moulding that frames the to draw the three circles that frame the map and the ancient oak planks is from the nineteenth century. walls of Jerusalem. (Author’s photograph, reproduced In order to accommodate the map’s pentagonal with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) shape—the result of its being painted on a single hide, with the neck portion forming its rounded apex—the panel rises to a point, a gable, in true oak-leaf mouldings were refitted to the central Gothic style and is currently surmounted by two panel in what seem to be their original places, we large oak-leaf mouldings. These mouldings lacked would see that they fit nicely together atop the sufficient rings for Tyers to date them, although central panel and that the gap between them they have been carbon-dated to between 1040 disappears. and 1280.17 Tyers’s examination found them to A hole near the centre of the panel has been be ‘contemporaneous, or broadly so, with the six left by the foot of the compass used to draw the dendrochronologically dated boards’.18 With the circles that constitute the ‘O’ of this modified T-O exception, then, of the Victorian framing pieces, map and that form Jerusalem’s walls (Fig. 1).22 we can confidently state that the triptych’s wood The two rows of holes that rim the panel show us dates from the same time as the creation of the where the metal strips were nailed to fix the map map itself, which, as I argue below, occurred to its backing (Fig. 2). There are ‘at least eight around 1283.19 holes’ on the map left by these nails, four of which The centre of the panel measures 175 cm from have been patched, perhaps during its 1855 resto- base to apex and is roughly 147 cm wide, although ration.23 At some point in its history the map was ‘the bottom edge of the vertical boards is probably trimmed, as the 16-cm height differential between not the original extent of the panel since this edge its height (163 cms) and that of the central panel is neither well finished nor is it square to the (175 cms) indicates.24 The compass-foot hole in panel, to the extent that the right hand side of the the panel implies that the hide was attached to the panel is c. 25 mm shorter than the left edge panel before being drawn, and the nail holes (viewed from the front)’.20 Extrapolating from the suggest that this fixing occurred with the panel in width of the central panel, we get a rough size for a vertical position, as Scott Westrem and Ian Tyers each of the triptych’s wings, or doors, of 73.5 cms. have put forward.25 There are also two large holes Therefore, with the doors open the triptych would in the panel, near its apex, which look as if they have been about 294 cms wide, not including the were made to accommodate hardware used to room taken up by the hinges. The heavy oak-leaf attach the triptych to a wall. In sum, then, the moulding pieces surmounting the panel’s gable markings on the central Hereford oak panel, along were incorrectly remounted in the nineteenth with carbon and dendrochronological dating, century. This mistake left the gap that we now see suggest that the Hereford mappa mundi was drawn between these pieces at the peak of the gable, a in Hereford, not in Lincoln, as many have argued, gap that we know was filled by a Victorian finial, and that its triptych case was also made in missing since the 1940s (see Plate 2).21 If the Hereford.26 As Tyers notes, ‘[t]his is an unexpected Victorian framing pieces were removed and the outcome, since the Hereford Mappa Mundi has 134 D. Terkla Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Fig. 2. Hereford Cathedral. Detail of the central panel of the Hereford mappa mundi triptych without the map, showing the rows of nail holes used to fix the map to the panel. The fact that there are two rows of holes suggests that the map was mounted once, partly removed and then remounted—that is, renailed—to the central panel. The two larger holes near the apex of the panel may have been made for hardware used to fix the panel to the wall. (Author’s photograph, reproduced with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) hitherto been thought on documentary and Although we have a good deal of information pictorial evidence to have been made in Lincoln about the lives of the primary participants in the and subsequently moved to Hereford’.27 initial period in the map’s history, the paucity of thirteenth-century Cathedral records leaves us The Cantilupe Pilgrimage Complex with virtually no knowledge of what pilgrims to Both the original location of the map in its trip- Cantilupe’s shrine would have seen in the north tych case and its purpose have been debated for transept or what constituted the collection of many years. I contend that the map was a central items in the Cantilupe pilgrimage complex. The element of the pilgrimage complex devoted to renovations overseen by the nineteenth-century St Thomas Cantilupe, when it was located in architects Lewis Nockalls Cottingham, whose the Cathedral’s north transept. Thomas Cantilupe, ‘sensitivity to the ancient fabric left something Bishop of Hereford, died in 1282 while returning to be desired’, and Sir George Gilbert Scott, who from a papal audience in Italy. His bones were favoured interior walls free of clutter, have brought back to Hereford, where they were exacerbated the problem.28 As Julia Barrow wrote, initially interred in the Cathedral’s Lady Chapel ‘Surviving sources for Hereford are few at the (east of the main altar) in 1282. His successor, outset of the period [1056–1268] but plentiful Bishop Richard Swinfield, then had a grand shrine by the end’. However, for the years of interest built in the Cathedral’s north transept to which here (roughly 1270 to 1320), Robert Swanson Cantilupe’s remains were translated in 1287. and David Lepine inform us that the ‘seeming Owing largely to Swinfield’s efforts, Cantilupe was wealth of evidence is deceptive: while plentiful, canonized in 1320, three years after Swinfield the records are often frustrating. The accounts died. are particularly problematic. Their number, the The Hereford Mappa Mundi 135 infuriating gaps, and the sheer complexity of the Hereford accounting system, often combine to defy analysis’.29 A paucity of information does not mean a total lack of information, though, and we do know that Cantilupe’s relics made Hereford Cathedral an immensely popular destination for thirteenth- and fourteenth-century pilgrims. The Acta Sanctorum, a multi-volume compendium of primary documents and commentaries related to the lives of saints, provides us with accounts of the miracles worked Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 by the Cantilupe shrine and so gives us an idea of its popularity.30 R. C. Finucane’s work bears this out: ‘Although nearly 500 miracles were recorded by the tomb-custodians between 1287 and 1312, the peak occurred when enthusiasm was at its height at the start of the cult during April 1287, when some seventy-one miracles were listed’.31 The Register of Thomas de Cantilupe provides more evidence of his shrine’s attractive power. As the Reverend W. W. Capes wrote in his introduction: ‘[T]he royal family and great nobles visited the [1287] tomb, and the excitement spread for eighteen years with unabated force’. He also tells us that ‘[p]ilgrims with their offerings were then Fig. 3. Hereford Cathedral. The Booth Porch, named after thronging around the tomb, making it impossible Bishop Charles Booth in 1518; this entrance was used by for building operations to be carried on’.32 That is, medieval pilgrims to gain access to the Cathedral, thence the shrine’s popularity seems to have interfered to the north aisle of the nave, and ultimately to the north transept and Cantilupe’s tomb.. (Author’s photograph, with the enlargement of the north nave aisle, reproduced with permission from the Dean and Chapter, which Bishop Swinfield commenced during his Hereford Cathedral.) episcopacy (1282–1317), to allow pilgrims easy access to the north transept and the Cantilupe complex. The first of the elements that pilgrims complex.33 In addition to ‘producing a modern would have seen in the transept, I suggest, would setting for the pilgrim route’, the renovations have been the mappa mundi in its triptych on the were undertaken ‘with the aims of . . . promoting east wall between Cantilupe’s shrine and the parti- the status of the bishopric, and creating an eye- tion separating the north transept from the choir catching skyline of towers to help proclaim these aisle. This placement would have centred the map functions’ to visitors approaching the building.34 Pilgrims arrived at the shrine by passing in its triptych under Aigueblanche’s immense through the cemetery on the Cathedral’s north tripartite stained-glass windows in the upper half side—a fitting reminder of their mortality—before of that wall (Plate 3). The moment the pilgrims entering the building via the north door (Fig. 3), sighted the left door/wing, on which was painted which was dedicated to their use. They then the angel Gabriel, they also would have seen the moved eastward along the north side of the nave corner of the saint’s shrine. (Fig. 4). As they approached the north transept, Moving on into the transept, the pilgrims would which Bishop Peter Aigueblanche had rebuilt in have approached the canopied shrine which had a the 1250s in the French style, the pilgrims would full-body mural of Cantilupe on the wall above have experienced what R. K. Morris calls the and to the left of his shrine.36 Offerings to and ‘finest set-piece in the cathedral’, and George mementoes of the saint we can assume to have Gilbert Scott proclaimed ‘the Magna Carta of been placed in the vicinity. Once the pilgrims had Gothic architecture’ (Fig. 5).35 This ‘set-piece’ com- reached the shrine itself, they would have knelt in prised the whole of the north transept, including prayer and deposited their gifts as near as possible along its eastern wall the Cantilupe pilgrimage to the saint’s remains, perhaps placing them on 136 D. Terkla Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Fig. 4. Hereford Cathedral. The route followed by medieval pilgrims through the Cathedral would have led them from the north nave aisle to the Cantilupe complex. At this point, they would have seen, looking east towards the crossing and north transept, the mappa mundi (here represented by the paper mock-up), and Cantilupe’s tomb. (Author’s photograph, reproduced with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) the lid of the tomb after slipping them through splendor which fill’d this place, and ‘tis well guarded and barricado’d to prevent thieves from making free the arches of the canopy.37 Infirm pilgrims would with his superfluitys. [T]he shrine is of stone, carv’d have thrust their diseased and damaged limbs round with knights in armor, for what reason I know through these arches to touch the shrine itself, not, unless they were his life-guard. I saw a book hoping that the emanations from Thomas’s divine printed at St. Omars, of no little bulk, which contain’d an account of his miracles.39 bones would relieve their suffering.38 Although this image of the complex depends Since in the nineteenth century the east wall was mainly on informed speculation, it is based on cleared of articles that would have provided us antiquarian accounts of the shrine, on the evi- with vital clues as to the original appearance of the dence of the masonry close by, and on sight lines Cantilupe complex, it bears no marks that we from the north nave aisle into the north tran- can match to those left by the ‘hooks’ Stukeley sept—that is, on what a thirteenth-century viewer saw. Similarly (and sadly), we do not know what would have seen when approaching the complex the ‘banners’ and ‘like presents’ were, nor can we from the north nave aisle. William Stukeley’s say where the ‘book printed at St Omars’ was mid-eighteenth century account provides us with positioned. a tantalizing description of the transept’s clutter, The tomb Stukeley saw was all that remained of the shrine that Swinfield had constructed for the east wall and Cantilupe’s shrine: Cantilupe’s translation to the north transept [H]is picture is painted on the wall. [A]ll around from the Lady Chapel in 1287.40 This tomb, the are the marks of hooks where the banners, lamps, reliques, and the like presents were hung up in same structure that today’s visitors to Hereford his honor, and no doubt vast were the riches and Cathedral see, is comprised of just the base and The Hereford Mappa Mundi 137 Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Fig. 5. Hereford Cathedral. The north transept as it is today. Looking east with Cantilupe’s tomb on the left. The tomb now stands away from the east wall, which it originally abutted. The row of eight stone inserts (arrowed) is discernible below the window, which now contains the Victorian glass that replaced Bishop Peter Aigueblanche’s medieval glass. (Author’s photograph, reproduced with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) canopy of the original shrine. As Penelope Morgan from the east wall (Fig. 6).42 An examination of suggests, Cantilupe’s shrine would have been the stonework, however, indicates that the origi- more elaborate: nal 1287 shrine had been set against the wall, just Originally intended as an altar tomb it was converted below the capital of the central engaged column— within a few years, as stories of Cantilupe’s sanctity the half-round pillar from which the rib vaulting spread, into a shrine with a super-structure to hold springs. This conclusion is further supported by a feretrum [a metal reliquary]. The beautiful base, carved with knights and naturalistic foliage, and one the unfinished state of the tomb’s eastern end and small brass representing St Ethelbert, once part of a the fact that the capital seems to have been either large brass memorial on the tomb, remain.41 chiselled or broken off from the engaged column. Currently, this ‘beautiful base’ and the attached Were the tomb pushed back against the east wall, ‘super-structure’ that Stukeley saw, stand away into what was clearly its original position, the top 138 D. Terkla Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Fig. 6. Hereford Cathedral. The north transept today, showing the gap between the unfinished east end of Cantilupe’s tomb and the east wall. The remnant of an engaged column above the level of the tomb, marks where the shrine originally abutted the column. (Author’s photograph, reproduced with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) of its superstructure would fit just under the pleads, in her other role as mater mediatrix or engaged column’s capital, as a drawing from 1831 advocate for the faithful, with her Son and Judge shows (Fig. 7). for the souls of humanity.44 We may speculate As we know, the mappa mundi in its triptych that having the Annunciation depicted on the was flanked by scenes of the Annunciation: on its inner doors of the triptych—and having the trip- left door/wing was the angel Gabriel and on the tych near the tomb in the pilgrimage complex— right the Virgin, ‘both dressed in red and blue would have been immensely pleasing to undertunics’.43 The map’s designer also awarded Cantilupe. As Butler’s Lives of the Saints reminds us, the Virgin pride of place by crowning, as it were, Thomas had taken to ‘fasting on the vigils of [the the map with an image of her in her role as the Virgin’s] feast-days and [chose] . . . the feast of Maria Lactans. At the map’s eastern extremity (its her Nativity as his consecration day’.45 It also apex) the Virgin bares her breasts before her son, seems that Cantilupe would have appreciated the in recognition of their biological affiliation, and orientation of his mortal remains in the north The Hereford Mappa Mundi 139 Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Fig. 7. Hereford Cathedral. North transept. Cantilupe’s tomb viewed from the east, in 1831. Note how at that time the tomb was positioned right against the Cathedral’s east wall. (Reproduced with permission from Ron Shoesmith.) transept. When pilgrims stood next to the saint’s Richard Swinfield and Thomas Cantilupe. shrine and gazed eastward with him, as it were, Although the full and complex histories that tie they would have found themselves facing the these men together fall beyond the scope of this image of the Crucifixion at the centre of the mappa study, central details in their lives establish a chain mundi and might have recognized the imperative of patronage and indebtedness that can explain, ‘Ecce Testimonium [me]um’ (Behold my witness) first, how a mappamundi ended up in Hereford; that scrolls across the map’s eastern edge.46 Dis- second, why that mappamundi has to be associated played in the north transept next to Cantilupe’s with Thomas Cantilupe; and, third, where the map shrine, the Hereford mappa mundi would have would have been situated within the Cathedral.47 appeared literally monumental and so would have Before examining the biographies and chrono- been monumentally impressive. The triptych, with logies of the four men, we must first have in this encyclopedic mappa mundi in its centre panel, hand the basics of the map’s chronology. The map would have commanded respect and admiration itself gives us a reasonably solid terminus a quo of for Cantilupe and awe of both the church that late1283 for its production, since it shows Edward housed it and the Church whose theology and I’s castles at Conwy and Caernarfon, where con- world view informed its design. struction began in 1277 and 1283, respectively.48 The castle pictographs therefore suggest that the Convergent Chronologies map was in production during or after the summer Any theory about the placement of the Hereford of 1283. Palaeographical studies conducted by map depends on the dates of the central panel Malcolm B. Parkes and Nigel Morgan, and sum- and the map itself, of course, but such a theory marized by Westrem, support this conclusion, in must also examine the interwoven chronologies so far as they suggest that the map was produced of four men likely to have been involved in the between c.1285 and c.1300.49 Moreover, as noted map’s creation and original placement: Richard above, the oak planks of the central panel have of Haldingham and Lafford, Richard de Bello, been dendrochronologically dated to c.1265 and 140 D. Terkla its gable mouldings carbon-dated to between 1040 Swinfield.53 By 12 May 1313, de Bello was close and 1280. Thus the map and its oak triptych date enough to Swinfield to represent the bishop as a from the period during which the men whom proctor at a synod held at St Paul’s, London.54 I contend were involved in the production, place- The third link in our chain is the relationship ment and display of the Hereford map were active, between Swinfield and his mentor, Thomas we might even say interactive. The relationships Cantilupe, who was Bishop of Hereford from between and among them form a chain of 1275 until his death in 1282. During this period, patronage, in which the map becomes a means Swinfield, held the chancellorship of Lincoln of courting preferment and a token of gratitude Cathedral, prebends at Hereford Cathedral (1277 for benefits conferred. and 1279), ‘together with a fistful of other The first link in that chain is the relationship benefices there and in other dioceses’.55 Valerie Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 between Richard of Haldingham (d. 1278) and Flint writes that `Swinfield had been Thomas Richard de Bello (d. 1326). Richard of Haldingham Cantilupe’s chaplain at Oxford, became and Lafford’s name appears on the map as the one Cantilupe’s secretary when the latter was elected who ‘made and laid it out’ (Ki lat fet e compasse). bishop of Hereford in 1275, and remained Haldingham held a prebend at Lafford by 12 Janu- Cantilupe’s devoted friend for the rest of his life’.56 ary 1265 and was treasurer of Lincoln Cathedral Indeed, Swinfield was close enough to Cantilupe by 22 October 1270. He is thought to have died so that when John Pecham, Archbishop of on 4 November 1278, well before the map was Canterbury, excommunicated the bishop (along completed. Richard de Bello seems to have been with ‘disturbers of the rights and privileges of his a younger relation of the Lincoln treasurer, who church of Canterbury’), on 26 January 1282, he took holy orders at Lincoln in 1294. These dates travelled with his mentor/patron to Rome to plead and family ties, along with the map’s inscription Cantilupe’s case before Pope Martin IV. While calling for prayers for Richard of Haldingham and returning from Rome, Cantilupe died at Férento, Lafford, allow me to postulate that the younger just north of Montefiascone on 25 August 1282.57 Richard took the idea of a mappamundi with him In that same year Cantilupe’s bones were interred from Lincoln to Hereford, where what we now see in Hereford’s Lady Chapel, while his heart went to in the Cathedral—the Hereford mappa mundi—was the monastery of the Order of the Bonhommes in outlined on calf skin affixed to the central panel of Ashridge, close by Berkhamstead. On 1 December the triptych, completed and displayed.50 1282, Swinfield succeeded Cantilupe as Bishop of Swinfield’s administrative career buttressed the Hereford.58 connection between Hereford and Lincoln. As And so it seems that the man whom the Flint informs us, Hereford map records as its maker, Richard of There was certainly an upheaval in the chancery of Haldingham, moved in the same ecclesiastical Lincoln in the year 1278. The chancellor, John le circles as Richard de Bello and Richard Swinfield. Romeyn, moved from the chancellorship to the precentorship in September of that year, and he was Swinfield was indebted to Cantilupe, and de Bello not replaced formally until Bishop Oliver Sutton . . . was indebted to Swinfield, Cantilupe’s secretary appointed Simon de Baumberg to the position in and later the driving force behind his canoniza- 1281. In the meantime, from at least June 1278 . . . until the summer of 1280, Richard Swinfield, . . . tion. The pulling together of the map’s history and friend of Richard de Bello by 1289 at the latest, the biographies of these men reveals that the map administered the Lincoln cathedral chancery.51 was in production during or after 1283 and could While at Lincoln, Swinfield began to forge the have been completed before Swinfield translated second link in the chain of patronage by taking de Cantilupe’s remains to the north transept in 1287. Bello under his wing. After sorting out Lincoln’s The dates of the map’s production—from design financial problems, Swinfield ‘may have brought through execution—overlap the dates of these the surviving Richard [de Bello] . . . back to Here- men. The close relationships and the system of ford’.52 Certainly de Bello was benefiting from preferences from which de Bello and Swinfield the generosity of Bishop Richard Swinfield by benefited set the stage for the map to become a 1289—in that year he received ‘a gift of meat vital part of the Cantilupe pilgrimage complex, a from Bishop Swinfield’s Bosbury estate’—and in fitting tribute from de Bello to Swinfield and from 1305 he received the prebendary of Norton from Swinfield to his mentor Thomas. The Hereford Mappa Mundi 141 Triptych Support Here I must pause to acknowledge the unsatis- factory nature of the term ‘inserts’; it is difficult to At this point we have a scientifically dated backing tell whether these stones were shaped and then panel and reliable dimensions for the triptych— inserted to fill holes left by wooden supports that that is, for the extant central panel and its two had been removed or whether what we see are missing wings—along with a reconstruction of the just the ends of stone supports that had been pilgrimage complex that included the map in its fitted into the holes and were later dressed off triptych case and the interwoven personal histor- flush with the wall.59 Neither the stones nor their ies of the men who might have been involved mortar have been dated as yet, and until we have in placing the map in the north transept. In this this dating information, we cannot pronounce section I pull together two forms of empirical definitively on this matter. In some ways, ‘corbel’ data to situate the map in its triptych next to Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 seems a more appropriate label, since I argue Cantilupe’s 1287 shrine. below that the stones—or the wood they This physical evidence came to my notice in the replaced—supported the triptych case. ‘Corbel’ is course of a visit to Hereford Cathedral during the the name conventionally given to wood or stone Mappa Mundi conference in 1999. While examin- projections from which rib vaults spring or to pro- ing Cantilupe’s tomb, I saw anomalies in the fabric jections that support the bases of wall-mounted of the north transept’s east wall. Just to the right items, such as the myriad memorial plaques that of the tomb and set into the east wall runs a cover the walls of Hereford Cathedral’s former row of eight roughly uniform square stone inserts cloister. However, the fact that the Hereford (Fig. 8). Measuring the east wall from the side anomalies are flush with the wall makes calling of Cantilupe’s tomb nearest the first insert to the them corbels problematic. Therefore, since it end of that wall gives a width of 508 cm. The row seems clear that the holes for either wooden or of inserts is nearly centred on this space. These stone supports were cut after the wall was built, measurements revealed that the common central ‘insert’ seems the more accurate term and is the axis of the map and triptych would have lined up one I shall use in what follows. Regardless of with the central axis of Bishop Aigueblanche’s label, the anomalous appearance of the stones is great window above, that is, with the central striking; after a first sighting, they stand out quite axis of a tripartite arrangement of stained glass dramatically and, figuratively speaking, call out for windows (see Fig. 5). an explanation of their purpose. Fig. 8. Hereford Cathedral. The north transept, showing the lower section of the east wall with the row of eight stone inserts that seem to have been either cut off flush with the wall or inserted to plug holes made by wooden supports. (Author’s photograph, reproduced with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) 142 D. Terkla doors/wings on the outer two on each side, which they would have overhung by a little more than 27 cm (see Plate 3). Such an overhang would not have been a problem, as the wall-mounted trip- tych of the Adoration (Swabian School, c.1530), now on display in the Cathedral’s south transept illustrates (Fig. 10). Further analogical evidence comes from the myriad stone memorials mounted in the Cathedral’s former cloister, which currently houses the tea shop and the mappa mundi exhi- bition. The majority of these memorials rest on Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 projecting stone supports—closer to corbels than to the north transept’s inserts—and their tops are fixed to the stone walls, often by what appears to be horizontal L-shaped metal nails. Placement and Purpose Where the Hereford mappa mundi was originally positioned in the cathedral and the manner in which it was originally used are matters ‘of crucial importance to art historians’, as Westrem asserts Fig. 9. Hereford Cathedral. North transept. Detail of the and as historians of cartography surely agree.62 east wall, showing one of the stone inserts, which is Knowing where the map was originally displayed approximately 9 cm in height by 8 cm in width. Note the tool marks, suggesting that the inserts originally would allow us to speculate more confidently protruded but were subsequently cut back flush to the on how it was used and would get us closer to wall. (Author’s photograph, reproduced with permission dispensing with the theory that the map in its from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) triptych functioned as an altarpiece. As this section demonstrates, purpose helps determine Each stone insert measures 9 cm in height by placement, and placement enables purpose. 8 cm in width, and the spacing between them Not surprisingly, we have no recorded medieval is about 24 cm (Fig. 9).60 The upper edge of each sightings of the map or accounts of its use. The insert is 63 cm above the floor and 177 cm below earliest recorded sighting of the map dates from the lip of the cornice that runs around the transept c.1682, when Thomas Dingley saw a ‘curiosity in and divides the lower section of the wall from the [the Cathedral’s Chained] Library, [a] Map of ye stained glass windows above.61 Since the triptych World drawn on Vellum by a monk kept in a is 175 cm tall at its gable point, it would have just frame wth two doors—wth guilded and painted fitted under the cornice that runs below the Letters and figures’, but this does not help us to stained glass windows (Plate 3). The full row of determine how the map was used.63 Nearly a eight inserts is 240 cm in length. hundred years later such information began to As noted above, the triptych’s central panel is appear during that period in English history when 147 cm wide. Thus each of the missing doors/ ‘educated opinion . . . was becoming increasingly wings would have been 73.5 cm, and the complete self-conscious about the nation’s “ancient edi- triptych would have measured 175 cm by 294 cm, fices”’, and when antiquarians were crisscrossing not counting the room taken up by its door England, capturing its built heritage on paper.64 hinges. This means that the triptych was a little The tradition—or perhaps myth is a better word— more than 54 cm wider than the row of inserts, that the Hereford mappa mundi was used as an which would not have been a problem, particu- altarpiece can be traced back to Richard Gough’s larly since it seems that the two large holes near first visit to Hereford Cathedral in 1770. In his the top of the central panel were made to accom- notebook, he wrote that he had seen the map modate hardware used to secure it in place (see ‘fastened on [a] board . . . enclosed by wooden Fig. 2). The central panel of the triptych would doors on which are painted the V. M. and Angel’, have rested on the middle four inserts, and the and, confusingly, he adds that it ‘served as an The Hereford Mappa Mundi 143 Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Fig. 10. Hereford Cathedral. South transept, west wall. Note how the doors of the triptych of the Adoration (Swabian School, c.1530) overhang the two corbels. (Author’s photograph, reproduced with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) altarpiece to the high altar’. Bailey cites pencil There he describes the composite image he drew annotations from Gough’s notebook, in which the for his title page, antiquary dropped the indefinite article (an) and [which] is comprised of various subjects descriptive of so seems less equivocal: ‘This was the altarpiece this work from different cathedrals, &c. The design at till 1686 when the new altar and organ were put one view, is an ancient altar-piece the architecture of which is from Bishop Audley’s Chapel, in Salisbury up’.65 In his often cited British Topography (1780), Cathedral. On the space where the title is wrote [sic] is Gough again equivocated. There he recorded to be perceived a defaced crucifix. The part below seeing the map ‘inclosed in a case with folding the title where the altar-table was originally placed, and the holy water stoup is part of the altar of St. doors, on which are painted the Virgin and the Cuthbert: the large pedestal and canopy part of the Angel’, and declared that ‘it served antiently for an high altar, Both these altars from the Abbey Church altarpiece in this church’.66 And so Gough informs of St. Albans. The statues on each side [of] the sup- us that the map-in-triptych functioned as an altar- posed crucifix are painted on an oak case, containing a large ancient map of the world . . .69 piece and as the altarpiece. Although he probably was referring to the main altar in each case, his Carter gives us the source of the final sentence’s use of both indefinite and definite articles means images: ‘All these from Hereford Cathedral’.70 that we cannot place the map on that—or any Sadly, he superimposed part of his title on his other—altar during his time with any certainty. drawing of the triptych’s central panel and did not A sketch by Gough’s contemporary, the archi- reproduce the ‘defaced crucifix’.71 This superimpo- tect John Carter, shows the outline of what looks sition means that we do not have Carter’s drawing like the Hereford map in its triptych case.67 This of the map’s interior, only its circular outline. We image from about 1770 includes the map’s dimen- are left to perceive, to imagine, the crucifix and sions and records it as being ‘enclos’d in a frame the map in its triptych as an altarpiece. Even with folding doors to cover it on which a[re] though Carter’s image is a composite, Paul Harvey painted two figures’—presumably the angel is surely right in stating that Carter’s drawing ‘is Gabriel and the Virgin.68 In 1780, Carter published our best evidence for the original appearance of his Specimens of the Ancient Sculpture and Painting. the triptych that then contained the map’.72 Still, 144 D. Terkla this is not proof that the triptych was an altarpiece these positions are too close to the ground for in Hereford Cathedral, only that Carter envisioned an altarpiece but are ideal for a close inspection of it functioning as such in an imaginary cathedral. the map’s images, especially its central image of Such antiquarian accounts misled the Victorian Jerusalem and over-arching Last Judgement (129 churchmen Francis Havergal and William Bevan and 215 cms above ground level, respectively). to acknowledge sceptically that the map adorned Medieval pilgrims would have found the latter an altar. Their ‘Subscription Pamphlet,’ advertising image encouraging, since it shows the Virgin the sale of copies of the map in the 1870s, pleading for the souls of humanity on Judgement explained that it was intended for an altarpiece Day and her son inviting the souls of the elect into and meant for one of the Cathedral’s chapels. heaven. They would also have found instructive, Havergal and Bevan seem to have been influenced and deeply worrying, the souls of the damned Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 by Gough’s inconsistent use of articles to imagine being led hellward by a winged demon. the map in ‘one of the chapels’, none of which Not surprisingly, arguments for the triptych and either was or is large enough to accommodate the Hereford mappa mundi having been displayed the triptych.73 Their suggestion that the map in on any altar, let alone Hereford’s high altar, have its triptych was originally in a side chapel rather failed to gain universal acceptance. In the first than positioned prominently on the high altar place, the triptych’s size militates against its having also implies that they found such a placement been used as an altarpiece in the Cathedral’s side inappropriate. chapels, all of which are too small. In the second Modern scholarly opinion has wavered on this place, the high altar is unlikely to have been a issue. For example, Norman Thrower perpetuated viable location. How would visitors to the Cathe- the altarpiece argument and implied that using dral have studied it—and its word-and-image monumental mappaemundi as altarpieces was world does beg to be studied closely—if it were on customary, although like Gough he equivocated.74 the main altar? In the third place, measurements Martin Bailey has taken up the map-as-altarpiece made at known exhibition locations suggest that torch, although he himself finds such a function the map is best viewed when positioned at ‘surprising’ and so falls victim to the same impre- roughly 63 cms up from ground level. We know cise use of the indefinite article, arguing that ‘the that mappaemundi were used in other venues as map . . . once served as an altarpiece’.75 In 1989 visual aids to teaching, perhaps even to preaching, Peter Barber wrote that if the central panel were as Patrick Gautier Dalché, Marcia Kupfer and ‘contemporary’ with the map, then ‘within a few others have written.80 Neither of these activities years of its creation, the map was being used as an would have occurred in Hereford’s choir. altar piece’.76 Barber, however, now believes that At Dominic Harbour’s invitation, I visited the the map was not used as an altarpiece but was Cathedral in December 2003, when he had taken intended as an impressive display piece, as a back- the triptych’s central panel out of the Mappa Mundi drop, much like the mappamundi that travelled exhibition in preparation for Ian Tyers’s dendro- with Henry VIII.77 This display theory makes good chronological dating. We wanted to produce a sense and ties in with the work of Marcia Kupfer, mock-up of the map which could be temporarily who asserted in 1994 that the map was ‘certainly fixed to the north transept’s east wall, atop the not on any altar’.78 Indeed, Bailey now tends eight inserts, so that we could check sight lines to toward this opinion: ‘If the Hereford triptych was that location from the north nave aisle, the spot not an altarpiece then it still must have been an from which medieval pilgrims would have first object of religious instruction and edification’.79 seen the map in its triptych and Cantilupe’s From measurements taken at all recorded (and shrine. We also wanted to see if rubbing the paper accessible) exhibition locations in the Cathedral, with heavy black crayons—used for brass rubbing we know that the map has always been positioned in the Cathedral—would reveal anything about between 54 cms and 74 cms above the ground, an the wooden panel that was not immediately ideal height for ‘instruction and edification’, to apparent to the eye. We were especially anxious reiterate Bailey’s terms. At 63 cm, the map’s origi- to check the placement of the two large holes near nal position atop its stone supports in the north the top of the panel that seem to have accommo- transept would have fallen nearly equidistant dated the hardware used to fix the triptych to the between these two bracketing numbers. All of north transept’s east wall (see Fig. 2). Although The Hereford Mappa Mundi 145 we were unable to match these large holes with the earth’s principal land areas’, from the hand marks on the transept’s east wall—that wall used for the map’s legends. Westrem and Barber having been tidied up in the nineteenth century, have independently surmised that the Lombardic as I have indicated—seeing the mock map in hand and the ink used for these larger inscriptions situ provided dramatic confirmation of two vital on the map were specially chosen for their visibil- components of my theory. First, the map’s triptych ity, since the key inscriptions on the map were case seems to have been tailor-made for this intended to be seen from afar.82 In this way, the spot next to Cantilupe’s shrine, since it fits nicely lettering on the map could have acted as a kind between the inserts and the cornice running of medieval neon, drawing the attention of visitors below the windows in the upper section of the toward the Cantilupe complex from the north east wall. In this position, the map’s Jerusalem aisle. Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 axis lines up with the axis of the central window above it. Second, in this location medieval pilgrims A Likely Story would have viewed the map’s primary salvific To conclude, I offer the following scenario, in images at optimal heights: the City of God which the masonry and dendrochronological on earth, Jerusalem, would have been 129 cm evidence shed new light on the original setting of above the floor and the Last Judgement scene the Hereford mappa mundi and make clear that at an ideal—and suitably anagogical—elevation of theories of the map’s function should be sought in 215 cm.81 the context of medieval pilgrimage. When we moved back to the spot on the west I suggest the following narrative. Richard of side of the transept (the Cathedral’s crossing) Haldingham, the man to whom its dedicatory from which pilgrims would have approached the inscription refers, began laying out the map before Cantilupe complex, we saw that the apex of the 1278, when he was Lincoln Cathedral’s treasurer. triptych—and thus of the map’s Last Judgement Upon his death in 1278, the draft map passed image—aligns wonderfully well with the central to his younger relative, Richard de Bello, who light of Aigueblanche’s tripartite window in the had benefited greatly from his relationship with upper half of the transept’s east wall. We also saw, Richard Swinfield and who might even have been as I had anticipated earlier, that in this location brought to Hereford from Lincoln by Swinfield. the map in its triptych would have been the first De Bello saw Swinfield’s imminent translation of element of the complex that pilgrims would have Cantilupe’s remains to the north transept in 1287 seen as they moved eastward along the north as an opportunity to accomplish two things: first, aisle of the nave (see Fig. 4). More precisely, they to memorialize his relative via the map’s inscrip- would have seen the entire map in its case, the tion, and, second, to repay Swinfield for his gener- lower parts of the stained glass windows and osity.83 This gesture of quid pro quo, then, provided the corner of Cantilupe’s shrine. These sitings and Swinfield with the opportunity to install the map sightings led to the theoretical reconstitution of in its triptych next to the shrine he had built as a the map-in-triptych, which has appeared through- memorial to his patron, Cantilupe, and no doubt out as Plate 3. This situated reconstitution shows helped further de Bello’s career. that, with the oak-leaf mouldings lowered to their Because we know that the shrine was finished original places, the entire structure would have fit by 1287, that palaeographical evidence suggests an under the lip of the window cornice and forcefully early limit of 1285 for the map’s production, and demonstrates the power of the object in this sacred that dendrochonology dates the triptych’s oak place. to this time and locates Hereford as the wood’s It seems clear that the Hereford mappa mundi source, I am confident in arguing that the map was designed to be visible from a distance. Indeed, was completed in Hereford between Caernarfon’s some of the map’s inscriptions seem to have been inception in 1283 and Thomas’s transferral in inked with long-distance viewing in mind. Follow- 1287.84 Upon the map’s completion—and certainly ing the work of Parkes and Morgan, Westrem by the time of the dedication of the shrine—it differentiates the ‘display script’, which ‘a profes- became part of a Cantilupe pilgrimage complex, sional limner’ used for ‘the illuminated upper-case which would have comprised Swinfield’s rebuilt letters . . . found along the Map’s edge and in north nave aisle leading to Bishop Aigueblanche’s identifications of the four cardinal directions and ‘stunningly modern and French’ north transept, 146 D. Terkla finished by 1268; Bishop Swinfield’s new benefited from being directed through the Cantilupe shrine; the mural portrait of the saint building’s various layers of decorative and liturgi- which Thomas Dingley and William Stukeley cal figuration, they would have profited from reported seeing; and the mappa mundi in its having the devotion and curiosity that brought triptych, with its doors painted to show the them to the Cathedral channelled in useful ways Annunciation. by an attendant churchman, a custos. With the Swinfield probably regarded the 1287 tomb map displayed near the tomb, such an attendant— we see today as a temporary resting place for his possibly a Dominican or Franciscan—could get his mentor’s remains. We know that he left 100 constellation of visitors to locate the Biblical land- marks in his will toward the completion of the marks that the map represents as pictographs and grander shrine in the Lady Chapel.85 His desires verbal legends.90 From these signs the Cathedral Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 seem to have been carried out, for, as John Leland custos could easily have drawn parallels between reported between 1536 and 1539, ‘S. Thomas de the pilgrims’ life journeys and the exemplary ones Cantolupo Episcopus Herefor. lieth at this tyme in of Christ and St Thomas, as well as between their the chyrch rychely shrined’.86 It seems logical that travels to Hereford and through its Cathedral, all the map and Cantilupe’s remains, having existed the while guiding their ocular journeys over the in close proximity to one another for sixty-two map. years in Aigueblanche’s north transept, were both Looking at the map would have given the returned to the Lady Chapel by Bishop John pilgrim visitors a new sense of their place in the Trillek in 1349.87 There, map and tomb with its world. They could have found—or more likely ‘new reliquary’—which together comprised the would have been shown—England on the map, Cantilupe shrine—would have been near what is even Hereford. At the same time, on a more now the oldest window in the Cathedral. Appro- profound level they would have been orientated priately enough, this thirteenth-century window metaphysically; for the role of this and all shows Christ in majesty holding a T-O orb.88 Christian mappaemundi was to point the way from There in the Lady Chapel (the Cathedral the terrestrial City of God to the celestial City of Library from 1590 onwards), the map and shrine God, which the map’s Last Judgement shows its continued to serve as a monument to St Thomas, viewers. and to a lesser extent to Richard of Haldingham, until the Dissolution, when Cantilupe’s 1349 Acknowledgements: I should like to thank Peter Barber, Catherine Delano-Smith, P. D. A. Harvey and Patrizia shrine was destroyed. We know from Dingley’s Licini for their support and suggestions; Stacey Shimizu report that the map was still in the library in 1682, for her unflagging support and keen eye; Spencer Sauter and that some hundred years later Gough and for his longstanding enthusiasm and PhotoShop wizardry; Joan Williams and Rosalind Caird of Hereford Carter reported seeing it there. The map remained Cathedral’s Library, who have been ever helpful and in the Chapel until the nineteenth century, since supportive, and, especially, Hereford Cathedral’s Dominic ‘in 1813 a visitor calling himself Camden’ saw it Harbour for his willingness to share information new and old and for his inspirational enthusiasm and useful set there, but it was removed to the vestry in 1820, of keys. This essay is part of a longer study, The Hereford where it became part of a cabinet of curiosities. Mappa mundi: Placement, Reception, and Perception, Since then it has been in myriad locations in the currently in preparation. Cathedral.90 In 1996 the map was installed in its Paper presented at the 20th International Conference on the purpose-built case in the New Library Building, History of Cartography (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, close to the reassembled Chained Library. and the University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME), June 2003. Revised text received October 2003. Since the Cathedral literally contains the map, which pictorially represents the Cathedral, the NOTES AND REFERENCES Cantilupe complex would not have been the 1. On mappaemundi in general, see David Woodward, final destination for visitors. Pilgrims to the shrine ‘Medieval mappaemundi’, in The History of Cartography: could have extended their literal journeys to the Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient, and Medieval Europe and building by experiencing the mappa mundi as a the Mediterranean, vol. 1, ed. J. Brian Harley and David portal to myriad figurative journeys through Woodward (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987), 286–370; P. D. A. Harvey, Medieval Maps (London, The pagan, mythological, legendary, political and British Library, 1991); and Evelyn Edson, Mapping Time biblical history. Just as the pilgrims would have and Space: How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed Their World The Hereford Mappa Mundi 147 (London, The British Library, 1997). On the Hereford epigraph for his study. For a reproduction of Hands’s map in particular, see W. L. Bevan and H. W. Phillott, image and the reference to ‘copper strip’, see Bailey, ‘The Medieval Geography: An Essay in Illustration of the Hereford Mappa mundi triptych’ (note 3), 374–78. For Hands’s Mappa Mundi (London, E. Stanford, and Hereford, E. K. original, see The Observer, 20 May 1990. P. D. A. Harvey Jakeman, 1873); Gerald R. Crone: The Hereford World Map writes that the map was fixed to its central panel with (London, Royal Geographical Society, 1948); The World ‘brass strips and nails’ and suggests that the ‘strips and Map by Richard of Haldingham in Hereford Cathedral, circa nails’, now missing, disappeared in 1948, when the A.D. 1285, Reproductions of Early Manuscript Maps 3 map was restored (Mappa Mundi: The Hereford World Map (London, Royal Geographical Society, 1954); idem, ‘New (London: Hereford Cathedral and The British Library, light on the Hereford map’, Geographical Journal 131 1996) 14). (1965): 447–62; A. L. Moir, The World Map in Hereford 9. Thomas Dingley, History from Marble Compiled in the Cathedral, 1955, 8th rev. ed. (Hereford, Friends of Here- Reign of Charles II by Thomas Dingley, Gent., introduction ford Cathedral, 1977); and Scott Westrem, The Hereford and descriptive table of contents by John Gough Nichols, Map: A Transcription and Translation of the Legends with 2 vols. (Westminster, The Camden Society, 1867–1868), Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Commentary (Turnhout, Brepols, 2001). Westrem pro- 1: 12. The Chained Library was moved to the Lady vides full-colour reproductions of the map in toto and in Chapel in 1590; hence Dingley and other antiquarians sections. refer to the extreme east end of the Cathedral as the 2. Hereford Cathedral’s basic floor plan is cruciform and Library. Hereford Cathedral has always been a secular conventionally orientated eastward. It thus has a crossing house and so never had resident ‘monks’; therefore, (a transept) that separates the main body of the building ‘cleric’ would have been a more accurate term for (the nave) from the sancta sanctorum, which contains the Dingley to have used, particularly if the map was drawn choir and main altar. The two ‘arms’ of the transept and painted in Hereford, as the dendrochronological project northward and southward. Thomas’s 1287 shrine evidence suggests. was situated in the north transept. 10. Bailey, ‘The Mappa mundi triptych’ (see note 3), 3. See Marcia Kupfer, ‘Medieval world maps: Embed- 375. ded images, interpretive frames’, Word & Image 10:3 11. Richard Gough, British Topography, or, An Historical (1994): 262–88; Valerie I. J. Flint, ‘The Hereford map: Its Account of What Has Been Done for Illustrating the author(s), two scenes and a border’, Transactions of the Topographical Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland, 2 vols. Royal Society, Sixth Series 8 (Cambridge, Cambridge (London, T. Payne and Son, and J. Nichols, 1780), 1: 71. University Press, 1998), 19–44; Naomi Reed Kline, Maps 12. Harvey, Mappa Mundi (see note 8), 12. Harvey of Medieval Thought: The Hereford Paradigm (Woodbridge, (ibid., 12–14) also provides a lucid account of the Suffolk, The Boydell Press, 2001); Martin Bailey, ‘The disappearance of the rest of the triptych’s accoutrements. Mappa mundi triptych: The full story of the Hereford 13. See Harvey, Mappa Mundi (note 8), 11–18. Cathedral panels’, Apollo 137 (1993): 374–78; and 14. Bailey, ‘The Mappa mundi triptych’ (see note 3), Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1). 377. For the president of the Royal Geographical 4. Unless otherwise stated, all descriptions of the Society’s comments, see his letter inserted into the triptych panel and mappa mundi assume that the viewer Hereford Cathedral copy of Francis Tebbs Havergal, Fasti is facing them. I use ‘triptych’ to refer to the tripartite Herefordenses and other Antiquarian Memorials of Hereford, structure that included the extant central panel and illustrated by G. C. Haddon (Edinburgh, R. Clark, 1869), its two missing doors. I use ‘central panel’ and, less n.p. frequently, ‘panel’ to refer only to that extant central 15. Tyers, ‘Project report’ (see note 6), 7. section. I follow the convention of referring to Hereford’s 16. Ibid., 6. map as the ‘mappa mundi’ and use ‘mappamundi’ (and its 17. Ibid., 4. The carbon dating was undertaken by plural, ‘mappaemundi’) as the generic term for a medieval Oxford’s Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the world map. Although perhaps inelegant, I use ‘map- History of Art ‘at the expense of The Observer newspaper’ in-triptych’ to refer to the triptych with the Hereford (Harvey, Mappa Mundi (see note 8), 14). See also Bailey, map mounted on its central panel. ‘The Mappa mundi triptych’ (note 3), 374–76. For more 5. Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1). xv. on the carbon dating of the central panel, see Westrem, 6. The map’s dimensions and all those of its central The Hereford Map (note 1), xix. triptych panel—both as discrete elements and as a 18. Tyers, ‘Project report’ (see note 6), 7. complete unit—are from the January 2004 dendro- 19. Westrem states that ‘[e]verything about the chronolgical dating work undertaken by Ian Tyers. physical object of the Map itself bespeaks its exacting, See his ‘Project report 782a: Tree-ring analysis of the expensive production, a process that may well have Hereford mappa mundi panel’, unpublished description taken over a year’(The Hereford Map (see note 1), xix). commissioned by the Dean and Chapter of Hereford. I 20. Tyers, ‘Project report’ (see note 6), 3. am most grateful to Dominic Harbour for sending me a 21. Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1), xix. copy of Tyers’s report via e-mail on 18 February 2004. 22. For more on the use of the compass, see Harvey, 7. See Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1), xv. Mappa Mundi (note 8), 10. 8. I am not the first to offer a reconstruction of the 23. Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1), xx and map’s triptych. There are antiquarian drawings of it as xxvi. we shall see, and Hargrave Hands has recently offered 24. Westrem (ibid., xv) notes that the map’s width an elaborate re-imagining of the map in its triptych. My varies: ‘it is at the base of the triangular head . . . 1,292 description owes something to Bailey’s important synthe- millimeters, across the middle 1,325 millimeters (as a sis of antiquarian sightings of the triptych but little result of some trimming on the sides, this is in effect to Hands, whose work is more Neo-Gothic than Gothic. the depicted earth’s diameter), and across the bottom Bailey reproduces Hands’s image as a kind of pictorial 1,335 millimeters. . . . The actual skin size was probably 148 D. Terkla some 50 millimeters . . . wider before it was reduced to 38. The imaginative reconstruction of Thomas’s first [what conservator Christopher Clarkson has called] “a shrine by the illustrator Brian Byron, made in 1998, continuous edge”’. comes quite close to my conception of the Cantilupe 25. Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1), xx; and complex. For Byron’s image, which does not include Tyers, ‘Project report’ (see note 6), 4. the map-in-triptych, see the Reverend Canon James 26. Westrem (The Hereford Map, xxiii–xxiv) provides a Butterworth, Hereford Cathedral: The Church, Mappa careful, succinct summary of this tradition and notes that Mundi, Chained Library (Norwich, Hereford Cathedral ‘[t]he Map’s manufacture is not, in fact, known with and Jarrold Publishing, 1998), 19. I am grateful to certainty to have taken place in Lincoln’. Dominic Harbour for showing me this guidebook, which, 27. Tyers, ‘Project report’ (see note 6), 6. of course, is in the Cathedral shop. 28. David Whitehead informs us that Cottingham, 39. William Stukeley, Itinerarium Curiosum, Or, an whose contract began in 1843, and John Merewether, Account of the Antiquitys and remarkable Curiositys in Nature Dean of the Cathedral (1832–1850), found much of the or Art, observ’d in Travels thro’ Great Britain, 2 vols., illus- existing stone detail work ‘too imperfect’, and so had it trated with copperplate prints (London, Printed for the removed. They were after ‘a grand and beautiful design’ Author, 1724), 67. Except for the tomb itself, none of the Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 that was compromised by what they saw as medieval items Stukeley mentions is in place today. ‘deformities’ (‘The architectural history of the Cathedral 40. Medieval shrines were not the same as tombs: since the Reformation’, in Hereford Cathedral: A History, ‘Shrines differed from tombs primarily in the elevation ed. Gerald Aylmer and John Tiller (London and Rio of the coffin, and indeed translations could be described Grande, Ohio, Hambledown Press, 2000), 271 and 276). as movement to “higher” positions. . . . The bulk of a Cottingham also had the fourteenth-century pulpitum— tomb monument was therefore a superstructure, while the stone divider between transept and choir—removed, a shrine monument was the base for a reliquary thereby making reconstructions of medieval pilgrims’ chest’ (Ben Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England patterns of ingress and egress difficult. Scott was more (Woodbridge, England, The Boydell Press, 1998, sensitive to the original Cathedral fabric than his prede- reprinted 2001), 18). cessor Cottingham. Arthur T. Bannister, Canon Residen- 41. Penelope E. Morgan, ‘The Pilgrim cult and Hereford tiary (1909–1916), felt that ‘what was done under Scott Cathedral’, in Jancey , St. Thomas Cantilupe (see note 31), was for the most part done well and carefully, in the 146. spirit not of innovation but of conservative restoration’ 42. Havergal in 1869 thought that this placement was (ibid., 280). original and thus correct: ‘During the former part of this 29. Julia Barrow, ‘Athelstan to Aigueblanche, 1056– century it was placed against the eastern wall of this 1268’, 21, and Robert Swanson and David Lepine, ‘The aisle. In 1859 it was taken down with great care, and later middle ages, 1268–1535’, 50, both in Aylmer and reconstructed in the centre, which is admitted by all Tiller, Hereford Cathedral (see note 28). authorities to be its original position’ (Havergal, Fasti 30. See the entry ‘De S. Thoma de Cantilupe episcopo Herefordenses (see note 14), 175). herefordiensi in Anglia. Apud montem flasconis in 43. Harvey, Mappa mundi (see note 8), 12. hertruria pontifica’, in Acta Sanctorum: quotquot toto 44. Flint (‘The Hereford map’ (see note 3), 42, n. 93), orbe coluntur. . . , ed. Joanne Carnandet; 67 vols. (Paris, V. characterizes this standard depiction as ‘the curious Palmé, 1863–1919), 13: 539–704. image . . . of the bare-breasted Virgin’. In fact, it was 31. R. C. Finucane, ‘Cantilupe as thaumaturge: Pilgrims quite common. For more on this popular trope and and their miracles’, in St. Thomas Cantilupe, Bishop of image as well as those of the related Mater Dolorosa Hereford: Essays in His Honour, ed. Meryl Jancey (Hereford, and Planctus Mariae, see Dan Terkla, ‘A Basochien The Friends of Hereford Cathedral, 1982), 138. proto-drama and its mariological context: L’Advocacie 32. The Register of Thomas de Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford Nostre-Dame’, Medieval Perspectives 6 (1991): 87–100. For (A.D. 1275–1282), transcribed by the Rev. R. G. Griffiths, an architectural analogy, see Ellen M. Ross, The Grief of introduction by the Rev. W. W. Capes (Hereford, The God: Images of the Suffering Jesus in Late Medieval England Cantilupe Society, 1906), liii and lvi. (New York, Oxford University Press, 1997), 55. 33. Swinfield enlarged both north and south nave aisles. 45. See Butler’s Lives of the Saints, New Full Edition, Perhaps the southern enlargement was undertaken to 12 vols., ed. Rev. Peter Doyle (Collegeville, Minnesota, allow pilgrims easy egress. The Liturgical Press, 1996), vol. 10, October, 13–14. 34. R. K. Morris, ‘The Architectural history of the While suggesting that the map ‘was perhaps in the Lady medieval cathedral church’, in Aylmer and Tiller, Chapel’ in 1283, Flint points out that the Chapel was Hereford Cathedral (see note 28), 218. where ‘newly delivered mothers were accustomed to be 35. Ibid., 214. For Scott, see Whitehead, ‘The architec- “churched”’ (‘The Hereford map’ (note 3), 42, n. 93). tural history of the Cathedral’ (note 28), 277. 46. This inscription is not visible in the current exhibi- 36. Thomas Dingley reported having seen ‘the remains tion case. See Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1), 4 of his Image painted in fresquo with another Image on ye and 5. other side [of] the window, after the same manner— 47. For more on the life of Thomas, see Richard Strange, supposed to be designed for Bishop Ethelreda . . .’ (History comp., The Life and Gests of S. THOMAS CANTILVPE, Bishop from Marble (see note 9), clxxix. of Hereford, and some time before L. Chancellor of England, 37. Morris, ‘The Architectural history of the medieval collected by R.S.S.I. at Gant [Ghent] (printed by Robert cathedral church’ (see note 34), 214. Morris has cor- Walker, at the signe of the Annunciation of our B. Lady[,] rected some of George Marshall’s misapprehensions and 1674), 192–227 et passim; The Hereford Breviary, ed. Walter provides a current account of Bishop Aigueblanche’s Howard Frere and Langton E. G. Brown, from the Rouen building campaign. See George Marshall, ‘The shrine Edition of 1505 with Collation of the Manuscripts, vol. 3 of St. Thomas de Cantilupe in Hereford Cathedral’, The (London, Henry Bradshaw Society, 1904), 252 and 260; Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club 34 Rev. W. W. Capes, Introduction, in The Register of Thomas (1930): 34–50. de Cantilupe (note 32), i–lxviii; Jancey, St Thomas Cantilupe The Hereford Mappa Mundi 149 (note 31). For a full account of Cantilupe’s canonization, 58. The Register of Thomas de Cantilupe (see note 32), lii. based in part upon the unedited MS. Vatican Cod. 59. On 18 July 2002, Ron Shoesmith conveyed the Lat. 4015, see R. C. Finucane, ‘The Cantilupe-Pecham following to me via e-mail: ‘I would favour the idea that controversy’, in Jancey, St. Thomas Cantilupe (note 31), timbers were removed and the stones inserted to tidy up 103–23. See also John le Neve Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae the wall’. 1066–1300, Lincoln, vol. 3, compiled by Diana Eleanor 60. I have converted the measurements in this section Greenway (London, University of London, 1977), 20, 73; from inches and feet to centimetres and have rounded John le Neve Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300, Salisbury, them off. The figures for the inserts, like those for the vol. 4, compiled by Diana Eleanor Greenway (London, triptych, are therefore approximate. University of London, 1991), 49, 64, 70; John le Neve Fasti 61. I am unsure if this cornice is original or a nine- Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1066–1300, Salisbury Diocese, vol. 3, teenth-century restoration/re-creation of Sir George compiled by Joyce M. Horn (London, University of Gilbert Scott. Cathedral masons Simon Hudson and London, 1962), 9, 45, 58. Martin Lewis told me in May 2002 that they think the 48. Daniel Mersey, ‘Caernarvon Castle—Fit for a cornice is not original, but they had no dating informa- Prince’, Castles of Wales, <http://www.castlewales.com/ tion. Even if it is a re-creation, it seems to be in the Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 caernarf/html>, 14 June 2002. original location, although this needs confirmation. 49. See Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1), xviii– 62. Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1), xxi, n.17. xix, and Malcolm B. Parkes and Nigel Morgan, ‘The 63. Dingley, History from Marble (see note 9), 1: 12. Mappa mundi at Hereford: Report on the handwriting 64. Whitehead, ‘The Architectural history of the and copying of the text’, typescript of a lecture delivered cathedral’ (see note 28), 260. at the Hereford Mappa mundi Conference, 27 June–1 July 65. Richard Gough’s notebook, Oxford’s Bodleian 1999, which will be published in The Hereford Library MS Top.Gen.e.19, fol. 88r; all quoted in Bailey Mappa Mundi: Proceedings of the Mappa Mundi Conference, ‘The Mappa mundi triptych’ (see note 3), 376, my 1999, ed. P. D. A. Harvey (London, British Library, emphases. forthcoming). 66. Gough, British Topography (see note 11), 1: 71, my 50. Richard of Haldingham’s authorship is by no means emphasis. accepted by all historians of cartography. For other 67. BL Add. MS 29942, fol. 148; and Bailey, ‘The theories about why and for whom the Hereford map was Mappa mundi triptych’ (see note 3), 375. created, see Flint, ‘The Hereford map’ (note 3), 19–44; 68. Quoted by Bailey in ‘The Mappa mundi triptych’ (see Harvey, Mappa mundi (note 8), 7–14; P. D. A. Harvey, note 3), 376–77. ‘Mappa Mundi’, in Aylmer and Tiller, Hereford Cathedral 69. John Carter, Specimens of the Ancient Sculpture and (note 28), 559–61; Kline, Maps of Medieval Thought Painting, now remaining in this Kingdom, from the earliest (note 3); and Westrem, The Hereford Map (note 1), xxiii. period to the reign of Henry ye VIII, consisting of Statues, Curiously, in volume 3 of John le Neve Fasti (1977; Bassorelievos, Brasses &c. Paintings on Glass and on Walls, &c. note 47), Diana Greenway records that Richard of A Description of each Subject, some of which by Gentlemen of Haldingham occurs ‘as magister twice . . .’, while in Leterary [sic] Abilities, and well versed in the Antiquaries volume 4 (1991), she writes the following: ‘No evidence (London[,] Published as the act directs by John Carter[,] for identification with Richard de Haldingham or Lafford Wood St. Westminster[.] November ye 1.st 1780), iii. For [as magister], of Hereford “Mappa mundi”, and not to be more accessible reproductions of Carter’s title page, see confused with man of same name (who does not occ. as Bailey, ‘The Mappa mundi triptych’ (note 3), 375–76; and Master), who was preb. Lafford and treas. Lincoln, who Harvey, Mappa Mundi (note 8), 12. d. perhaps 4 Nov. 1278’ (my emphasis). For more on the 70. Carter, Specimens of the Ancient Sculpture and Painting life of Bishop Swinfield, see Flint, ‘The Hereford map’ (see note 69), 40. (note 3), 19–44; Havergal, Fasti Herefordenses (note 14), 71. The Crucifixion appears just above—that is, just 19–20 et passim. east—of Jerusalem at the map’s centre and has been 51. Flint, ‘The Hereford map’ (note 3), 30; and heavily worn, it seems, by the fingers of countless Westrem, The Hereford Map (note 1), xxiii. viewers. 52. Westrem, The Hereford Map (note 1), xxiii. 72. See Harvey, Mappa mundi (note 8), 15. 53. See Flint, ‘The Hereford map’ (note 3), 26–29, on 73. Havergal, Fasti Herefordenses (see note 14), 2–3. this ‘gift of meat’ and for more on the relationship Havergal’s Fasti, under the year 1869, refers to Dingley’s between de Bello and Swinfield. History from Marble (see note 9), and provides the follow- 54. On de Bello’s role as proctor, see Registrum Ricardi ing under ‘On Walls and Groining’: ‘The following fine de Swinfield, episcopi Herefordensis, 1283–1317, transcribed examples [of “distinct traces of colour”], as described by and edited by William W. Capes (London: Canterbury local authors, have long since been destroyed:—1. Doors and York Society 6, 1909), 491. Along with Swinfield’s and canopy of the map. 2. Mural effigies near Cantilupe patronage, de Bello enjoyed the favours of three other Shrine. 3. Mural decoration in the Chapter-house’ (156). bishops: Hereford’s Thomas Cantilupe, Lincoln’s Oliver 74. Norman J. W. Thrower, Maps & Man: An Examina- Sutton (1280–1299), and Salisbury’s Simon of Ghent tion of Cartography in Relation to Culture and Civilization (1297–before 1315). For this and more on de Bello’s (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, 1972), 42, preferments, see Flint, ‘The Hereford map’ (see note 3), my emphasis. 29. 75. Bailey, ‘The Mappa mundi triptych’ (see note 3), 55. Flint, ‘The Hereford map’ (see note 3), 31. 374, my emphasis. Unfortunately, Gabriel Alington’s 56. Ibid. guide—currently on sale in the busy Cathedral shop and 57. In e-mail communications, Patrizia Licini has told so widely dispersed among visitors—follows on from me that she has observed links between these place- Gough and Dingley to perpetuate the altarpiece theory names and the Hereford map which look promising in (The Hereford Mappa Mundi: A Medieval View of the World, terms of pulling Thomas’s shrine and the map a bit illustrated by Dominic Harbour (Leominster, England, closer. Gracewing, 1996), 20). Bailey uses Hargrave Hands’s 150 D. Terkla reconstruction of the triptych as an image-epigraph on evidence to support a pre-1283 display date in the Lady the first page of his Apollo article (see note 3). Although Chapel; for the eastern end of the Cathedral has been Hands’s vision is more Victorian than medieval, it does heavily rebuilt since the thirteenth century. For solid intimate the sense of majesty that the original might recent accounts of this rebuilding, see the relevant have inspired in its viewers (see note 8). Nicely framed chapters in Aylmer and Tiller, Hereford Cathedral (note versions of the Hands reconstruction are on sale in the 28); also the older but still helpful Marshall, ‘The shrine Cathedral shop, where they continue to blur the tempo- of St. Thomas de Cantilupe’ (note 37), 34–50, and Sir ral line between medieval and Neo-Gothic art and so George Gilbert Scott, Personal and Professional Recollections, misinform visitors about the triptych’s original appear- revised, with introduction by Gavin Stamp (Stamford, ance. I have overheard people in the shop commenting Paul Watkins, 1879, reprinted 1995). on Hands’s ‘original’, which they see as a ‘reproduction’ 85. Capes, Registrum Ricardi de Swinfield (see note 54), of the medieval triptych. 220–21. 76. Peter Barber, ‘Visual encyclopaedias: The Hereford 86. John Leland, The Itinerary of John Leland in or about and other mappae mundi’, The Map Collector 48 (1989): the Years 1535–1543, ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith, 5 vols. Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 3–7, reference on 7. (London, George Bell and Sons, 1907), 3: 48. 77. This is from my conversations with Barber at the 87. Ian Tyers’s date of one of the central panel’s British Library in the autumn of 2003. battens—that is, one of the two horizontal supportive 78. Kupfer, ‘Medieval world maps’ (see note 3), 276. planks running across the back of the panel—might 79. Bailey, ‘The Mappa mundi triptych’ (see note 3), buttress this contention. The tree that produced the 376, my emphases. upper batten, according to Tyers, ‘cannot have been 80. On medieval monastic education and mappaemundi, felled before c. 1289’. The map would have had to be see Hugh of St-Victor’s dialogue with a student in Opera removed before this new batten was attached, perhaps to Omnia (1854), ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, 176.24C. prevent the central panel ‘twisting’ any further; this See also Patrick Gautier Dalché, ed., La ‘Descriptio Mappa would account for the second set of nail holes near the mundi’ de Hugues de Saint-Victor, texte inédit avec intro- panel’s apex (Fig. 2). In discussing this issue, Dominic duction et commentaire (Paris, Etudes Augustiniennes, Harbour and I wonder if this minor refurbishment 1988); Kupfer, ‘Medieval world maps’ (see note 3), 276; occurred in preparation for the removal of the triptych and Dan Terkla, ‘Impassioned failure: Memory, meta- from the north transept to its next location in the Lady phor, and the drive toward intellection’, in Imagining Chapel. As Tyers writes, ‘[t]he implications of this are Heaven in the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays, ed. Hugh far reaching . . . and necessitate both a discussion of the Feiss and Jan Emerson (New York, Garland Press, 2000), feasibility of withdrawing nails from oak boards, and an 260–62, 289. appreciation of the likely damage to the Mappa in trying 81. This means that the current height at which the to get it off the board’ (‘Project report’ (see note 6), 6–7). map is exhibited is much too high, as anyone who has 88. On the ‘new reliquary’ and a brief history of tried to see its Last Judgement or details in its depiction the movements of Cantilupe’s remains, see Nicola of Asia knows. In May 2003, Dominic Harbour informed Coldstream, ‘The Medieval tombs and the shrine of Saint me that the Cathedral has undertaken fund raising to Thomas Cantilupe’, in Aylmer and Tiller, Hereford finance the redesign of the mappa mundi’s display. Part of Cathedral (note 28), 330 et passim. On the translation to that redesign will include situating the map at a height the Lady Chapel, see The Register of John de Trillek Bishop more in line with these figures. of Hereford, A.D. 1344–1361, ed. J. H. Parry (Hereford, 82. Westrem, The Hereford Map (see note 1), xviii. Peter Hereford Cathedral, 1910), 147–48. Barber conveyed this information to me during a 89. On Camden, see Havergal, Fasti Herefordenses (note conversation at the British Library in the autumn of 14), 162. For the period 1855–1863 the map was on 2003. display with the Chained Library then in a room above 83. Westrem notes that, ‘while the legend does not the north transept, and in 1863 it was in the south choir explicitly invite prayers for the soul of Richard [of aisle. The map was moved to the Audley Chapel for Haldingham], an invocation of this kind was more com- copying in 1869, and in 1910 or 1912 it was placed on monly made for the deceased, often sponsored by family the east wall of the south transept. From 1948 to 1988, it members’ (The Hereford Map (see note 1), xxii, n.21). The was in the north choir aisle in a new case designed by the fact that the legend is written in the third-person also Royal Geographical Society. From 1990 to 1996 it was suggests that Richard of Haldingham was not its author. located in the crypt, again with the Cathedral treasures 84. In this context dates will be fluid, but Nigel and curiosities. I am indebted to Cathedral Archivist Morgan’s earliest palaeographical date of 1285 (Parkes Rosalind Caird, for some of this information. For a fuller and Morgan ‘The Mappa mundi at Hereford’ (see note history of the map’s movements (in and out of the 49)), and Westrem’s tenable assumption that the map Cathedral), and copying, see Harvey, Mappa mundi took at least one year to complete (The Hereford Map (see (note 8), 15–18. note 1), 11), make Flint’s favouring of ‘a date close to the 90. Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St Asaph, wrote of these conquest of Wales, 1282–3, for the completion of the ‘friers Preachers’, who ‘came hither first in the time of St. whole and, perhaps, for its display’ a problem. She argues Thomas Cantilupe bishop of Hereford’ (Notitia Monastica; that ‘the whole was completed after Cantilupe’s death, in or an Account of all the Abbies, Priories, and Houses of Friers, essence by 1283, for the embellishment of Cantilupe’s first Formerly in England and Wales and also of all the Colleges and resting place in Hereford Cathedral’ (‘The Hereford map’ Hospitals Founded Before A.D. MDXL, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, (see note 3), 23 and 42, my emphases). I am leery of Cambridge University Press, 1787), 126r). See also speculating to this extent, however. No written source Leland, The Itinerary of John Leland (note 86), 1: 160–61, records of the map’s location before Dingley’s 1682 2: 67, 3: 48; and Swanson and Lepine, ‘The later middle sighting, nor is there any architectural or decorational ages’ (note 29), 80. The Hereford Mappa Mundi 151 L’emplacement originel de la mappemonde de Hereford Bien que les amateurs d’antiquités, les historiens de la cartographie, les paléographes et les historiens de l’art aient écrit depuis plus de trois cents ans sur la mappemonde de Hereford, on connaît peu de choses à propos de son emplacement primitif ou de son utilisation. Cet article s’appuie sur des preuves tirées de la nouvelle maçonnerie et de la dendrochronologie pour affirmer que cette monumentale carte du monde était présentée à l’origine près du premier tombeau de Saint Thomas Cantilupe, dans le transept nord de la cathédrale de Hereford. Elle n’était donc pas utilisée comme un retable, mais comme un élément de ce que j’appelle le ‘système du pèlerinage de Cantilupe’, un ensemble d’objets et d’images qui constitua un temps l’une des destinations de pèlerinage parmi les plus populaires d’Angleterre. A son emplacement, la carte aurait ajouté au pouvoir d’attraction du système et servi d’outil pédagogique multimédia. Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Der ursprüngliche Aufstellungsort der Mappa Mundi von Hereford Obwohl Historiker, Kartographiehistoriker, Palaeographen und Kunsthistoriker seit über dreihundert Jahren über die Mappa Mundi von Hereford geschrieben haben, wissen wir wenig über ihren originalen Aufstellungsort und ihre Verwendung. Die Argumentation in diesem Beitrag basiert auf neuen Untersuchungen der Steinmetzarbeiten, der Dendrochronologie und des Systems der Beförderung in der mittelalterlichen Kirchenhierarchie, die nahelegen, dass diese monumentale Weltkarte 1287 ihren ersten Aufstellungsplatz neben dem ersten Schrein des Heiligen Thomas Cantilupe im nördlichen Querschiff der Kathedrale von Hereford erhielt. Sie diente dementsprechend nicht als Altarbild, sondern bildete einen Teil dessen, was der Autor den ‘Cantilupe pilgrimage complex’ nennt. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Gruppe von Bildern und Gegenständen, die für einige Zeit zum populärsten Pilgerziel Englands avancierten. An diesem Platz hätte die Karte die Attraktivität dieses Komplexes gesteigert und als ein multimediales pädagogisches Instrument gedient. El emplazamiento original del mappa mundi de Hereford Aunque anticuarios, historiadores de la cartografía, paleógrafos e historiadores del arte han escrito sobre el mappa mundi de Hereford durante más de 300 años, conocemos poco acerca de su emplazamiento original o uso. Este artículo trata de la obra de la nueva sillería de la catedral, de evidencias dendrocronológicas y del sistema de preeminencias eclesiásticas medievales, para argumentar que este monumental mapa del mundo fue originalmente exhibido en 1287 cerca del primer sepulcro de Santo Thomas Cantilupe, en el crucero norte de la catedral de Hereford, y que no funcionó como retablo, sino como parte de lo que el autor denomina ‘el complejo de peregrinaciones Cantilupe’, un conglomerado de aditamentos e imágenes que fue en aquel tiempo uno de los mas populares destinos de peregrinación en Inglaterra. En este emplazamiento, el mapa podría haber añadido atractivo al complejo y servido como un instrumento de pedagogía multimedia. Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Plate 1. Hereford Cathedral, New Library Building. The Hereford mappa mundi Plate 2. Hereford Cathedral. The central panel of the Hereford mappa mundi (c.1283). Drawn on calf skin, approximately 163 cm tall × 137 cm wide, shown here triptych, showing planks cut from oaks grown near Hereford and felled c.1265 fixed to its current mounting made from wood taken from City of London churches according to dendrochronological testing. The oak-leaf gable moulding is carbon- bombed during the Second World War. The pentagonal map presents a later dated to c.1040–1280. Note the gap between moulding pieces created by incorrect medieval encyclopedic vision of the inhabited regions of the world. (Reproduced remounting. The framing wood is a nineteenth-century addition. 175 × 147 cm. with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) See p. 132. The photograph was taken when the central panel was still in its customary loca- tion in the former cloister of the Cathedral and before its removal in December 2003 for dendrochronological dating. (Author’s photograph, reproduced with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral.) See p. 132. Downloaded by [Illinois Wesleyan University], [Dan Terkla] at 09:36 30 December 2014 Plate 3. Montage showing the Hereford mappa mundi in what is suggested was its original position. The triptych contain- ing the map would have rested on eight stones inserted into the wall, below the Bishop Aigueblanche’s tripartite window and next to St Thomas Cantilupe’s tomb (left). The stones, now cut back flush with the wall, are discernible immediately below the triptych. The dimensions and angles of the doors of the triptych are exactly half those of the central panel. The triptych was created in Photoshop® from scanned slides of the map and the central panel without the map to show the missing doors or wings. (Author’s photograph, map and central panel slides, as in Plate 1 and 2, are reproduced with permission from the Dean and Chapter, Hereford Cathedral. Photoshop® reconstitution by SpencerSauter of spenmedia.com.) See p. 142.

RELATED PAPERS

RELATED TOPICS

Log In

The Original Placement of the Hereford Map

The Original Placement of the Hereford Map

The Original Placement of the Hereford Map

The Original Placement of the Hereford Map

The Original Placement of the Hereford Map

Related Papers

RELATED PAPERS

RELATED TOPICS