The World Map
About the beginning of the fourteenth century, writes A.L. Moir, a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral completed his ambitious world map, in which geographical information is mixed with historical details and pictures of fantastic legendary monsters.
That observant antiquarian Walter Dingley, wandering around Hereford Cathedral in 1682, noted ‘a map of ye world drawn on vellum by a monk’. It was the old world map still on view in the cathedral, where it has been for over six hundred and fifty years.
It was not drawn by a monk, as Dingley thought, but by a prebendary, who casually reveals his name by including a plea that all who see or hear of the map will pray for his happiness in heaven. This appeal, written in Norman-French and tucked away in a comer, refers to his masterpiece as ‘estoire’. It is, indeed, more concerned with history than with geography.
Richard, prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral in 1276, became prebendary of Hereford Cathedral in 1305. The exact date of the map cannot be established; but it was completed about A.D. 1300. The medieval map-maker was a theologian, philosopher, historian, mythologist, as well as cartographer and calligrapher.
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