Explore the Mappa Mundi & Chained Library Exhibitions
The map is constructed from a single sheet of vellum and is 1.59 by 1.34 metres (5’2” by 4’4”). (calf-skin). According to historians, it was produced about the year 1300 and represents the history, geography, and fate of mankind as seen in Christian Europe in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
The populated section of the world as it was understood at the time, roughly equivalent to Europe, Asia, and North Africa, is mapped from a Christian perspective. Jerusalem is in the centre, and east is at the top. For the second coming of Christ, mediaeval Christians looked east, where the sun rose. The British Isles are at the bottom of the map on the left.
