Psalter world map

Psalter world map, ca. 1260. Jerusalem is at the centre of the map; the Red Sea can be seen coloured red at upper right of the globe.

The Psalter World Map or the Map Psalter is a small mappa mundi from the 13th century, now in the British Library, found in a psalter. No other records of psalters found from the Middle Ages have a mappa mundi.[1]

The Psalter mappa mundi was likely used to provide context for the Bible's stories as well as a visual narrative of Christianity. Mappae mundi were not utilized as maps for travel or geographical education, but as history lessons taught through a visual means. Historian Felicitas Schmieder[2] refers to mappa mundi as "Geographies of Salvation" as they are report the narrative of Christ's interaction with our world. The Psalter mappa mundi is now conserved at the British Library in London.[1]

An open-access high-resolution digital image of the map with place and name annotations is included among the thirteen medieval maps of the world edited in the Virtual Mappa project. The Map Psalter can be broken down in the following manner:[3][4][5] ff. 3v-8r are later additions of 6 illustrations from the New Testament, ff. 9r-9v are the mappa mundi and a second written T-O map, ff. 10v-16v a calendar, which were included in many psalters of the time. They served to highlight days of canonization of saints and other important holidays,[6] f. 17r-v has simple prayers usually found in psalters, ff. 18v-184v consist of the Canticles, or a collection of hymns, prayers, or songs usually found in psalters. ff. 184r-185v include a litany, ff. 185v-189v are petitions for help from God, ff. 217-221v induces the Office of the Dead, ff. 191r-212v are passages praising the Virgin Mary. The ff. 212r - 217r are written in Anglo-Norman, as all signs indicate that the book was made in London. The psalter ends on ff. 221v-222v with a different writing style of common Latin prayers, appearing to be a later addition.

  1. ^ a b "British Library". www.bl.uk. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  2. ^ Schmieder, Felicitas (2018). "Geographies of Salvation: How to Read Medieval Mappae Mundi". Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture. 6: 3.
  3. ^ Van Duzer, Chet (2019). A critical companion to English Mappae mundi of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. England: The Boydell Press. pp. 179–196. ISBN 9781783274222.
  4. ^ Morgan, Nigel (1988). A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles. Harvey Miller and Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-905203-53-4.
  5. ^ "Detailed record for Additional 28681". British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts. 4 April 2022.
  6. ^ McKitterick, Rosamond (1996). The Utrecht psalter in Medieval art: picturing the Psalms of David. The Netherlands: HES Publishers. pp. 1–21. ISBN 1872501-69-9.