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theories derived ultimately from the venerable Bede. Although not neces
sarily evident from theoretical tracts, in Medieval practice, cosmography
and geography were closely related to astronomy. Illustrations and texts
for both appeared side by side and sometimes even within the same picture
(as in AM 764 4to).
Medieval Icelandic maps, of which a surprising number are to be
found in manuscripts, show us not only an intense interest in geography,
but also an interesting addition to the contemporary European world
views, namely with regard to the transatlantic discoveries and a very par
ticular concept of Greenland as part of northern europe. this is reflected
in the maps of Henricus Martellus11 which were based on the calculations
by the Dane Claudius Clavus (fl. ca. 1420),12 and also in the early modern
Skálholt maps, but not in Medieval central european maps of the same
time (such as the widely known early Ptolemaic map in Hartmann
Schedel’s Chronicon universale of 1492). But not only was the North West
better known to Scandinavians than to any other European scholars, obvi
ously through the Scandinavian voyages of discovery undertaken in the
10th and 11th centuries, even eastern europe is presented in considerably
more detail in Icelandic manuscripts than it is in concurrent european
maps.13 Examples include the location of the Biarmones, or of the town of
kiev, on the largest of the Medieval Icelandic Mappae mundi, the one in
GkS 1812 4to (5v–6r), but also the naming of a whole series of towns in
Icelandic geographical treatises (such as AM 736 I 4to, 1r–1v, and espe
cially Hauksbók, AM 544 4to, 2r–4r). While Miklagarðr (Constantinople)
is of course known, and is shown on most European Medieval maps,
towns like Garðar (Kiev), Hólmgarðr (Novgorod), Palteskja (Polotzk) and
Smalenska (Smolensk) are only marked on maps in Icelandic manuscripts.
A very specialized but fascinating aspect of Medieval Icelandic map
11 Werner kreuer, ed., Monumenta Cartographica: Tabulae mundi (Gotha: Perthes, 1998),
55–58.
12 Rudolf Simek, “elusive elysia, or: Which Way to Glæsisvellir? on the Geography of the
north in Icelandic Legendary fiction,” Sagnaskemmtun. Studies in Honour of Hermann
Pálsson, ed. by R. Simek, j. kristjánsson, H. Bekkernielsen (Wien: Braumüller, 1986),
247–275.
13 Rudolf Simek, “Skandinavische Mappae Mundi in der europäischen tradition,” Ein
Weltbild vor Columbus. Die Ebstorfer Weltkarte. Interdisziplinäres Colloquium 1988, ed. by
Hartmut kugler in Zs.arbeit mit eckhard Michael (Weinheim: Acta Humaniora 1991),
167–184.
tHe MeDIevAL ICeLAnDIC WoRLD vIeW