Gripla - 20.12.2018, Page 42

GRIPLA42
encyclopaedic manuscripts, dating from c. 1192–1400.33 It contains writ-
ings on astronomy and time-reckoning, drawings of maps and the division
of philosophy, as well as calendars, a Latin glossary and a chapter from
Íslendingabók, among other things. the second oldest part of the compila-
tion (GKS 1812 III 4to, c. 1225–1250), contains a cosmological diagram in
Latin on folio 6v (figure 1).34 at the centre is a t–o map that shows the
three known parts of the world, asia, africa and Europe.35 three concen-
tric circles are drawn around the centre, forming a dial that is sliced into
four equal sectors. at the outer edges of the outermost circle are the names
of the four cardinal points.36
Within the outermost circle are the names of winds,37 along with the
twelve months and signs of the zodiac. In the next (second) circle are the
four seasons with their distinctive qualities. the third circle represents the
human microcosm; it entails the four ages of man and some accompanying
features and/or elements. the second and third circles give us the follow-
ing four combinations:
33 for a description of the manuscript and its contents, see Kristian Kålund, Katalog over
de oldnorsk-islandske håndskrifter i Det store kongelige bibliotek og i Universitetsbiblioteket
(Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1900), 38–41; Kristian Kålund, “Håndskriftbeskrivelse,” Alfræði
íslenzk. Islandsk encyklopædisk litteratur, ed. by Kristian Kålund and natanael Beckman, 3
vols (Copenhagen: Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur, 1914–16), vol. II,
cxx–ccxxv (in particular about folio 6v on ccxii). See also Gunnar Harðarson, “a Divisio
Philosophiae in the Medieval Icelandic Manuscript GKS 1812 4to,” Cahiers de l’Institut du
Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin (2015): 1–4.
34 Dale Kedwards analyses the diagram and its relationship to a larger map on the other side
of the folium and puts both in context with old norse and European cartography; see his
“Cartography and Culture in Medieval Iceland” (PhD diss., university of York, 2014):
151–223. See also rudolf Simek, who refers to the diagram as mappa mundi, concentrating
on the t–o map in his Altnordische Kosmographie: Studien und Quellen zu Weltbild und
Weltbeschreibung in Norwegen und Island vom 12. bis zum 14. Jahrhundert, Ergänzungsbände
zum reallexikon der Germanischen altertumskunde 4 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990),
63–65, 508–10. Simek refers to the diagram on folio 11r, which is an error for 6v.
35 the parts are delineated by a “t” and encircled; a classic circular t–o map, where the “t”
represents the sea that separates the three known parts of the world and “o” stands for the
ocean that encircles the world, see Simek, Altnordische Kosmographie, 37–46; naomi reed
Kline, Maps of Medieval Thought: The Hereford Paradigm (new York: Boydell, 2001), 13, 22.
36 from the top: Meridies (south), Occident (west), Septentrio (north) – and one can therefore
presume that Oriens (east) was written on the part of the left margin that has been cut off.
37 Legible are: in the top quarter – Fauonius (west), Subsolanus (east), Zephirus (west); right
quarter – Nothus (south); bottom quarter – Boreas (north), Aquilo (north). See on the
twelve winds in Isidore of Seville, Traité 37. 1–5, including a diagram of the winds. See also
on the winds in GKS 1812 III 4to in Kedwards, “Cartography,” 229–38.