Slide #217
TITLE: Liber Floridus
DATE: ca. 1120 A.D.
AUTHOR: Lambert of St. Omer
DESCRIPTION: Lambert, Canon of St. Omer, was the compiler of an encyclopedia
entitled Liber Floridus, which was composed of extracts from approximately
192 different works. In this treatise Lambert compiled a chronicle or history
that reaches to the year 1119; it contains various maps, including a mappamundi,
which originally like the text, has a date at least earlier than 1125, and
has survived in three forms: in the manuscripts of Ghent, Wolfenbüttel,
and Paris. In spite of a clearly expressed intention of supplying
a complete world map, the oldest copy, the Ghent manuscript, only
includes Europe, two Macrobian-zone sketches and a T-O design. This particular
manuscript copy seems to have been written by Lambert himself, certainly
not later than 1125, and contains some remarkable peculiarities with regards
to Europe. The Wolfenbüttel and Paris copies, dating
from about 1150, are simply different copies from the same original, which
was doubtless of Lambert's own draftsmanship (although in a monograph entitled
Die Weltkarte des Martianus Capella, R. Uhden has pointed out that
the world map contained in the Wolfenbüttel copy carries a legend
ascribing the original to Martianus Capella. The correctness of the ascription
is further verified by the identity of various other legends on the map
with passages in the Satyricon or De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii
. . . by Martianus Capella). These maps, which are based upon Capella's
design, contain an equatorial ocean but are quite different than the Macrobian
zone-maps (Slide #201). The ecliptic is usually shown,
with the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the generalization of the coastlines
is rounded in nature. Most of these maps are characteristically oriented
to the East (although some show a northern orientation), and have a large
amount of text in the southern continent. The climatic zones may or may
not be explicitly shown. Regularly shaped islands are usually found in the
ocean surrounding the northern continent.
While containing a less detailed Europe, both the Wolfenbüttel
and Paris manuscripts possess a complete mappamundi, together
with a special and interesting addition. Nowhere else in medieval cartography
do we find greater prominence assigned to the unknown southern continent
- the Australian land of the fabled Antipodes (termed Antichthon
by the ancients). On the Paris manuscript, where this land occupies
half of the circle of the earth, a long inscription defines this 'region
of the south' in terms not unlike those used on the St. Sever - Beatus
map (Slide #207D):
. . . temperate in climate, but unknown to the sons of Adam, having nothing
which belongs to our race. The Equatorial Sea [Mediterranean] which here
divided the [great land masses or continents of the] world, was not visible
to the human eye; for the full strength of the sun always heated it, and
permitted no passage to, or from, this southern zone. In the latter, however,
was a race of Antipodes (as some philosophers believed), wholly different
from man, through the difference of regions and climates. For when we are
scorched with heat, they are chilled with cold; and the northern stars,
which we are permitted to discern, are entirely hidden from them . . . Days
and nights they have one length; but the haste of the sun in the ending
of the winter solstice causes them to suffer winter twice over.
To the south of this temperate 'Australia', Lambert places a zone of extreme
cold, uninhabitable by living creatures.
The ideas expressed here are supplemented by the suggestion of two more
unknown continents or 'earth-islands', one in the Northern and the other
in the Southern [Western] Hemispheres, lying in the expanse of an all-encircling
and dividing great ocean. Four landmasses therefore are assumed; of these,
the first two were made up of the ancient oikoumene [known world]
and the Australian region just described. The other two landmasses
were on the reverse side of the globe (corresponding in some respects with
the North and South American continents of later discoveries), and were
divided by a tropical arm of the great ocean, in the same way as the two
'islands' of the Eastern Hemisphere. This concept reflects, in full, the
theory of the ancient geographers such as Crates of Mallos, a 5th century
B.C. Greek philosopher (Slide #113). The present
maps by Lambert, however, only indicate the 'third' and 'fourth' continents
(those of the Western Hemisphere) by placing little circles in the margins
of the Roman World, or Habitable Earth, respectively entitled Paradise,
to the northeast, and Our Antipodes to the southwest. The idea of
an undersea course of rivers from a trans-oceanic Paradise to the
oikoumene was a common belief during the Middle Ages (see Cosmas
Indicopleustes, Slide #202). Our Antipodes is
clearly to be understood as the continental masses exactly opposite to Europe
and Africa on the other side of the globe, inhabited by living (but apparently
not human) beings, and having a day and night in an 'opposite relation'
to those living in Europe; while the Paradise island is probably
to be interpreted, in the same way, as precisely antipodean to the Australian
continent. The graphic expression of these ideas in Lambert's maps derives
from several sources. First there is the suggestion of a T-O form
in the general contour of 'Our World'. Speculations of a much higher antiquity
can be traced in the apparent indication of the Ecliptic in both the Ghent
and Wolfenbüttel world maps (in the form of a crooked line
running over the Equator and marked by three star-pictures), the obliquity
of the sun's path is clearly suggested. Thirdly, of course, is the probable
source of earlier world maps by Macrobius and/or Martianus Capella (Slide #201).
If Lambert's 'universal' conceptions are so narrowly dependent upon classical
antecedents, it may be expected that the detailed material of the maps will
also display a markedly antique character; and indeed the relationship between
the medieval geographers and those of the later Imperial time is seldom
found in more complete expression. Most of the 180 inscriptions are entirely
ancient, and must, therefore, have referred to a lost design of the Old
Roman world; the chief additions to this pre-medieval material were made
from the geography of Lambert's own period. We must not, however, suppose
that Lambert's mappamundi is simply a compilation of a large number
of writers. It is not impossible that Lambert's maps, with the exception
of a few place names, was taken bodily from an ancient world sketch of the
4th or 5th century A.D. But even if it was the outcome (in its general outlines)
of a lost original from the days of the later old Empire, or borrowed directly
from Capella, it has obviously been greatly modified by its 12th century
redactor, and, in part at least, it truly belongs to the central medieval
time frame. As to this we may notice especially some of the islands chosen
to be displayed by Lambert, such as Tritonia, apparently a name from
the Triton River in Ethiopia; Betania [Britain], placed over against
the Pillars of Hercules; the Balearics, defined simply as
'over against Spain', but located in the ocean; Orcades, or British
fringing-islets, thirty-three in number, lying over against Betania
and Gotha. Although not discernible on the example shown here, on
the Lambert maps the seas and rivers are usually colored green, the mountains
red, but each of the three copies of the manuscript world map offers peculiarities
of its own. The Ghent manuscript gives the most detailed map of the
European area; the Wolfenbüttel manuscript alone gives Philistia,
Palestine, Bactria, and the mountains of Taurus and Caucasus;
the Paris manuscript alone contains Gallia, Comata, Troy, and
the Australian inscription (a similar but shorter description of the Southern
Ocean occurs in one of the small zone maps of the Liber Floridus).
Besides the world map, the Paris manuscript contains (with certain
differences) several of the smaller designs which are also found in the
Ghent copy of the Lambertian encyclopedia. Thus we have Augustus
Caesar holding a T-O world in his left hand (Slide #205J), an astronomical
sketch, and an outline figure of the 'earth-globe'. On the Paris world
map all names of seas are wanting; the Mediterranean is indistinguishable
from a river; and the continents lack all clear differentiation. The textual
script, moreover, is exceedingly difficult and Lambert's material has been
so much rearranged that it is not easy in some cases to find agreement with
the indications of the Ghent copy.
In addition to the previously mentioned sources, Lambert's Liber Floridus
also drew from such medieval authorities as St. Isidore, Orosius, Julius
Honorius, Pomponius Mela, Solinus, Venerable Bede, Raban Maur, the Pseudo-
Callisthenes and the Bible. There are at least eight manuscripts of the
text preserved in the libraries of Europe, and it was referred to with high
praise by writers of the 13th century.
LOCATION: Herzog August Bibliothek, Codex Guelf. 1 Gud. Lat. (cat.
4305), fols. 69v-70r,
Wolfenbüttel, Germany.
Bibliotheque Nationale, MS. Lat. 8865 (Suppl. 10-2), Paris
Rijksuniversiteit, MS. 92, Ghent
REFERENCES:
Beazley, C., The Dawn of Modern Geography, volume II, pp. 570 - 573; 621
- 624.
*Destombes, M., Mappemondes, A.D. 1200 - 1500, 43.1, 43.2, 43.3, plate L.
*Harley, J.B., The History of Cartography, Volume One, pp. 300, 304, 321,
353-54, Figure 18.71.
*Kimble, G., Geography of the Middle Ages, pp. 8 - 9.
*Wright, J . K., Geographical Lore at the Time of the Crusades, p. 122.
* illustrated