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The British Library in London
is home to a staggering
four and a half million maps.
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Mysterious and beautiful,
these rarely seen treasures
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00:00:18,240 --> 00:00:21,160
are much more than just physical
depictions of the world.
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A map is definitely by far
the best synthesis of topography,
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the geography of a place,
together with its history,
and of course art as well,
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so you've got great themes
all combining in one
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to produce something of huge beauty.
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Our love affair with maps
is as old as civilisation itself.
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Each map tells its own story
and hides its own secrets.
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Maps delight, they unsettle,
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they reveal deep truths,
not just about where we come from,
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00:01:04,760 --> 00:01:06,880
but about who we are.
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A map is a thing of beauty.
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It's a place where perhaps
you express the cosmos, you try and
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bring together the whole view of
the world so you can understand it.
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The medieval masterpiece known as
the Hereford Mappa Mundi is the
world's oldest surviving wall map.
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It still resides where it was made
over 700 years ago,
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a unique insight
into a vanished world.
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It's probably the best way
into the medieval mind
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because in it are drawn together
so many aspects of medieval thinking.
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I think the point of the map
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was to make you say,
"Wow, that's extraordinary!"
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The Hereford Mappa Mundi
has inspired wonder
and caused confusion for centuries.
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It seems to defy logic.
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It's a map
and a medieval encyclopaedia
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that charts both the known world
of the physical
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and the unknown world of belief.
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The Mappa Mundi has spent almost
all of its life in one of Britain's
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oldest ecclesiastical buildings,
Hereford Cathedral.
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There were many Mappa Mundi
in medieval times.
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But the Hereford map is the largest
to have survived intact.
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When it was made in 1300,
Europe stood on the verge
of the Renaissance.
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The poet Dante was about to embark
on his epic work, the Divine Comedy,
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while the Venetian Explorer,
Marco Polo,
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was on his pioneering travels
in Asia.
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Painted on a single sheet
of calf skin, the Mappa Mundi -
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the name means
'cloth of the world' -
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is five feet high
and four feet across.
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It's a map of a teeming world,
rendered in dizzying detail.
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00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:41,800
One of the greatest surviving
art works of the middle ages,
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it rarely leaves its glass case.
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00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:49,160
The ravages of time and past neglect
have taken their toll,
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leaving parts of it
dark and damaged.
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00:03:55,640 --> 00:04:01,360
But it still exerts
an extraordinary power over those
who come into contact with it.
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00:04:03,280 --> 00:04:06,640
I remember seeing it
when I was eight years old.
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To me, it was really intriguing
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00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:19,160
and fascinating, like seeing a
medical specimen squeezed into a jar.
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00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:23,040
Something that captured
my imagination as a child.
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00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:30,640
Dominic Harbour came to Hereford
as a student to help prepare
a new exhibition for the map.
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00:04:30,640 --> 00:04:36,360
20 years later, he's still here, as
the Cathedral's Commercial director,
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and has seen thousands of visitors
encounter the map
for the first time.
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I think, actually,
it completely disarms anybody
who stands in front of it.
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It's really a total cacophony of
too much going on at the same time,
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which, if you think of
the culture that produced it,
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it's a pretty good description,
really.
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00:04:58,800 --> 00:05:02,080
It's kind of unfathomable
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00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:04,880
and you have to sort of
immerse yourself into it.
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CRIES OF BATTLE
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The map was the work of a highly
skilled team of scribes and artists.
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00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:33,880
Its original creator
left behind his mark.
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'Pray for Richard of Lafford
who had it made',
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reads a caption in Norman French.
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00:05:43,920 --> 00:05:46,120
At the heart of the map
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is Jerusalem.
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And at its centre, a tantalising
clue to what was probably the
first act of the map makers,
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a tiny pin prick made 700 years ago
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00:05:57,520 --> 00:06:02,000
where a compass was used
to trace the circular tower.
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00:06:05,760 --> 00:06:11,880
From that tiny,
ragged hole at its centre,
spreads a map of amazing complexity.
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00:06:11,880 --> 00:06:14,400
1,000 written legends,
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00:06:14,400 --> 00:06:18,360
500 drawings of the cities
and towns of the known world,
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and the monstrous races
of the unknown world.
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Among them, the Essedones,
eating the corpses of their parents.
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And the Sciapods,
using one huge foot as a sun shade.
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Small wonder, you might think,
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that the Victorian scholar,
Sir Charles Raymond Beasley,
called it 'a monstrosity'.
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The Hereford Mappa Mundi, like other
works of its genre,
are very confusing.
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There are no country boundaries.
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Everything seems out of place.
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00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:08,360
However, it requires learning about
the medieval world view
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00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:13,360
and trying to come to terms
with the internal
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00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:15,440
structure of the map.
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00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:21,120
The medieval world map has its own
internal principles of organisation.
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00:07:21,120 --> 00:07:23,920
You just have to learn it.
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00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:29,360
And where better to start to unravel
the mysteries of this map
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00:07:29,360 --> 00:07:35,520
than at the heart of cartographic
learning, London's British Library?
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Its four million maps are under
the care of a curator who is both
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a world expert on cartography
and a trustee of the Mappa Mundi.
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Peter Barber.
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Like other scholars of the map,
he has had a life-long fascination
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with the Mappa Mundi, and knows
how tricky it can be to decipher.
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The first-time viewer would
be completely lost by the map.
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You've got none of the familiar
cities or landmarks.
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All you have is this
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collection of weird-looking animals
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and lots and lots and lots of text
which, being in Latin,
you can't read.
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This is totally incomprehensible
to most people.
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00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:27,560
At first glance, it's the
geography of the Hereford map
that is immediately confusing.
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00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:29,880
We're used to maps that face North,
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but the Mappa Mundi follows an
older convention and faces East.
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00:08:35,600 --> 00:08:39,560
The map as geography
is obviously distorted
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because it's got East
at the top.
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But if you turn it round,...
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all of a sudden
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it does become
slightly more familiar.
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You can recognise immediately Sicily,
which is a triangle.
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That's actually quite accurate.
You see Italy. You see Greece.
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00:08:59,520 --> 00:09:02,360
You see most notably
the Mediterranean.
108
00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:05,080
You have Britain
at the top left-hand corner.
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00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:07,640
You have the west coast of Europe.
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00:09:07,640 --> 00:09:12,720
Most importantly, down here you have
Africa, or at least North Africa,
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and to the right you have Asia.
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And actually, it's certainly
recognisable, even if distorted.
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It's also full of mysteries.
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You can't begin to unravel everything
and nobody has yet.
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So you can come back to it again
and again with new questions
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and see new things.
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And, um... It is endlessly absorbing.
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Delving deeper into the map,
beyond its physical geography,
another layer of meaning appears.
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The Mappa Mundi is also
a complete history of the world.
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Among the cities and towns,
the rivers and seas,
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the map also depicts events
from the past,
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events separated sometimes
by thousands of years.
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CLAP OF THUNDER
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We see Noah's Ark
and the Crucifixion of Christ,
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but we are also shown Caesar sending
out surveyors to map the world
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before Christ was even born.
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Across its extraordinary surface,
geography, time and history mingle.
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The present collides
with the distant past.
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But the Mappa Mundi's real beauty
is that it is much more
than just a map.
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The Hereford Map was not used
the way we use a map for getting
from point A to point Z.
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It was not a route-finding map.
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It was an imago mundi,
a picture of the world,
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a kind of display of all creation
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laid out, extended,
before the viewer.
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It was a marvel, a mirabilia mundi.
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What the map is for
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is to plot, if you like,
human history.
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That's why it's orientated
with East at the top,
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because human history starts -
this is Christian human history -
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and human history starts
in the East, in the Garden of Eden
with the creation of Adam and Eve.
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The geography you want to think of
as a background.
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So it's history,
from the beginning of time to the
expected, anticipated end of time.
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And where did the map makers
source the knowledge,
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the history, the geography,
that is pictured on the map?
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From writers of the distant past.
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00:12:06,800 --> 00:12:11,360
Some, like the scholar Orosius,
pupil of the great St Augustine,
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were writing hundreds of years
before the map was made.
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Others, like the Roman Pliny, had
been dead for well over 1,000 years.
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I think that's a river of gold,
isn't it?
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Peter Barber
and Mappa Mundi scholar Paul Harvey
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have spent their professional lives
deciphering the complex secrets
of the map's many sources.
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I like to think of the Hereford map
as a patchwork quilt.
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There's lots of little bits
and if you know something
about the sources,
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you can identify...this
little patch came from here.
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You couldn't create
something like the Hereford Map
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without relying on a great many
different sources,
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and we think the map certainly drew
on seven, eight, ten sources
fairly directly,
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but possibly rather more.
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And this would have been
the sort of illustrative source
a map maker might have used.
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One can discern
a vast number of sources,
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but it is very difficult since all
of the sources tended to repeat
what the other sources had said.
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For instance, though
in the Hereford world map, you
get a specific reference to Orosius,
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Orosius included a lot of
information that came from Pliny.
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Pliny's enormous text
on natural history,
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which is really
a history of the world
and everything in the world,
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and the miniature
expresses it beautifully.
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On the left you can see Pliny
writing his text and outside,
through the window,
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you can see all the animals of the
world, all the natural features,
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that image really does express the
encyclopaedic vision of the
classical writers
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which is carried through
to medieval Mappa Mundi.
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The map's next layer of content,
and by far its most bewildering,
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owes much to Pliny.
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His encyclopaedia lists all the
animals and peoples of the world.
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So too does the map.
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At first, we see creatures
we would recognise.
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Here's a giant lizard
basking in the sun.
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There's an elephant.
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But the further we move out
from Jerusalem at the centre,
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the wilder the world gets.
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The Mappa Mundi, of course,
is one of the finest examples
of a medieval bestiary.
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What I find interesting about
the beasties on the Mappa
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is what you've got
and where you've got them.
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You've got the worst one,
the scariest ones,
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the really bizarre ones with big feet
over their heads as umbrellas,
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and the ones cannibalising their own
parents, these kind of things,
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they're all in Africa, Asia,
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they're in the far north of
Russia and the Arctic and the Baltic.
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And that very much reflects
the prejudice of the time
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against these unknown parts
of the world.
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Here's the Griste in Scandinavia,
who make handy blankets from
the skins of their enemies.
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Next to them live the Cynocephali,
recognisably human but
with the heads of dogs.
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Then there's the Hermaphrodites,
with male and female genitals.
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And the headless Blemyes,
with eyes in their chests.
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These monstrous races from the
classical past are partly on the map
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to entertain, and partly to
preserve classical knowledge.
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But their presence also serves
a larger purpose,
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that goes to the heart of the map's
deeper religious meaning.
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These are the fabulous races,
the so-called monstrous races,
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from Classical Antiquity.
200
00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:32,600
Augustine talked about
these fabulous peoples
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as testifying to the power of God,
202
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that if God could create these
fabulous peoples,
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then he could make bodies suffer
eternally in the torments of hell.
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For him, this was proof of the
Resurrection with eternal damnation.
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00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:11,200
So this was again using mirabilia, a
marvel, to prove a theological point.
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00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:22,720
So theology is the Mappa Mundi's
final layer of meaning.
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And the map's very complexity
serves, it turns out,
a very specific purpose.
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Well, I think the fact that the map
is a picture of extraordinary
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confusion is actually extremely
important for understanding it.
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The tremendous visual
disarray of the map is a sign
of man's fallen vision of the world.
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In a way, it directs attention away
from the world, away from trying to
understand the world,
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towards trying to achieve
an understanding of,
and a vision of,
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00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:58,280
things outside the world,
of heavenly things.
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00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:04,840
The French philosopher
Hugh of St Victor,
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00:18:04,840 --> 00:18:12,320
writing when the map was made,
wrote, "The whole world is like a
book written by the finger of God".
216
00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:16,240
And there he is, God in the
form of Christ in Majesty,
217
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above the circle of the world.
218
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:24,440
To his left,
the blessed enter heaven.
219
00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:28,360
To his right, the damned are
ushered into the jaws of hell.
220
00:18:28,360 --> 00:18:33,360
This is judgement day,
the end of time,
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the moment that explains the map
and gives it its deeper meaning.
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You see a marvellous recreation
of the classical and Christian world,
223
00:18:45,560 --> 00:18:48,720
and of a world that was
dominated by faith.
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A world too which in a way put the
world in its possibly proper place.
225
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There are also scenes in the
corners and they put everything
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00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:09,920
into context, because at the top,
you have the last judgement.
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Even more movingly,
at the bottom right,
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00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:19,200
you have a scene of a huntsman,
of a human being looking back
wistfully at the world,
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but being told to proceed.
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And around the world, you have...
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The disc containing the world
is fastened to eternity,
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by thongs which read MORS,
or Latin for "death".
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00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:45,480
It is a very, very sober image
or idea, which makes all of sudden,
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00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:47,960
the whole of this enormous
world in the middle
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00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:50,480
seem somewhat less important.
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00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:53,480
Here is the world, says the map.
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00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:57,440
Enjoy it. But remember
that you will soon leave it.
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00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:03,200
The huntsman, about to depart the
world, takes one last look back.
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00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:08,240
But on the ground,
his squire calls out, "Passe avant."
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00:20:08,240 --> 00:20:11,840
Pass on, without regret,
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00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:13,280
to the next world.
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00:20:15,360 --> 00:20:17,720
It's a memento mori,
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00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:20,160
that we may live in this world,
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00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:23,840
the world is full of good things,
it's full of difficulties -
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00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:27,480
political relations between France
and England, and so on.
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00:20:27,480 --> 00:20:28,920
It's full of history,...
247
00:20:30,600 --> 00:20:33,720
but it's also temporal.
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00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:37,360
It comes to an end, as far
as our lives come to an end.
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00:20:40,120 --> 00:20:46,160
So the map, whilst teeming with
life, is actually about death.
250
00:20:46,160 --> 00:20:49,360
And about how,
for the medieval mind,
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00:20:49,360 --> 00:20:53,360
belief in the next world
was the only certainty.
252
00:21:00,680 --> 00:21:06,000
700 years on from its creation,
that idea of belief and certainty
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00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:11,400
continues to fascinate and inspire
artists, like Turner Prize winner,
Grayson Perry.
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00:21:13,840 --> 00:21:17,080
I was asked to give a lecture
in Hereford.
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00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:20,720
I got there bit early and thought
I'd go and see the Mappa Mundi.
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00:21:20,720 --> 00:21:24,080
I hadn't thought about it before.
257
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:27,880
I was just blown away by it,
because I got there
and I had it all to myself.
258
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:33,240
There was me and the guide,
and she took me through it and I
was just entranced by this thing.
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00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:37,800
Grayson's Map Of Nowhere,
made in 2008,
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00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:41,320
borrows much
from the Hereford Map -
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00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:46,440
its circular scheme,
its wild mixture of image and text.
262
00:21:46,440 --> 00:21:52,240
His picture is a very personal take
on the idea of mapping belief.
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00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:57,080
Like all my works, I didn't start
with a super-clear plan.
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00:21:57,080 --> 00:21:59,760
That would be boring, to do that.
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00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:03,200
I just worked my way across.
I started in the top left hand corner
266
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:07,040
and then three months later, I get
to the bottom right hand corner.
267
00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:10,120
And in between something
has happened, and that's
how it works for me.
268
00:22:10,120 --> 00:22:17,600
The idea, to a certain extent,
I'm parodying the idea of the
intellectual constructs of religion.
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00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:22,760
The bottom scene is all these people.
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00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:28,200
I sort of imagine them on a kind of
Ruritanian pilgrimage,
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00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:35,000
and they're all making their way
up this mountain, to this
holy shrine site at the top,
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00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:38,760
which is illuminated
by a shaft of heavenly light.
273
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:42,680
But if you follow the shaft up,
it's coming out of my bum hole,
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00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:44,960
so it sort of...
275
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:47,320
That's what I was saying about that.
276
00:22:50,120 --> 00:22:54,360
This map is like the Mappa Mundi
in that it's a kind of world view,
277
00:22:54,360 --> 00:22:58,440
but it's very much a personal,
individualistic world view.
278
00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:03,240
I don't presume to be
the voice of anybody else but myself,
279
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:07,600
but obviously
I've shared values with other people,
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00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:11,320
being a fully paid-up member
of the chattering classes.
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00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:21,800
Grayson's picture and the
Mappa Mundi have much in common.
282
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:26,200
Both are visual encyclopaedias
of a complex world.
283
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:30,880
Both have at their heart
questions of faith and belief.
284
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,680
But there's one
crucial difference - age.
285
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:41,720
Time and past neglect have taken
their toll on the Hereford map.
286
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:46,640
The crucial scene of Christ
in Majesty is dark and damaged.
287
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:52,720
The rivers and seas,
once vividly coloured,
have faded to a murky brown.
288
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:59,080
But now, using the latest scholarly
research, the map is being restored
to something like its former glory.
289
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:12,800
The Folio Society
is preparing the first authentic
reproduction of the Mappa Mundi,
290
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:18,400
digitally cleaning up the faded
original, and restoring its colour.
291
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:26,160
The rivers are returning
to a vivid blue.
292
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:29,400
The long-faded green of the sea
is being restored.
293
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:31,720
Christ shines out once more.
294
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:41,440
Even the ivy around the map,
invisible for perhaps hundreds
of years, grows again.
295
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:49,440
At the British Library,
Mappa Mundi scholars are gathering
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00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:52,800
to see the finished results
for the first time.
297
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:06,280
The Hereford map has
never been digitally photographed
in its entirety before.
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00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:12,760
Will the wonders of 21st century
technology restore the glories
of 700 years ago?
299
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:24,520
It's strange seeing
the original background colour
with these fresh colours.
300
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:28,680
It's very much brighter
than the original.
301
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:31,640
It's visually much more interesting.
302
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:38,440
I'm really pleased with it.
I've been involved in giving
advice on various aspects of it.
303
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:42,560
But when you look at it
as it is, in its final state,
304
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:49,280
you can see the birds and the animals
quite, quite clearly.
305
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:53,800
This is going to be
a tremendous aid to people who are
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00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:58,800
studying it, not only in detail
but also from the wider perspective,
307
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,440
as an ensemble of information.
308
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:08,040
It's striking now, the contrast
between the rivers
and the sea as well.
309
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:09,800
I love it, I absolutely love it.
310
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:14,960
I have to keep on telling myself
I'm not looking at the original,
this is not what it was.
311
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:19,840
But as a vision of the original,
it's absolutely superb, I think.
312
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,720
It gets across
what an extraordinary spectacle
313
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,840
the original must have been, it
really helps us envision what this
314
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:40,560
would have been like to come across
in the cathedral as you walked up
the aisle, and came across this
315
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,040
absolutely astonishing object.
316
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:50,600
This authentic reproduction of the
map opens up new opportunities for
317
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:54,440
the future appreciation
of the Mappa Mundi.
318
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:57,760
It brings the past
right into the present,
319
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:03,840
marking the latest chapter
in its extraordinary ability
to fascinate us and draw us in.
320
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:16,880
The Hereford map
is crucially important,
321
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:20,840
because it is
the only surviving example
322
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:29,200
of a large, almost monumental
medieval Mappa Mundi.
323
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:36,680
When I look at the medieval past,
it makes me think about what is
324
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:43,840
going to be left of our
civilisation 1,000 years from now.
325
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:47,320
What will be around
1,000 years from now?
326
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:49,400
Maybe just pieces of art.
327
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:56,640
Hereford's Mappa Mundi
is many things.
328
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:00,080
An encyclopaedia
of all the world's knowledge,
329
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:01,680
a memento mori,
330
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:05,360
a remarkable piece of medieval art.
331
00:28:05,360 --> 00:28:09,880
It remains a unique testament
to a vanished world,
332
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:16,520
and a vivid illustration of the
depth, complexity and artistic
genius of maps themselves.
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00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:26,920
To find out more about the maps in
this series, and to explore the new
world of digital mapping,
334
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:32,400
go to bbc.co.uk/beautyofmaps
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00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:54,360
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:56,360
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk
31592
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