The Orcades in the Medieval Mind

The Orcades in the Medieval Mind

Maps offer a striking visual insight into medieval perceptions of the North. Previous work by Oisín Plumb evaluated the prominent depiction of the orcades in the ‘Anglo Saxon mappa mundi’ within British Library MS Cotton Tiberius B V1. 56v. [Link to previous article and project]

This study will build on this by scrutinising another category of early medieval maps which engage with the orcades and their place on the globe: ‘Macrobian zonal maps’, depict a schematic of the climatic zones of the earth as outlined in Macrobius’s AD 430 commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio.

Thirteen of the thirty-five surviving pre- 1100 Macrobian zonal maps depict the orcades, usually as one of only two named places in Europe (the other being Italia). The reasons for this striking trend have not been fully investigated. Plumb will examine these maps in order to establish the lines of transmission of these visual depictions of the orcades and explain the reasons for its prominence.