Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Saturday, 7 February 2026

The earliest surviving maps of Great Britain


Medievalists.net recently had a handsomely illustrated post on their weekly bulletin about the earliest surviving maps of Great Britain dating from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. Two, that created by Matthew Paris in the mid-thirteenth century and the Gough Map, which these days is dated to the early fifteenth century, are well known, but others are little known and are worthy of consideration. Perhaps surprisingly it does not include the Hereford Mappa Mundi which is usually date to the end of the thirteenth century or soon after. However that map has little information about the island. It is both discussed and illustrated on Wikipedia at Hereford_Mappa_Mundi

The illustrated article can be seen at Medieval Maps of Britain



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