Talk:T and O map

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[Spherical or circular earth]

at the time discussed, was the earth thought to be spherical, or just circular? i would wager that the author intended to write circular, but... Fufthmin 22:58, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Spherical. It is a myth that people didnt think the world was a globe. Common people did, but any learned person or sailor knew the world was round in the Middle Ages. The question was, how big, no one knew that (Columbus thought the world was much smaller or he would have never attempted his voyage to India, he never could have made it not knowing the Americas were in the way). Stbalbach 23:38, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This was common in the *late* Middle Ages, not in early MA. FellGleaming (talk) 05:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Latin text

Since the latin quote is right at the very start of the article, and is integral to the explanation being given on what the map is, it seems fairly important we have an english translation along side it. Otherwise it will just scare readers away, this is for a general audience, the opening section is supposed to draw readers in and peak their interest in the subject. Stbalbach 14:07, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

sure, do make a suggestion. For example, how shall we translate orbis? Let me have a go,

The world is referred to as an orb after the roundness of a circle, because it is like a wheel, just like a little wheel can also be called a little orb for short (?). Because of this, the Ocean flowing around the world is contained in a circular limit. The world is divided in three parts, one part being called Asia, the second Europe, and the third Africa.

I'm not too sure about this, I'll think about how to improve it. I'm not sure if the idea here is to explain the word orbis, which would indicate a spherical earth, as simply referring to the circular shape of a disk-shaped flat earth. dab (ᛏ) 16:11, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If my understanding is correct, how about,

The world is called "round" after the roundness of a circle, because it is like a wheel [...] Because of this, the Ocean flowing around it is contained in a circular limit, and it is divided in three parts, one part being called Asia, the second Europe, and the third Africa.

the [...] part would be untranslatable since it is about Latin terminology. dab (ᛏ) 16:15, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Yeah I think the second translation is very understandable, thanks. Ill add it to the article and see how it looks, we can remove it or footnote it. Stbalbach 03:41, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Flat earth

Isidore therefore assumes a flat earth

I dont think that is accurate. As the article says, the map shows only the top half of the sphere. In fact the whole flat earth thing is pretty much debunked in the flat earth article, I dont think anyone of consequence beleived the world was flat in the middle ages, thats more of a 19th century artifact. Stbalbach 03:46, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• My mistake, the T-O map does indeed assume a flat earth. Stbalbach 04:16, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • hm, no: T-O does not necessarily assume a flat earth, but Isidore (the author, in his text) does happen to assume a flat earth. dab (ᛏ) 06:56, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Er, Stbalbach has just added (restoring a revert) that "Isidore therefore does not assume a flat earth". Maybe s/he is correct in the article and wrong here?? BTW I cannot find the words memnotic or comologies in the several dictionaries I've checked. I'm intrigued that Troy is the navel of the world in nordic comologies - this is true, is it? Nurg 04:37, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

True. It's confusing. I think the problem is, this article is about the map, not Isidore. There is too much attention being paid to Isidore and his interpretation which is confusing. -- Stbalbach 00:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the confusion is over the mention of Antipodes; they do not in of themselves indicate a belief either way (e.g. a flat earth has antipodes as well). If no one objects, I am thus removing the incorrect claim that Isidore's comments clearly indicate a belief in a spherical earth.

---

re: this line:

become common knowledge once again in Europe

This could be misleading, it portrays a Europe in which knowledge of a round world was lost. There was certainly confusion or different opinions amoung a thin veneer of learned men, but the idea of a round world was never lost (note the mast of a ship coming into port). I just want to make sure the article doesnt continue the historiographical mistake of the 19th century flat earthers, painting the middle ages as backwards in comparison to earlier or later periods. Stbalbach 21:21, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

well, we don't know whether people in general even had an opinion on the matter. Few people may have positively believed in a flat earth (although the influence of Isidore shouldn't be underestimated), but people didn't exactly walk around declaring "the earth is round". This is something we all heard as little children, and at that time, children weren't told so. So, in short, if people had any opinion, we don't know, and positive knowledge of the spherical shape of the earth spread again from roughly 1000 AD (i.e. from the beginning of the High Middle Ages: nobody claims "the Middle Ages believed in a flat earth". dab (ᛏ) 21:39, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Images

I reduced the number of images to two because that's about all it can handle without being cluttered and moved the rest to a gallery. I reduced the image size to a standard size as they look different on different monitors and resolutions. To zoom in on a picture either click the image, or use the browsers built-in zoom feature ("CNTRL +" on Firefox). -- Stbalbach 14:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed your Template:cleanup-gallery tag before I realized there was a way to create galleries in Commons, but I think the distinction between a Gallery and a Category in Commons is miniscule, and does not warrant a tag that says to move the images to Commons when they have been there since before you created the gallery. See commons:Category:T and O map — Joe Kress (talk) 04:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Isidore and flat earth

Can I ask why this article even has Isidore's quote? This article is about T&O maps - not flat earths and Isidore's flat earth theory. It might make an ok section at the bottom of the article or something. Also, it remains unclear what, exactly, Isidore thought - the prevailing cosmological view at the time was that the earth was divided into 5 spheres and it certainly could be interpreted that Isidore was talking about ONE of those spheres as being flat like a wheel, but within the context of a round earth. -- Stbalbach 12:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

um, because the very concept of T&O maps is derived from that quote? Note that even that 15th c. illustration says "this is the Earth according to Isidore" (le monde selon ysidore). dab (ᛏ) 15:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Isidore actually considered the Earth to be globular, it is well explained in the Flat Earth page. I changed the article according to the sourced information from there. As far as I know, the edits about Isidore in the Flat Earth article were made by the historian of science User:SteveMcCluskey, he may be a good source for further information about this. --201.9.60.131 17:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

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Which way is up?

The text says that East is at the top, yet the map (in the picture) is actually oriented with East on the right. See Hereford Mappa Mundi for a clearer view.

Thanks! WesT (talk) 22:46, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

"The 4 rivers of the Holy Land"

"The four sacred rivers of the Holy Land were always present."

"Always" is clearly wrong, just look at the maps.

Does this refer to the biblical rivers of Paradise, of which 2 don't correspond to real ones? (Or rather: the identity of Pishon and Gihon has been long lost.)

A) Not on any of the reproduced maps, and

B) Pishon and Gihon would be of zero practical use.

And anyway, there's just one of the reproduced maps that has any real geographical detail, such as the Nile delta and its arms.

So what does this mean, i.e. which 4 rivers, and to what degree are "the" 4 rivers present on such maps?

If Paradise meant, not HL: change & add Wikilink to that article. Arminden (talk) 13:03, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

@SteveMcCluskey and Dbachmann: hi, you two have been quite active at creating this article. Maybe you wish to take a short look. Thanks, Arminden (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

This is indeed plainly incorrect, but it's one of a raft of issues in the "History and Description" section that above all come from this article not clearly distinguishing between the T-O map (or diagram as most scholarship discusses it now-a-days) specifically and medieval mappae mundi in general. The Pishon and Gihon are normally interpreted as the Ganges and Nile (see Woodward, "Medieval Mappaemundi", 328) and these along with the Tigris and Euphrates are normally depicted on detailed medieval maps, although the link to Paradise is not normally explicit, but left to the reader to understand. (The Saint-Sever Beatus, for example – the first image in the gallery – depicts all 4 rivers and has notes explaining that the Ganges is the Fison (Pishon) and that the Nile is the Geon (Gihon).) Similarly, Paradise is sometimes depicted as containing the source of four rivers, but these are again not obviously linked with their external depictions. (This can be seen on the Sawley world map and the image on the current page entitled "Mer Des Hystoires World Map".)

Other similar issues from that section include, but are not limited to, the claims that:

1) "Because the Sun rose in the east, Paradise (the Garden of Eden) was generally depicted as being in Asia, and Asia was situated at the top portion of the map."

No idea where someone got this idea, but paradise is located in the east due to the Septuagint version of Genesis 2:8.

2) "Jerusalem was generally represented in the center of the map as the navel of the world"

Jerusalem very often isn't depicted on T-O diagrams as such, though where it is the name is generally just written across Asia. It is only depicted as the center of the world on detailed mappae mundi from the twelfth century onwards.

3) "The earliest maps had only a few cities and the most important bodies of water noted."

The earliest T-O maps note no cities or water boundaries. (Again, the text is conflating T-O diagrams as such with mappae mundi in general.)

4) "Later maps of the T-and-O conceptual format featured many rivers and cities of Eastern as well as Western Europe, and other features encountered during the Crusades."

This is sort of dubious as written, though not outright incorrect. The issue is twofold: One, this again this is really referring to medieval maps in general and not T-O diagrams specifically; and two, the implication that the expansion of eastern geographical features is a product of specific knowledge acquired during the Crusades is not an accurate presentation of the issue.

I'm sort of trying to fix things in bits and pieces, but the difficulty is that a lot of changes would require clearly defining what the article is about in a way that meaningfully distinguishes it from the already extant page on mappa mundi (which itself doesn't clearly distinguish what it's talking about from T-O diagrams). Inlieuofarandomstring (talk) 20:47, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Fundamental issue with the framing of the topic in the current article

As it stands, a large portion of the article appears to be built upon a fundamental misunderstanding about the history of this style of diagram. Specifically, this stems from the description in the first sentence that this "is a type of early world map that represents world geography as first described by the 7th-century scholar Isidore of Seville" as well as the subsequent subtitle of the first subsection of the article and the unusual prominence given to quotations from the works of Isidore.

The problem here is that the significance of Isidore's work to this style of diagram is not that it is the first to describe the world as divided into three parts with Asia being as large as Europe and Africa combined, but rather that the first surviving example of a T-O diagram survives in a manuscript of his De natura rerum – namely El Escorial, Real Biblioteca, R.II.18, fol. 24v. (And generally, his works are among the most common to be accompanied by such a diagram.)

Of course, as Isidore himself states in the very text quoted in the article, he is simply citing Augustine of Hippo's description of the three parts of the world:

>>the three being Asia, Europe, and Africa, thereby making an unequal division. For the part called Asia stretches from the south through the east even to the north; Europe from the north even to the west; and Africa from the west even to the south. Thus we see that two, Europe and Africa, contain one half of the world, and Asia alone the other half. (Augustine, City of God 16.17, trans. Dods)

A similar description is also found in Orosius's Histories 1.2.1 and the broader division of the world along these lines goes back to Roman authors like Sallust (Jugurthine War 17.3) and Pomponius Mela (De chorographia 1.8-9) among others.

This is likewise what we find in the relevant sources cited in the article itself. For example in the extended quotation given for the very first sentence:

"the Isidoran tradition as it was known from peninsular examples, including the earliest of the ubiquitous T-O maps. This emblematic figure appears twice at the foot of folio 24v in a copy of Isidore's De Natura Rerum, now Escorial R.II.18... The relevant text comes from the concluding passage of the De Natura Rerum, Chapter XLVIII, 2... When, in the ninth century, the Escorial manuscript fell into the hands of Eulogius and was supplemented, this precise text (Etymologiae XIV, 2, 3) was placed on the page, folio 25r, facing the primitive map and was introduced another small T-O map. To this later T-O diagram, however, were added the names of Noah's sons- Shem, Japheth and Ham, for Asia, Europe and Africa, respectively-outside the circle of the globe." (Williams, 13)

This is put more plainly by Mauntel:

"The exact origin of the T-O diagram remains, however, unclear. The first diagrams can be found in a seventh or eighth-century manuscript of Isidore of Seville’s ‘On the nature of things’ (‘De natura rerum’) originating from the Iberian Peninsula." (Christoph Mauntel, ‘The T-O Diagram and its Religious Connotations – a Circumstantial Case’, in Christoph Mauntel (ed.), Geography and Religious Knowledge in the Medieval World, (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021), 61)

I don't know if the editor who included this wording was confused by Williams' phrasing "the relevant text comes from...", but this is simply the text under which the earliest such diagrams were drawn (as in the above cited Escorial manuscript), not a description of the diagrams as such. (And in fact, as Mauntel underscores, the lack of reference to an accompanying diagram (as we find with other diagrams in the De natura rerum) suggests that Isidore wasn't describing an accompanying diagram at all, but that one was added by a subsequent copyists.)

This may seem like a minor point, but the distinction is crucial for understanding the historiographical debate around the origin of these diagrams, since it is precisely the existence of those earlier descriptions that leads certain scholars to argue for a Roman or late ancient origin of the diagrammatic form, a fact that some take to be corroborated by the presence of (albeit later!) T-O diagrams alongside the relevant descriptions in the works of Sallust and Lucan. (See Mauntel, ‘The T-O Diagram and its Religious Connotations‘, 60-65 for an up-to-date overview of the different scholarly positions on the matter.) Inlieuofarandomstring (talk) 15:44, 20 April 2025 (UTC)