medieval worlds • no. 13 • 2021
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
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DATUM, UNTERSCHRIFT / DATE, SIGNATURE
BANK AUSTRIA CREDITANSTALT, WIEN (IBAN AT04 1100 0006 2280 0100, BIC BKAUATWW), DEUTSCHE BANK MÜNCHEN (IBAN DE16 7007 0024 0238 8270 00, BIC DEUTDEDBMUC)
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medieval worlds • no. 13 • 2021, pp. 195-228, 2021/06/30
One of the manuscripts of the famous Corpus Pelagianum contains a square world map that is simultaneously a genealogical chart of peoples that are descended from the sons of Noah. In combining a geographical imagination of the world with genealogies, this illustration becomes an impressive intellectual achievement of the high medieval Iberian Peninsula and differs considerably from other forms of medieval world maps. In this article the characteristics of this cartographical and genealogical figure will be investigated in general, but also with regard to the map’s context in the manuscript Madrid, BNE, 1513. Hence, the map will be contextualised in relation to the text corpus that follows it and, therefore, its interaction with the textual heritage of Christian-Iberian historical writing, from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, will be illuminated. In particular, the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville were an important source, both for the textual content of this codex and for the information displayed on the map. Accordingly, this article is, after some introductory passages on the composition of the codex BNE 1513, divided into two parts. The first describes the characteristics of the geographical chart and compares them with other contemporary world maps. The second part addresses peoples of the world that appear in this illustration and discusses how their identification correlates with the historiographical texts in BNE 1513. So far, these parallels have not been taken into account in research on this codex.
Keywords: mappae mundi; genealogy; Christian-Muslim relations; Isidore of Seville; Pelayo of Oviedo; Corpus Pelagianum; BNE 1513; Chronicle of Alfonso III; Chronicle of Sampiro; Chronicon regum Legionensium; ethnonyms