This study centers on issues of marginality and monstrosity in medieval England. In the middle ages, geography was viewed as divinely ordered, so Britain's location at the periphery of the inhabitable world caused anxiety among its inhabitants. Far from the world's holy center, the geographic margins were considered monstrous. Medieval geography, for centuries scorned as crude, is now the subject of several careful studies. Monsters have likewise been the subject of recent attention in the growing field of "monster studies," though few works situate these creatures firmly in their specific historical contexts. This study sits at the crossroads of these two discourses (geography and monstrosity), treated separately in the established scholarship but inseparable in the minds of medieval authors and artists.

This study centers on issues of marginality and monstrosity in medieval England. In the middle ages, geography was viewed as divinely ordered, so Britain's location at the periphery of the inhabitable world caused anxiety among its inhabitants. Far from the world's holy center, the geographic margins were considered monstrous. Medieval geography, for centuries scorned as crude, is now the subject of several careful studies. Monsters have likewise been the subject of recent attention in the growing field of "monster studies," though few works situate these creatures firmly in their specific historical contexts. This book sits at the crossroads of these two discourses (geography and monstrosity), treated separately in the established scholarship but inseparable in the minds of medieval authors and artists.

First full collection on the seven most significant English mappae mundi from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Mappae mundi (maps of the world), beautiful objects in themselves, offer huge insights into how medieval scholars conceived the world and their place within it. They are a fusion of "real" geographical locations with fantastical, geographic, historical, legendary and theological material. Their production reached its height in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with such well-known examples as the Hereford map, the maps of Matthew Paris, and the Vercelli map. This volume provides a comprehensive Companion to the seven most significant English mappae mundi. It begins with a survey of the maps' materials, types, shapes, sources, contents, conventions,idiosyncrasies, commissioners and users, moving on to locate the maps' creation and use in the realms of medieval rhetoric, Victorine memory theory and clerical pedagogy. It also establishes the shared history of map and book making, and demonstrates how pre-and post-Conquest monastic libraries in Britain fostered and fed their complementary relationship. A chapter is then devoted to each individual map. An annotated bibliography of multilingual resourcescompletes the volume. DAN TERKLA is Emeritus Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University; NICK MILLEA is Map Librarian, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Contributors: Nathalie Bouloux, Michelle Brown. Daniel Connolly, Helen Davies, Gregory Heyworth, Alfred Hiatt, Marcia Kupfer, Nick Millea, Asa Simon Mittman, Dan Terkla, Chet Van Duzer.