Psalter world map is the name historiography gave to a medieval world map that has been found in a psalter

Psalter

A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the later medieval emergence of the book of hours, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons and were...

. This mappa mundi

Mappa mundi

Mappa mundi is a general term used to describe medieval European maps of the world. These maps range in size and complexity from simple schematic maps an inch or less across to elaborate wall maps, the largest of which was 11 ft. in diameter...

is now conserved at the British Library

British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

 in London.

The small map (c. 9.5 cm (3.7 in) high) shows a lot of details. It has been written around 1260; the author is unknown. According to historian Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken it looks like a small version of the Ebstorf Map

Ebstorf Map

The Ebstorf Map is an example of a mappa mundi similar to the Hereford Map, made by Gervase of Ebstorf, who was possibly the same man as Gervase of Tilbury, some time in the thirteenth century....

 from Northern Germany.

It is a typical mappa mundi that does not only show the geographical and historical knowledge but also puts it into the frame of salvation

Salvation

Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...

 history. Jesus Christ appears in the East (i.e. "above"), as the maps of Christian middle ages have East above, not North. With his right hand he gives the blessing, in his left he holds a small globe with the T and O scheme

T and O map

A T and O map or O-T or T-O map , is a type of medieval world map, sometimes also called a Beatine map or a Beatus map because one of the earliest known representations of this sort is attributed to Beatus of Liébana, an 8th-century Spanish monk...

.

External links

• Psalter map, c. 1265 Deep zoom feature, highlighted details. Video introduction from Peter Barber, Head of Maps at the British Library.