Mappa - The Mappa Mundi

New faces look out from Hereford Cathedral
29 April 2008
Restoration of south-east clerestory continues

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Mappa Mundi & Chained Library (section from the Mappa Mundi)

THE EXHIBITION
Content and Access

CHAINED LIBRARY
The World’s largest

MAPPA MUNDI
The World Map

NEW BUILDING
Design and Construction

MAPPA MUNDI TRUST
Securing the future

CONTACT
How to get in touch

Mappa Mundi » The Mappa Mundi

The Mappa Mundi

The Hereford Mappa Mundi is unique in Britain's heritage; an outstanding treasure of the medieval world, it records how thirteenth-century scholars interpreted the world in spiritual as well as geographical terms.

The map bears the name of its author 'Richard of Haldingham or Lafford' (Holdingham and Sleaford in Lincolnshire). Recent research suggests a date of about 1300 for the creation of the map.

Mappa Mundi is drawn on a single sheet of vellum (calf skin) measuring 64" by 52" (1.58 x 1.33 meters), tapering towards the top with a rounded apex. The geographical material of the map is contained within a circle measuring 52" in diameter and reflects the thinking of the medieval church with Jerusalem at the centre of the world.

Enlarged view of some of the detail from the Mappa Mundi

From Michael Tavinor the Dean
The Dean regularly looks at features in the cathedral, seeking to find spiritual meaning in each.
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Tuesday 13 May 1.15 pm
Hereford Cathedral
Lunchtime organ concert

Sunday 18 May 3.30 pm
Hereford Cathedral
Choral Evensong

		Superimposed on to the continents are drawings of the history of humankind and the marvels of the natural world. These 500 or so drawings include of around 420 cities and towns, 15 Biblical events, 33 plants, animals, birds and strange creatures, 32 images of the peoples of the world and 8 pictures from classical mythology. Christopher de Hamel, a leading authority on medieval manuscripts, has said of the Mappa Mundi, '... it is without parallel the most important and most celebrated medieval map in any form, the most remarkable illustrated English manuscript of any kind, and certainly the greatest extant thirteenth-century pictorial manuscript.'