Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
LAKELAND FELLS: Dynamic depiction of hills surrounding the river valley and hamlet of Sadgill,
Westmorland, drawn for a court case in 1578.
The success of early maps was measured by the extent to which they achieved their pur-
pose, rather than their accuracy in the modern sense. They may not be drawn to scale, and
the mapmaker might even emphasise important features by portraying them disproportion-
ately larger than their true size. Some maps are rough sketches, others in pictorial style. They
might be drawn to make best use of the piece of parchment or paper and so north may not be
at the top. We may need to look at related documents to interpret a map, to tell us who made
it, when, why, and what happened to it next, questions which early maps of ten do not answer
in themselves.
If reading early maps requires skill and a fresh mind, it also offers us a window on the
world of centuries past. It can be fascinating to glimpse lost palaces and castles, long-fallen
ancient crosses and deserted villages, in a landscape of ten vastly changed from the one we
see now. Until the last quarter of the 16th century mapmaking was an activity to which any
educated man might turn his hand, with no particular training in cartography but a knowledge
of the place that he drew. Mapmakers used their creativity to express the point of the map,
