International Medieval Society, Paris
Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris

Symposium 2009 - Space/l'Espace
Abstract

This paper focuses on the mappamundi of the Saint-Sever manuscript of the Commentary on the Apocalypse of Beatus of Liébana (Paris, BnF, MS Lat 8878, ff. 45bisv-45terr). This manuscript was not compiled in Spain as the original, but in a French scriptorium, namely that of the abbey of Saint-Sever sur l’Adour in Gascony in the 11th century. As P.K. Klein proves in his study of its illustrations, it is quite dissimilar from the other Beatus, which can be explained by its foreign provenance.

These differences can be appreciated on the map, and emphasize that it shows the image of the world as seen in France the early Middle Ages. As F. de Dainville has shown, the Saint-Sever mappamundi gives great prominence to France, and in particular to the abbey where it was made, which stands out more than many other Christian sites, including Rome and Jerusalem. Starting in France, this paper will analyze the images and texts, including toponyms and geographical details, that distinguish it from the other Beatus mappaemundi.

Moreover, this map can be related artistically to other medieval French maps. For example, the representations of the cities are similar to those in the map of Europe of Lambert of Saint-Omer (ca. 1112-1115), in his autograph Liber Floridus (Ghent, Universitaetsbibliothek, MS 92, f. 241r), and the Peutinger Table (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex Vindobonensis 324), which E. Albu recognized as a ca. 1200 copy of Carolingian map.

All these leads us to conclude that as J. Williams stated, the Saint-Sever mappamundi seems to be result of a thorough revision of the original, and not the closest to the eight-century archetype, as W. Neuss and M. Destombes argued. In fact, the Saint-Sever mappaemundi does not fulfill completely the purpose of the map in the Commentary on the Apocalypse. It is a unique French example in the Beatus cartographical corpus.