"Queen of All Islands": The Imagined Cartography of Matthew Paris's Britain

<p>In the middle decade of the thirteenth century, the Benedictine monk and historian Matthew Paris drew four regional maps of Britain. The monk's works stand as the earliest extant maps of the island and mark a distinct shift from the cartographic traditions of medieval Europe. Historians have long considered the version attached to the monk's Abbreviatio Chronicorum – the Claudius map – as the last and most thorough of Paris's images of Britain. However, scholars have focused on the document's limitations as an accurate geographic representation and have failed to consider critically Paris's representation of Britain with an eye towards its political implications. This thesis is an examination of the elements of the Claudius map, in context with the monk's historical writings, to argue that Paris's map of Britain should be studied as an aggressive cultural artifact through which the monk posited imperial English claims to suzerainty over the whole of the island.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

MA (Master of Arts)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis - unrestricted

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Greenlee, John Wyatt

• Matthew Paris
• Britain
• Cartography
• Chronica Majora
• Claudius Map
• European History
• Other History
• Political History

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright by the authors.

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/1118

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-2291