(Ln(x))3

The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.

RSS feeds: v0.91; v1.0 (RDF); v2.0; Atom.

Previous entry. Next entry.


8:44am on Tuesday, 2nd June, 2026:

Chained Mundi

Anecdote

On the way back from the wedding last week, we diverted via Hereford to have a look around the cathedral. It's there that the largest intact mappa mundi on vellum is kept (presumably there are larger ones that are either not intact or not on vellum).

Here's the section with the British Isles on it, alongside the English translation.



You can see Colchester there. We must have been a big player on the world stage at some point, then.

The cathedral also has a chained library.



I guess this meant that if you wanted to steal a book, you had to do so a page at a time.

Both the chained library and the mappa mundi were smaller than I thought they'd be, but they were impressive.

The £7.50 entrance fee to see them both was larger than I thought it would be, and was unimpressive.

Oh, and in other news, someone has been sending out emails in my name to people on my contacts list. They're easy to spot as not coming from me, but be alert in case they get better.




Latest entries.

Archived entries.

About this blog.

Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).