In surveying the extant maps of our period as a whole, and in comparing them with one another, it is impossible to detect any appreciable development from worse cartography to better. To be sure, Matthew Paris’ three maps of Britain[1171] (Fig. 9, p. 343, below), made at the very end of our century and a half, are probably also the best. But they represent a limited area; and among the maps of the world the “Cotton,” or Anglo-Saxon,[1172] which possibly dates from the twelfth century but may be very much older, holds by all odds the highest rank so far as cartographic excellence goes. The complex and elaborate wall map of the late thirteenth century in Hereford Cathedral[1173] and the immense Ebstorf map at Hanover (dated 1284)[1174] represent the culmination of a process in the direction of increasing elaboration that had been in progress throughout the age. They do not indicate any improvement in cartographic standards but rather, as was the case with some of the great works of compilation of the time, a multiplication of fabulous and incongruous detail. Beazley dismisses them rather summarily as monstrosities. They are the cartographic counterparts of the _Image du monde_ and the _Livre du trésor_ of Brunetto Latino. CHAPTER XII REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY We shall not attempt the thankless and impossible task of giving a complete conspectus of Western regional lore in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. This chapter, like its predecessors, consists largely of illustrative examples. _GENERAL CHARACTER OF REGIONAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE PERIOD_ GEOGRAPHY OF TRADITION AND GEOGRAPHY OF OBSERVATION We explained in the Introduction that there were two kinds of geographical information available in the Middle Ages—information derived from earlier literature and information derived from contemporary tradition and observation. In the period we are studying, these were found among men of very different interests and activities, and hence they usually failed to blend. It is true that now and then in a work of erudition of the time we come across a report of some original observation made by the writer himself or learned by him from a contemporary; but these data were seldom really assimilated into the body of the text, seldom used as a check on the assertions of older authorities. They seem to float like drops of oil on the deep, or shallow, waters of authoritative learning. Conversely, in works recording contemporary events—histories, chronicles, letters—we often come across facts and theories that were taken from older books; but these were infrequently subjected to critical examination in the light of contemporary knowledge. On the contrary, they were usually treated with indulgence or respect merely because they were old, even when observed phenomena seemed to prove them false.