When Maps Showed Monsters: How Medieval Cartographers Imagined the Seas
Today I want to talk about about the strange sea creatures that appear on medieval maps. Early medieval mapmakers were not just drawing geography, they were trying in some way to make sense of the world. On maps like the Hereford Mappa Mundi, seas are filled with serpents, giant fish, and beasts. These were not just for decoration. They were reflections of stories told by sailors, classical texts, and religious ideas about the unknown edges of creation. To someone who had never seen open sea, it must have seemed endless and full of the unknown. As we know when there is unknown, the imagination fills the gap. Monsters were created to explain the unknown.
As travel began to increase, these images began to evolve. Mariners began to push further out from the coastlines, and their experiences are what influenced what appeared on maps. Some of the creatures may well have been inspired by real animals that had been seen briefly and misunderstood a dangerous: whales breaching, walruses, or a giant squid. Cartographers were influenced by these travellers’ tales that may well have also been embellished, but they also included their own imagination. They were trying to create a balance between what was known and was meant to be a warning. A monster in the margin might have meant danger, rough seas, or that “beyond here, we do not know.”
By the 16th century, maps like the Carta Marina by Olaus Magnus show sea monsters in wonderful detail, some attacking ships. They suggest that there was an element of awe as much as fear. The sea was no longer entirely mythical, but it still felt alive and scary. Mapmakers were expanding their knowledge if the world but with that knowledge came anxiety about what was still to discover.
As navigation was improved and the coastlines became more accurate, the monsters began to disappear. Knowledge replaced the imagination.
Do you think these sea monsters were meant as real warnings, or just a way of admitting how much medieval people felt they did not yet know?
Image info:
For all mages
Date: 1539
Author: Olaus Magnus
The Carta marina
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