Norden and Van den Keere: Two seventeenth century atlases digitised and on-line

Two certain units of maps from the British Library’s core assortment of early trendy English cartography have not too long ago been digitised and positioned on-line. Harley MS 3749 is a sequence of 18 hand-drawn maps of components of the Royal property at Windsor, produced in 1607 by the English surveyor, mapmaker and creator John Norden (c. 1547-1625).

John Norden, ‘A DESCRIPTION OF THE HONOR OF WINDESOR..’ Windsor or London, 1607. Harley MS 3749, f. 1r.

Harley MS 3813 is a set of 37 (of an authentic 44) small printed maps of English and Welsh counties and areas of Eire and Scotland, engraved by the Flemish artist Pieter Van den Keere (1571-c. 1646) and printed at across the identical time as Norden’s work. Their histories are entwined in numerous methods.

Pieter Van den Keere,’Scotiae pars que incolis Stratna hern vocatur cum circumsinys’ in [A collection of engraved maps of the British Isles], Amsterdam, c. 1605. Harley MS 3813, f. 178v.

Each units of maps ended up within the assortment of Robert (1661-1724) and Edward (1689-1741) Harley, the 1^st and a couple of^nd Earls of Oxford, 1000’s of manuscripts, printed books and related supplies which turned one of many founding collections of the British Museum in 1753. Norden’s work, produced for and initially owned by James VI and I, got here into the Harleys’ possession in 1710, while Van der Keere’s maps reached the gathering in 1725.

Along with their shared provenance, it’s attention-grabbing to notice that the 2 mapmakers knew and labored with one another. In addition to his surveying work and devotional writing, Norden conceived of  a grand multi-volume county-by-county geography or ‘chorography’ of Britain, having recognised, like others, the general public urge for food for maps and geographical writings following the success of Christopher Saxton’s atlas of 1579. Norden’s Speculum Britannia was not accomplished, however he began work on quite a few counties, and even revealed a few of them. The primary revealed county, in 1593, was Middlesex, containing maps together with ones of London and Westminster engraved by one Pieter Van den Keere.

Van den Keere would turn into probably the most vital engravers of the 17^th century. He had moved to London in 1584, and was apprenticed to the London-based Dutch engraver Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612). He left London for Amsterdam in 1593.

Pieter Van den Keere, ‘Northamtoniae Bedfordiae Cantabrigae Huntingdonae et Rutlandiae com’. Amsterdam, c. 1605. Harley MS 3813, f. 45v.

Northamton, Bedfordiæ, Cantabrigiæ, Huntingdoniæ et Rutlandiæ comitatuum vicinarumq. regionum partium adiacent nova veraq. descriptio a.o. d. 1576 / Christophorus Saxton descripsit. London, 1579. Maps C.3.bb.5.

Harley MS 3813 is one in all a number of ‘proof’ units of small county maps copied from Saxton’s and others’ maps of components of Britain. It’s generally considered the blueprint for a mooted atlas of Britain alongside related traces of Norden’s Speculum. Writing in 1972, Helen Wallis believed that it might need been Van Den Keere’s collaboration with Norden that impressed him. The Harley instance has been finely hand-coloured and incorporates hand-written descriptions on the topography and gentry of every county (one other set within the Royal Geographical Society has the identical handwritten textual content), suggesting the position of a mock-up of what such a publication may appear to be.

Pieter Van den Keere, [handwritten notes concerning the counties of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdon and Rutland]. Amsterdam[?] , c. 1605. Harley MS 3813, f. 46r.

The date of 1599 seems on three maps and it’s wise to imagine that Van den Keere engraved them throughout this time. However he did not print them till 1605 or later, noticed R.A. Skelton in 1970, as a result of proof of the paper used. The maps weren’t formally revealed till 1617 in an illustrated abridgment of Camden’s Britannia by the Amsterdam writer Blaeu.

John Pace, ‘Midlesex described with probably the most well-known cities of London and Westminster’ from The theatre of the empire of Nice Britaine. London, 1611-12. Maps C.7.c.20.

For no matter purpose, neither Van den Keere’s or Norden’s tasks correctly bought off the bottom. The work which finally sated the English urge for food for maps was John Pace’s Theatre of the empire of Nice Britaine of 1611-12, which by the way included county maps engraved by Van den Keere’s former trainer Jodocus Hondius. Pace’s Middlesex map (above) even integrated copies of the Van den Keere-engraved London and Westminster maps that had appeared in Norden’s Speculum… Middlesex of 20 years earlier.

John Norden, [A map of Windsor Castle] in An outline of the honour of Windesor…. 1607. Harley MS 3749, fs.001r.

Norden’s little atlas of Windsor royal parks (Harley MS 3749) was the type of venture Norden turned to following the stalling of his Speculum. It’s a bespoke and unique product drawn on vellum, displaying for the royal landowners’ gratification their palaces and deer-stocked parks. This custom of manuscript mapping of personal estates would prolong into the 20^th century, however county atlases corresponding to Van den Keere’s turned in some ways the principal English cartographic output, actually as much as the top of the 18^th century. That is confirmed by the sturdy afterlife of Van den Keere’s small county maps, which have been reissued in numerous kinds, together with as a ‘minature Pace atlas’ (regardless of their having preceded Pace) as much as 1676.

See Also

Some new snippets from the Snowden paperwork

Pieter Van den Keere, England Wales Scotland and Eire described and abridged … from a farr bigger Quantity performed by John Pace. London, 1627. Maps C.7.a.6.

Regardless of their apparent variations, the 2 Harley volumes have displayed an oddly shut bond down the centuries, proper as much as the current day with their digitisation and inserting on-line collectively. This won’t have been the case had they suffered the destiny that befell the remainder of the Harleian assortment in 1890 when, as a part of a deal between the British Museum’s Departments of Printed Books and Manuscripts, the printed and manuscript materials was separated and apportioned between the 2.

With this in thoughts, it’s serendipitous that the 2 atlases stay a simply few cabinets away from one another, albeit one a printed anomaly inside a set of the written and drawn.

References:

• Laurence Worms & Ashley Baynton-Williams, British map engravers: a dictionary of engravers, lithographers and their principal employers to 1850 (London: Uncommon Guide Society, 2011).
• Sarah Bendall, Dictionary of land surveyors and native map-makers of Nice Britain and Eire 1530-1850. (London: British Library, 1997).
• Rodney Shirley, Maps within the atlases of the British Library: a descriptive catalogue c. AD 850-1800 (London: British Library, 2004).
• Atlas of the British Isles. By Pieter Van den Keere c. 1605 / Introduction by Helen Wallis (Lympne Citadel, Kent: Harry Margary, 1972).
• Frank Kitchen, ‘John Norden (c. 1547-1625)’ in Oxford dictionary of nationwide biography [accessed 5 December 2022].
• R.A. Skelton, County atlases of the British Isles, 1579-1850: a bibliography (London: Carta Press, 1970).
• Peter Barber, ‘Mapmaking in England, ca. 1470-1650’ in David Woodward (ed.), The historical past of cartography quantity 3: half 2, cartography within the European Renaissance (Chicago: College of Chicago Press, 2007), 1589-1669.