The Smalls, Hats and Barrels: Navigational and Toponymic Hazards

Abstract

The earliest surviving manuscript charts which include reasonably legible inscriptions around the more southerly coastlines of the British Isles are by Italian or Majorcan/Catalan cartographers of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The earliest surviving manuscript sailing directions including the same area are in Low German, Italian, French, Portuguese and English. They date from the fifteenth century, but undoubtedly contain some matter copied, probably several times, from originals perhaps a century or more older.