CMRS Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture
“Mapping the Realm: Cartographic Imaginaries and Spatial Technologies”
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Dr. Keith Lilley (Queen’s University Belfast) is a historical geographer, specializing in European urbanism of the later Middle Ages. In this lecture, he will discuss the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technology to map out and analyse medieval urban landscapes. Most recently, he has used it to examine a mid-fourteenth century map of Great Britain known as the Gough Map. The Gough Map is a fascinating document, opening up questions of its production, purpose, and provenance, all of which are undocumented. GIS allows us to do some statistical analyses on the geographical features shown on the map (such as towns and cities) to explore its un-evenness in cartographic ‘accuracy’, and thus use the content of the map as a ‘way in’ to working out why it was made, how, and for whom. This, then, raises broader questions of surveying and cartography practices in fourteenth-century England, as well as statecraft and geographical knowledge.