Engellandt / nac dem anstossenden Reich Schottlandt / so hörzeiten Albion und Britannia haben geheissen.

Title

Engellandt / nac dem anstossenden Reich Schottlandt / so hörzeiten Albion und Britannia haben geheissen.

Description

Map depicts England with Scottia and partly Ireland. Decorative map with sea monsters and ships.

ca. 1550

Artist

Münster (1489-1552)

Sebastian Münsters (1489-1552) is one of the famous cosmographers of the Renaissance. Its real importance in the field of cartography is based on its famous cosmography, which he published in 1544 with 24 double-sided maps (including Moscow and Transylvania). The material for this came largely from research and the collection of information from around 1528, which he initially only wanted to use for a description of Germany, but was now sufficient for a map of the entire world and ultimately led to a cosmography. He constantly tried to improve this work, i.e. to replace or add to maps. In the edition of 1550, only 14 maps were taken over from the earlier editions. The 52 maps printed in the text were also only partially based on the old maps. The great success of this cosmography was also based on the precise work of the woodcuts mostly by Hans Holbein the Younger, Urs Graf, Hans Rudolph Deutsch and David Kandel. It was the first scientific and at the same time generally understandable description of the knowledge of the world in German, in which the basics of history and geography, astronomy and natural sciences, regional and folklore were summarized according to the state of knowledge at that time. Cosmography is the science of describing the earth and the universe. Until the late Middle Ages, geography, geology and astronomy were also part of it. The first edition of the Cosmographia took place in 1544 in German, printed in Heinrich Petri's office in Basel. Heinrich Petri was a son from the first marriage of Münster's wife to the Basel printer Adam Petri. Over half of all editions up to 1628 were also published in German. However, the work has also been published in Latin, French, Czech and Italian. The English editions all comprised only a part of the complete work. Viktor Hantzsch identified a total of 46 editions in 1898 (German 27; Latin 8; French 3; Italian 3; Czech 1) that appeared from 1544 to 1650, while Karl Heinz Burmeister only had 36 (German 21; Latin 5; French 6; Italian 3; Czech 1) that appeared between 1544 and 1628. The first edition from 1544 was followed by the second edition in 1545, the third in 1546, the fourth edition in 1548 and the fifth edition in 1550, each supplemented by new reports and details, text images, city views and maps and revised altogether. Little has been known about who - apart from the book printers Heinrich Petri and Sebastian Henricpetri - were responsible for the new editions after Münster's death. The 1628 edition was edited and expanded by the Basel theologian Wolfgang Meyer. With Cosmographia, Sebastian Münster has published for the first time a joint work by learned historians and artists, by publishers, wood cutters and engravers. The numerous vedute are usually made as woodcuts. Sebastian Münster obtained his knowledge from the travel reports and stories of various scholars, geographers, cartographers and sea travelers. Long after his death, "Kosmographie" was still a popular work with large editions: 27 German, 8 Latin, 3 French, 4 English and even 1 Czech editions appeared. The last edition appeared in Basel in 1650.

Historical Description

The Romans settled for the first time under the leadership of Caesar 55 and 54 BC. BC in England, but initially not as a conqueror. It was not until almost a century later that the Romans occupied England. Scottish ethnic groups repeatedly penetrated the power vacuum that emerged after the Roman withdrawal around 410 AD. Subsequently, groups of Anglers, Jutters and Saxons immigrated. This was the beginning of the early Middle Ages in Britain. The Danish Vikings finally sailed to England in the late 8th century. At first, they only carried out raids, but later they established themselves, asked for tribute payments and built their own villages. Wilhelm's victory in the High Middle Ages led to the introduction of the Normans' effective armrest system. A small Norman upper class almost completely replaced the established nobility. In the period from the middle of the 10th to the middle of the 14th century, the population tripled, and agriculture was intensified with the introduction of three-field farming and land reclamation. However, self-sufficiency with food only succeeded in climatically favorable and politically stable times. The Hundred Years War broke out in the late Middle Ages, the deposition of Richard II by later Henry IV and the failures in the Hundred Years War were the reasons for the outbreak of the subsequent Rose Wars. During the Tudor period, the Renaissance of England peaked through Italian courtiers who reintroduced the artistic, educational, and scientific debate from antiquity. England began to develop naval skills, and exploration of the West and Europe intensified. Henry VIII broke out of communion with the Catholic Church in connection with his divorce under the Acts of Supremacy of 1534, which proclaimed the monarch head of the Church of England. Unlike much of European Protestantism, the roots of the split were political rather than theological. There were internal religious conflicts during the reign of Henry's daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I. The former brought the country back to Catholicism, while the latter abandoned it and vigorously maintained the predominance of Anglicanism. The Elizabethan era began with Elizabeth I's accession to the throne in 1588. The new, Protestant queen was enthusiastically received by the people. From the beginning of her reign, a possible marriage of the queen was the dominant issue. Parliaments repeatedly asked them to obtain a male heir to the throne. She was responsible for the implementation of the Reformation, but also for the poorer relations with Spain.