Posted on 25 June 2010 by
As I mentioned in my earlier post the icons of settlements and all geographical features in England and Wales on the Gough map were traced in dark ink. The reviser was careful to ‘freshen up’ every river, town, lake and island, but this stops abruptly north of Hadrian's wall. There is no evidence that the reviser was in a hurry to finish: on the contrary, this massive job was executed with care, leaving virtually nothing untouched in England and Wales. Some islands that appear on the map north of Hadrian's wall were also traced, and some of their names were overwritten. This includes both the islands controlled in the 15th century by England and by Scotland, such as Lindisfarne, Bass, Man and May. If the map was created in the 1360s or 1370s, at the end of the reign of Edward III, for the use of the central government, it may have been still in the possession of a government office in the 15th century when the revision was undertaken. The reviser's decision to exclude Scotland, contrasts with an earlier decision to treat it in the same way as England and Wales, and suggests an important change in attitudes.