The Making of the Gough Map Reconsidered: a Personal View

The claim that the Gough map was originally produced in or about the 1370s, then overwritten and re-inked about fifty years later, is unconvincing. The 'earlier' hand seen north of Hadrian's Wall cannot be dated accurately, but is as likely to be from after 1400 as before. Outside one small area of the map, I find almost nothing to indicate rewriting of names or other text, and even in that area the rewriting proves little about date. Nor do I find evidence for the reworking or re-inking of town signs or other pictorial elements. The claimed extensive erasure of earlier writing in the area of the map which is said to be revised is not evident to me. The serious but uneven and erratic fading of the ink on the map, which is not surprising, accounts for most of the anomalies and variations that we see. Dr Solopova's claim, based on her theory of revision, that the map displays contrasting political or 'ideological' emphases from two different periods seems unrelated to the actual content of the map. The known history of the development of chorography in medieval Europe indicates that the appearance of a map as advanced as the Gough map in northern Europe before 1400 is almost unimaginable.