Maps for reading / Britain & literature
Medieval Britain & London
Compare medieval kingdoms and counties with two London panels. Useful context for discussing towns, journeys, and institutions in later medieval literature.
- Period shown
- British Isles about 1300; London about 1300; vicinity of London 1200–1600
- Published
- 1911 · Atlas pages 74–75
- Suggested use
- Grades 6–12; selected place-finding with an adult in grades 4–5.
All grade-picker settings retain access to this map. Suggested grades describe support needs, not a restriction.
Historical judgment
Read this map carefully
The principal map’s date is about 1300, earlier than Chaucer and the surviving Gawain poem. The three panels cover different times. No Canterbury pilgrimage route, Arthurian itinerary, or exact fictional castle is marked.
No separate drawing date is established here; 1911 is the verified atlas publication date, not the period depicted.
At the table or in class
A question to begin
Find London and Canterbury in the appropriate panels. What extra evidence would you need before drawing a particular pilgrim’s route?
First read the map title, legend, scale, and inset headings. Then name what the map can show—and what it cannot.
Source & public-domain record
- Atlas & maker
- William R. Shepherd (atlas compiler); Velhagen & Klasing (printed credit; no individual draughtsman identified). Historical Atlas. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911. Pages 74–75. A separate drawing date is not established by this record.
- Source institution
- University of Texas Libraries, Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection. Exact original scan · Edition catalog · Original title page · Hosted title-page evidence.
- Rights
- Public domain in the United States (PD-US-expired). This exact sheet is listed in the archive’s 1911 edition and was published in the United States in 1911, as independently confirmed by the scanned New York title page. Its underlying publication is before 1931 and outside US copyright in 2026. The archive states that its public-domain map scans may be downloaded and reused without permission; this original atlas item is not flagged as a separately copyrighted modern map. Only faithful resizing/format conversion has been applied to previews; the downloadable scan is unchanged. Archive reuse statement · 2026 US copyright-term reference. US public-domain assessment, not a worldwide legal guarantee. Check local law when reusing outside the United States.
- Credit
- From William R. Shepherd, Historical Atlas (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911). Scan courtesy of University of Texas Libraries.
- Download integrity
- Unchanged source JPG · 1923 × 1541 pixels · 703,202 bytes.
SHA-256:271bc02f63b6fbb63a937e49ee4a72e502e3ac789b14e0b604734acc9950f99b
Reviewed 2026-11-06. Download complete provenance manifest.