A Sense of Place: The ‘London’ Cityscapes of BL, Royal MS. 13 A. III

Abstract

The British Library, Royal MS. 13 A. III, containing a copy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie, was likely produced in southeast England in or around London between the late thirteenth century and the first quarter of the fourteenth century. The only manuscript with an extended series of illustrations, it contains a number of bas-de-page cityscape drawings. Two such drawings are examined here: those found on folio 14r and folio 28v, respectively. The present article argues that the artist of these marginal illustrations was based in London, and that the two cityscapes under analysis most likely represent London itself and Caerleon as influenced by the artist’s own familiarity with London. The drawings are of particular interest in that they suggest at least some of the considerations artists of the era brought to the task of creating geographical and structural representations. As such, this article also explores the nature of these cityscape drawings to contextualize them as, alternately, real and ‘archetypal’ urban spaces.