View Full Version : Where can I find a map of Europe c.1453?


Bast
Apr 10, 2007, 06:58 AM
Please post it if possible or point me in the right direction. Thanks.

I can find maps of Europe during 1400 and 1500 but I need a map around the middle of that century and especially after "the fall".

Thanks.

steveedster
Apr 10, 2007, 11:05 AM
Cant really help you Im afraid, I know most people around that time still produced maps based on those of Ptolemy (150ad). An example below...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/PtolemyWorldMap.jpg/800px-PtolemyWorldMap.jpg

Aramazd
Apr 10, 2007, 01:59 PM
I found a map of 15th Century Europe if thats close enough for you
http://www.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/classes/ah111/EuroRen1.JPG

Stolen Rutters
Apr 10, 2007, 02:20 PM
What do you need the map for? If you want one that is authentic to the period or a modern map identifying political divisions known of the time period?

Another game, Europa Universalis III, has a game map that starts 20May1453 (the start of this particular strategy game) but has arbitrary borders for game purposes. That game's developers have compiled a list of most realms of the time period and assigned them to the provinces listed in the game.

Quick search in wiki turned this up. It's a modern map showing major political entities in the time period.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Europe_in_1470.png

edit - try here for time period maps. They have some maps from 1452-1453 and times near that.
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/LMwebpages/LML.html

Here is a world map for 1457.
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/LMwebpages/248.html

Bast
Apr 11, 2007, 09:52 AM
a modern map identifying political divisions known of the time period?

That's what I need. Thanks.

Thanks for the links. They're all very useful.

Israelite9191
Apr 12, 2007, 12:01 AM
Here's a great resource for maps of Europe. It covers everything CE in two seperate sections. The link is for 1000 CE to 2000 CE (http://www.euratlas.com/time2.htm).

warpus
Apr 12, 2007, 09:36 AM
I found a map of 15th Century Europe if thats close enough for you
http://www.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/classes/ah111/EuroRen1.JPG

The Union of Poland and Hungary? There was no such thing AFAIK. It was a union of Poland and Lithuania.

Aramazd
Apr 12, 2007, 10:56 AM
The Union of Poland and Hungary? There was no such thing AFAIK. It was a union of Poland and Lithuania.
I don't see the Union of Poland and Hungary, in fact I see both as seperate countries.

warpus
Apr 12, 2007, 01:08 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Europe_in_1470.png


Whooops, I meant to quote this. Union of Poland and Hungary?

Here's a great resource for maps of Europe. It covers everything CE in two seperate sections. The link is for 1000 CE to 2000 CE (http://www.euratlas.com/time2.htm).

Some of these seem a bit odd. The Ottoman Empire is labelled as "Ottoman Sultanate of Rome" ??? There are other oddities as well.

EdwardTking
Apr 12, 2007, 01:42 PM
Whooops, I meant to quote this. Union of Poland and Hungary?



Some of these seem a bit odd. The Ottoman Empire is labelled as "Ottoman Sultanate of Rome" ??? There are other oddities as well.


After the Rome in Italy fell; the Eastern Roman Empire tended to refer
to its capital by various names including calling themselves second Rome.

In translation, this was reduced to Rum. This confused the Islamics.

But when the Turks conquered Constantinople, they were only too happy to claim that they had conquered Rome because they had captured the last territories of the Romans. At that time the Rome in Italy was not a metropolis as in ancient and modern times, but had been reduced to quite a small city, the most powerful Italian cities then being Venice and Genoa, with Pisa and Florence being second tier.

Stolen Rutters
Apr 13, 2007, 12:37 PM
Some of these seem a bit odd. The Ottoman Empire is labelled as "Ottoman Sultanate of Rome" ??? There are other oddities as well.

The Byzantine Empire was not called the Byzantine Empire when it actually existed. It is the Eastern Roman Empire.

A thousand years before, the Roman Empire split in half. Each half formed two separate governments, empires, etc. The Western Roman Empire died pretty quickly, but the Eastern half survived intact ALL the way to 1453. They called themselves the Roman Empire the whole time.

When the Ottoman Empire finally captured the last real capital of the Roman empire on 29May1453, they took the name. Who wouldn't want to brag about finally conquering what was left of the great Roman Empire? The fact that the actual CITY of Rome hadn't been part of the empire in question for eleven hundred years is beside the point.

Quick search on basic info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Empire

REDY
Apr 13, 2007, 04:09 PM
Whooops, I meant to quote this. Union of Poland and Hungary?

Hmm Union sounds strange but I think they mean era with Vladislav(spelling?), who was king of both.

sydhe
Apr 13, 2007, 04:52 PM
Vladislav or Wladislaw II Jagiello was king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. There's another Wladislaw II who was king of Hungary and Bohemia; he was the grandson of Wladislaw Jagiello.

Wladislaw III was king of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1434 until 1444, and of Hungary and Croatia from 1440 until 1444. That's the one REDY's talking about. (The future Casimir IV of Poland was Grand Prince of Lithuania during this period, so I'm not sure who was really the supreme authority there.)

Louis the Great was king of Poland and Hungary (and Croatia) in the fourteenth century, but this was before the union of Poland and Lithuania.

Both of these crown unions of Poland and Hungary broke up when the kings died. Louis the Great's daughter Jadwiga (St. Hedwig) in fact married Jogaila who is Wladislaw II of Poland and Lithuania.

There were a lot of these temporary dynastic unions around that time. The Polish-Lithuanian and Hungarian-Croatian ones lasted for a long time.

thenooblet22
Apr 13, 2007, 10:05 PM
The game Europa Universalis III starts in 1450s and has an accurate map. Don't try downloading the demo because that only allows you to play from the 1490s to the 1510s, but if you buy the game you start 1450s to the 1800s.

Dell19
Apr 14, 2007, 05:16 PM
Surely that should be a generally accurate map. It isn't going to be 100% accurate.

Cuivienen
Apr 14, 2007, 10:39 PM
Some of these seem a bit odd. The Ottoman Empire is labelled as "Ottoman Sultanate of Rome" ??? There are other oddities as well.

That's what they called themselves originally, the "Sultanate of Rum" (Rome), long before they even conquered Constantinople (starting around 1200 IIRC). It helped give them legitimacy in claiming to be the Byzantines' successors.

http://www.euratlas.com/big/big1500.htm

shortguy
Apr 14, 2007, 11:54 PM
The first "Sultans of Rum" assumed the title in the 1080s (though of course they weren't Ottoman), when they broke away from the greater Seljuk realm; so it's a pretty old style.

Stolen Rutters
Apr 20, 2007, 09:09 AM
The first "Sultans of Rum" assumed the title in the 1080s (though of course they weren't Ottoman), when they broke away from the greater Seljuk realm; so it's a pretty old style.

This looks more right.

When the Ottoman Empire finally captured the last real capital of the Roman empire on 29May1453, they took the name. Who wouldn't want to brag about finally conquering what was left of the great Roman Empire? The fact that the actual CITY of Rome hadn't been part of the empire in question for eleven hundred years is beside the point.

OK, mine was wrong. I saw the name written inside the Ottoman empire and figured it was the whole thing with a different name. Hey, it made sense to me.

I keep forgetting that the whole area around the Mediterranean was called the "Empire of Rome" way back. We always think of the city today. It appears more than a few realms took a chunk of what was once "Rome" and kept the name LONG after it was ever tied to the city itself.