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[Portolan chart of the North Sea and the Baltic showing the British Isles, Scandinavia, and the North Sea coasts of France, the Low Countries and Germany. Gdańsk:] 1588, initalled ‘T.L.’ on scale bar and signed ‘maid by me Thomas Laton in Dansk in the yare of our Lord anno domyni 1588’.
Details
LATON [OR LAYTON?], Thomas (fl. 1588)
[Portolan chart of the North Sea and the Baltic showing the British Isles, Scandinavia, and the North Sea coasts of France, the Low Countries and Germany. Gdańsk:] 1588, initalled ‘T.L.’ on scale bar and signed ‘maid by me Thomas Laton in Dansk in the yare of our Lord anno domyni 1588’.
An extremely rare survival, one of a handful of portolan charts produced by an Englishman in the 16th century. Thomas Laton was evidently an Englishman resident in Gdańsk and there is little doubt that he must have been connected with the Eastland Company who had been granted a charter and monopoly for the Anglo-Baltic, Hanseatic and Norwegian trade by Queen Elizabeth in 1579. Gdańsk and Elbląg were then the principal Baltic ports for more than one hundred sailings each year, carrying finished cloth from England in exchange for Polish grain. Unfortunately the early records of the Eastland Company have been lost and we have therefore been unable to discover any details regarding Laton's position with the Company. The area covered by the chart is restricted to the coastlines served by the Eastland Company, i.e. the east coast of England, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the Baltic. Particularly the latter is drawn with great precision, but omits place names, with the use of toponyms restricted to the east coast of England and the Dutch coast as far as Hamburg, with only very few other names shown along Norwegian coastline towards the North Cape.
Since the vast majority of portolan chart production was concentrated in southern Europe or in the Muslim world, most such charts are centred on the Mediterranean, and it is very unusual to find one focussed on the North and Baltic Seas. Portolan sea charts appeared suddenly in the 13th century and remained in use until the 18th, though their origins are unclear. Marking a shift toward empirical, practical cartography, they relied on rhumb lines rather than latitude and longitude, with coastlines based on navigators’ observations of direction and distance. Focused on coastal navigation, they contain little inland detail, though place-names extend inland to preserve clarity along the shore. The empty interiors later encouraged decorative embellishment for non-navigational buyers, while most working charts—likely undecorated—have not survived due to heavy use and harsh maritime conditions.
Portolan charts by English authors, or those produced in England, are extremely rare; only one such 15th-century chart is known (the Venetian Andrea Bianco's London production of 1448), and Pflederer’s census only records 16 other portolans attributed to English cartographers or produced in England prior to 1600.
Partly this is due to the paucity of native skilled cartographers in England in the 15th and 16th centuries – Henry VIII employed some 60 French pilots and mariners – and partly due to the charts’ low survival rate.
However, in the second half of the 16th century, the number of English-produced charts started to increase. With a series of voyages starting in the 1550s, the brothers Stephen and William Borough charted the route to St Nicolas (now Archangel) on behalf of the Russia Company as part of their search for the Northeast Passage (see Tyacke, p.1738). Apart from two sketches of Norway, Novaya Zemlya to the River Ob (both c.1568; BL, Lansdowne MS. 10, fol. 133 and BL, Royal MS. 18.D.III, fol. 124), 3 fragments of William Borough’s portolan chart-making survive: one of the British Isles c.1580, which was probably part of a larger atlas showing the Northeast Passage (Trinity College Dublin [MS. 1209⁄23*]); another showing the British Isles (mainly east coast of England, Scotland and northern Ireland), the Norwegian coastline as well as possibly portions of Greenland or North America, 1576 (Hatfield House [CPM.I.169]); and one of the North Sea showing the east coast of England, and the Skagerrak and Kattegat entrances to the Baltic Sea, c.1580 (NMM [G215:1⁄5]). In 1581, William Borough referred to charts of voyages to both St Nicolas and ‘Naure in Liuonia,’ i.e. the Baltic trade route (A discours of the variation of the cumpas, f. F2v). So although there is no evidence that Thomas Laton was familiar with other contemporary English charts of this geographical area, it seems likely there was a corpus – albeit small – of cartographic work of English origin relating to the Baltic and Scandinavia that would have been available to the Eastland Company.
Sarah Tyacke, ‘Chartmaking in England and Its Context, 1500–1660,’ in The History of Cartography, Volume Three (Part 2) Cartography in the European Renaissance (2007), pp.1722-1753. Pflederer Census of Portolan Charts and Atlases L008.
Manuscript portolan chart, ink and colours on vellum sheet, 520 x 550mm, verso blank, mainland coastlines in green and brown, islands coloured in various shades of brown, place names in red or dark brown ink, red and green rhumb-lines, decorated with 8 flags and 3 armorial shields, 8 full or half compass-roses, 3 scale bars, one full-length and two with elaborate ornamentation, all without numbers, faint narrow wash border (four very small holes, faint stain in area of Germany affecting one compass rose and one flag but otherwise in excellent condition). Provenance: Counts of Maldeghem (one of the great noble families of Flanders, possibly in the library of Philip of Maldeghem [1547-1611, burgomaster of Bruges between 1587 and 1608], or more probably in the possession of his son, Robert [d.1654; a member of the council of war of the Infanta Isabella of Spain, who later assembled and put in order the large family archive]) – sold at Christie’s 13 April 1988, lot 175.
[Portolan chart of the North Sea and the Baltic showing the British Isles, Scandinavia, and the North Sea coasts of France, the Low Countries and Germany. Gdańsk:] 1588, initalled ‘T.L.’ on scale bar and signed ‘maid by me Thomas Laton in Dansk in the yare of our Lord anno domyni 1588’.
An extremely rare survival, one of a handful of portolan charts produced by an Englishman in the 16th century. Thomas Laton was evidently an Englishman resident in Gdańsk and there is little doubt that he must have been connected with the Eastland Company who had been granted a charter and monopoly for the Anglo-Baltic, Hanseatic and Norwegian trade by Queen Elizabeth in 1579. Gdańsk and Elbląg were then the principal Baltic ports for more than one hundred sailings each year, carrying finished cloth from England in exchange for Polish grain. Unfortunately the early records of the Eastland Company have been lost and we have therefore been unable to discover any details regarding Laton's position with the Company. The area covered by the chart is restricted to the coastlines served by the Eastland Company, i.e. the east coast of England, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the Baltic. Particularly the latter is drawn with great precision, but omits place names, with the use of toponyms restricted to the east coast of England and the Dutch coast as far as Hamburg, with only very few other names shown along Norwegian coastline towards the North Cape.
Since the vast majority of portolan chart production was concentrated in southern Europe or in the Muslim world, most such charts are centred on the Mediterranean, and it is very unusual to find one focussed on the North and Baltic Seas. Portolan sea charts appeared suddenly in the 13th century and remained in use until the 18th, though their origins are unclear. Marking a shift toward empirical, practical cartography, they relied on rhumb lines rather than latitude and longitude, with coastlines based on navigators’ observations of direction and distance. Focused on coastal navigation, they contain little inland detail, though place-names extend inland to preserve clarity along the shore. The empty interiors later encouraged decorative embellishment for non-navigational buyers, while most working charts—likely undecorated—have not survived due to heavy use and harsh maritime conditions.
Portolan charts by English authors, or those produced in England, are extremely rare; only one such 15th-century chart is known (the Venetian Andrea Bianco's London production of 1448), and Pflederer’s census only records 16 other portolans attributed to English cartographers or produced in England prior to 1600.
Partly this is due to the paucity of native skilled cartographers in England in the 15th and 16th centuries – Henry VIII employed some 60 French pilots and mariners – and partly due to the charts’ low survival rate.
However, in the second half of the 16th century, the number of English-produced charts started to increase. With a series of voyages starting in the 1550s, the brothers Stephen and William Borough charted the route to St Nicolas (now Archangel) on behalf of the Russia Company as part of their search for the Northeast Passage (see Tyacke, p.1738). Apart from two sketches of Norway, Novaya Zemlya to the River Ob (both c.1568; BL, Lansdowne MS. 10, fol. 133 and BL, Royal MS. 18.D.III, fol. 124), 3 fragments of William Borough’s portolan chart-making survive: one of the British Isles c.1580, which was probably part of a larger atlas showing the Northeast Passage (Trinity College Dublin [MS. 1209⁄23*]); another showing the British Isles (mainly east coast of England, Scotland and northern Ireland), the Norwegian coastline as well as possibly portions of Greenland or North America, 1576 (Hatfield House [CPM.I.169]); and one of the North Sea showing the east coast of England, and the Skagerrak and Kattegat entrances to the Baltic Sea, c.1580 (NMM [G215:1⁄5]). In 1581, William Borough referred to charts of voyages to both St Nicolas and ‘Naure in Liuonia,’ i.e. the Baltic trade route (A discours of the variation of the cumpas, f. F2v). So although there is no evidence that Thomas Laton was familiar with other contemporary English charts of this geographical area, it seems likely there was a corpus – albeit small – of cartographic work of English origin relating to the Baltic and Scandinavia that would have been available to the Eastland Company.
Sarah Tyacke, ‘Chartmaking in England and Its Context, 1500–1660,’ in The History of Cartography, Volume Three (Part 2) Cartography in the European Renaissance (2007), pp.1722-1753. Pflederer Census of Portolan Charts and Atlases L008.
Manuscript portolan chart, ink and colours on vellum sheet, 520 x 550mm, verso blank, mainland coastlines in green and brown, islands coloured in various shades of brown, place names in red or dark brown ink, red and green rhumb-lines, decorated with 8 flags and 3 armorial shields, 8 full or half compass-roses, 3 scale bars, one full-length and two with elaborate ornamentation, all without numbers, faint narrow wash border (four very small holes, faint stain in area of Germany affecting one compass rose and one flag but otherwise in excellent condition). Provenance: Counts of Maldeghem (one of the great noble families of Flanders, possibly in the library of Philip of Maldeghem [1547-1611, burgomaster of Bruges between 1587 and 1608], or more probably in the possession of his son, Robert [d.1654; a member of the council of war of the Infanta Isabella of Spain, who later assembled and put in order the large family archive]) – sold at Christie’s 13 April 1988, lot 175.
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Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts