practical utility to travellers who desired to pass from one country
to another; indeed, they were not intended for any such purpose.
Geography had ceased to be in any sense a practical science; it
only ministered to men's sense of wonder, and men studied it mainly
in order to learn about the marvels of the world. When William
of Wykeham drew up his rules for the Fellows and Scholars of New
College, Oxford, he directed them in the long winter evenings to
occupy themselves with "singing, or reciting poetry, or with the
chronicles of the different kingdoms, or with the _wonders of the
world_." Hence almost all mediæval maps are filled up with pictures
of these wonders, which were the more necessary as so few people
could read. A curious survival of this custom lasted on in map-drawing
almost to the beginning of this century, when the spare places in
the ocean were adorned with pictures of sailing ships or spouting
sea monsters.

When men desired to travel, they did not use such maps as these,
but rather itineraries, or road-books, which did not profess to
give the shape of the countries through which a traveller would
pass, but only indicated the chief towns on the most-frequented
roads. This information was really derived from classical times,
for the Roman emperors from time to time directed such road-books
to be drawn up, and there still remains an almost complete itinerary
of the Empire, known as the Peutinger Table, from the name of the
German merchant who first drew the attention of the learned world
to it. A condensed reproduction is given on the following page,
from which it will be seen that no attempt is made to give anything
more than the roads and towns. Unfortunately, the first section of
the table, which started from Britain, has been mutilated, and we
only get the Kentish coast. These itineraries were specially useful,