Hungary Is Now a Landlocked Country

10th International Seminar on the Naming of Seas On the naming of some seas of Europe based on historical maps available in Hungarian libraries Béla Pokoly Commission on Geographical Names, Ministry of Agriculture and Regional Development (Budapest) 1. The name of the Adriatic Sea Hungary is now a landlocked country. However, in pre-World War I times, during the existence of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and in medieval times, it used to have a coast on the Adriatic Sea. It is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, and it separates the Apennine Peninsula from the Balkans (Fig. 1. M. Kogutowicz: Europe, Geographical atlas, 1910). Fig. 1. M. Kogutowicz: Europe, Geographical atlas, 1910 1 Therefore these two sea names are the first ones mentioned in written Hungarian documents. Until the mid-18th century the predominant language of documents was Latin. Therefore it is no surprise, that the first detailed Hungarian map, that of Lazarus, secretary of the archbishop of Hungary, whose first edition appeared in 1528, used Latin names for its generic terms (mons, lacus, comitatus etc.). This celebrated masterpiece of Hungarian map history contains some 1700 geographical names. A small portion of the Adriatic Sea appears on the map written Mare Adriaticum. (Fig 2. Lazarus’ Map of Hungary, Rome Edition, 1559) Fig 2. Lazarus’ Map of Hungary, Rome Edition, 1559 The widespread use of the name, based on Ptolemy’s authoritative maps figures in many of the cartographic works of the age. It comes from the town of Adria, (Hatria, Hadria, Atria) a 2 town in northern Italy. Known today as Mare Adriatico in Italian, Jadransko more in Croatian and Jadransko morje in Slovenian, in late medieval times, parallel with the peak of power of the city state of Venice, it had also often been referred to as Gulf of Venice (Golfo di Venetia, see Fig. 3. Giovanni Camocio’s map of 1568, or [Fig. 4.] that of Pierre Duval from 1670). Fig 3. Giovanni Camocio’s Europae Brevis,1568 3 Fig 4. Pierre Duval’s Europe Revue et augmentée,1670 In the Hungarian language „Adriatikom” was first used in 1559 in a world chronicle (Székely Estvan: Chronica ez vilagnac yeles dolgairól. Cracow). Following the decline of Venice, and especially after the Napoleonic wars, the classical name of the Adriatic Sea was rediscovered, and Golf of Venice came to signify consequently only the upper part of the sea between the Po Delta and the Istrian Peninsula. 2. Name variants of European Seas As a rule we may say that from the late middle age to the beginning of the 20th century sea names often had several variants not only in the various European languages but even in the same language. I would like to continue to illustrate this point with some maps of Europe from the 16th century to the present. Most of them by courtesy of the Hungarian National Széchényi Library, Budapest. My first example is that of Venice cartographer Giovanni Francesco Camocio’s Europae Brevis from 1568 (Fig. 3.). Not many sea names are given, but we may recognize Mare Germanico (North Sea), Mare Gotico (an infrequent use of „Gothic Sea” for the Baltic Sea), Mare di Genova (now Ligurian Sea, but its northernmost corner is still called Gulf of Genova). The Adriatic Sea is given, as we have seen, as Golfo di Venetia, while for the Black Sea we see the name Mare Maggiore (Mare Maius or Maior). 4 On Claudio Duchetti’s 1571 map of the rivers of Europe (Fig. 5.) the Rome cartographer uses Latin names instead of Italian ones: Oceanus Germanicus (North Sea), Oceanus Britanicus (English Channel/La Manche), Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea). Fig 5. Claudio Duchetti’s Map of the Rivers of Europe,1571 He is already employing the practice that we will see later: seas are named after territories, islands or countries with important relevant shorelines, most of which has no name today: Mare Africum, Mare Aegyptiacum, Syriacum Mare, Lybicum Mare, Balearicum Mare, even Carpathiu Mare (at the Isle of Carpathos, Greece). Some of these names are completely different today : Equitanicus Oceanus (now Bay of Biscay/Golfe de Gascogne), Mare Gallicum (now Gulf of Lions/Golfe du Lion) etc. Sixty years later, in 1631 Amsterdam Cartographer Henricus Hondius (Fig. 6.) named the Baltic Sea as Mare Balticum vulgo de Oost Zee (Baltic Sea or commonly the East Sea). 5 Fig 6. Henricus Hondius’ Europa Exactissime Descripta, 1631 As we know for Germans, Danes, Norwegians, the Dutch, even for Finns this body of water is called „East Sea” in their languages, although the Estonians, for whom it lies to the west, it is called the West Sea (L’ääne m’eri). For the rest of the world now, and for international shipping (IHO), it is the Baltic Sea (French: Mer Baltique). It should be noted, however, that it used to be named Mare Suebicum or Svevicum , and sometimes Mare Goticum in the Middle Ages, referring to these Germanic people (Suevs, Goths). To increase the variety of names of this sea, we may also add, that on old medieval maps, based on Ptolemy’s work, names of „Mare Sarmaticum” (Sea of the Sarmatians) and „Mare Germanicum” also appear. Interestingly the North Sea is not yet called by this name even by the Dutch Hondius (he has Oceanus Germanicus), although Dutch cartographers already used the name de Noord Zee at least a hundred years before. The sea north of Norway and Russia, known since the mid-19th century as Barents (IHO: Barentsz) Sea, is called Myrmanskoy More – an interesting exception from the Latin sea names. The city of Murmansk was only founded in 1915, but the coast itself, known as Murman Coast (a corruption of ’Normann’), gave the sea its old name. Alternative names include Mer de Moscovie (=Moscow Sea, by Duval 1670, Sanson 1681), and even from earlier times Petzorzke More (Mercator, mid-16th c.) or Petzorke Mare (Hondius, 1595), referring obviously to the River Pechora that empties into it. My next illustration is a map of Europe by the French royal geographer Pierre Duval from 1670 (Fig. 4.), who expands the practice mentioned about the Italian Duchetti, by borrowing the name of the sea from the land it is adjacent to, e.g. Mer de Portugal, Mer de France, Mer 6 de Danemarq, Mer d’Espagne. His sea names sometimes refer to cities: Mer de Marseille, Mer de Genes (Genova), Mer d’Alger (Algiers). Using (rightly) the name Mer Blanche (White Sea) for the inlet from (present) Barents Sea, he again applies it as an alternative to the old form of the Aegean Sea, Archipelago (Archipel). Some – but not many – names he got right, like Mer Baltique, Mer Ioniene (Ionian Sea), Mer d’Irlande (Irish Sea) or Mer d’Alemagne (the later North Sea). Of the abundant examples of nautical names with the specific element coming from the name of a country or nation few remain in use today: among them Irish Sea and Gulf of Finland are used universally, while Norwegian Sea, a standard IHO name, usually does not feature on German maps (Europäisches Nordmeer). 3. On the names English Channel and La Manche On Duval’s map the sea channel between Britain and France has the familiar name variants La Manche ou Mer Britannique (Mare Britannicum or Oceanus Britannicus). The current English name (in general use since the early 18th century) probably derives from the desig- nation “canal” in Dutch sea atlases of the late 16th century. Earlier names had included Oceanus Britannicus and the British Sea, and the French have regularly used La Manche (in reference to the sleevelike coastal outline) since the early 17th century. (www.britannica.com). While for the French name there are some early cartographic uses like Duval’s 1670 map (Fig. 4.), (or Philipp Cluver’s The Kingdom of England from 1629) for the well-known English name „English Channel” I was not able to find an older map use earlier than 1730. Steps of development of the emergence of the name „English Channel”: Date Map Name 1511 Ptolemy’s Venice Edition Britannicus Oceanus 1548 George Lily”s Britannia Insula Mare Britannicum 1562 Ptolemy’s Venice Edition (J. Meletius) Mare Anglicum 1610 John Speed’s England The British Sea 1669 A New Mapp of the Kingdom of England and the The British or Narrow Sea Principalitie of Wales by William Berry 1693 Robert Morden in Patrick Gordon's Geography The Channel Anatomiz'd: England and Wales 1700 John Senex A New Map of England The British Channel 1730 Thomas Kitchin England and Wales English Channel 4. The Black Sea and others Georg Matthäus Seutter of Augsburg, in line with medieval traditions, still uses Latin names in his nice detailed map of Europe (1729) but introduces some local forms, too (Fig. 7.). 7 Fig 7. Georg Matthäus Seutter’s Map of Europe, 1729 He precisely describes e.g. the Black Sea as Pontus Euxinus hodie (today) Mare Nigrum, but adds that in „Turcis” it is Cara-Denghiz, while in „Rhutenis” (Polish-Ruthenian) it is Czarno Morzo. For the North Sea the familiar alternatives Mare Germanicum vulgo de Noord Zee, for the Baltic the variants Mare Balticum vulgo de Ost Zee also appears. Looking at the Channel reveals yet another German precision, as we can read Oceanus Britannicus Gall. La Manche Belg. Canaal. As for the Barents Sea the form Moscoviticum Mare is preferred here. Over a hundred years after Pierre Duval, another French Cartographer, Jean Janvier drew a map of Europe in 1780 (Fig. 8.), showing the state boundaries, but contrary to his predecessor, he used very few sea names.

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