‘How the erde is of a figure round’: Mapping Space in the Buik of Alexander the Conqueror

Abstract

Discusses the image of the world, the concept of a mappamundi, and comments on particular regions and countries, in Gilbert Hay's poem The Buik of Alexader the Conquerour, to argue that Alexander’s mapping, like his military campaigns, reconfigures space as territory that is amenable to exploitation, and that Hay's poem, the only Alexander poem to mention Scotland, shows an historical process, the "translatio imperii," "that will eventually circle back around to a Britain (and a Scotland) no longer imbued with treachery, but ready to assume power."