Abstract
It is striking to see how much different are medieval maps from modern maps. It may lead some people to poke fun at these maps because they seem to represent the world in an archaic fashion. Nevertheless, unlike modern maps, medieval mappaemundi did not aim to give an accurate description of the world. According to Scafi: "geographical exactitude was not the main objective of these maps? (Scafi, 63, 1999). As a matter of fact the raison d'être of medieval geography was spiritual and closely related to Christianity. As a result we will firstly describe the influence of the Bible on physical geography. Secondly we will focus on the medieval representations of Eden and, thirdly, with the way Christianity perceived history. Finally we will see that, in the middle ages, the meaning of world geography and history depended ultimately on the person of Jesus Christ.
