Vintage Map of Hertfordshire by Joan Blaeu

Blaeu’s Map of Hertfordshire

Joan Blaeu’s map of Hertfordshire appeared during the great period of Dutch atlas publishing in the seventeenth century. Issued in Amsterdam as part of Blaeu’s coverage of England and Wales, it presented the county to an international audience through a combination of geographical detail, hand-applied colour and elaborate decoration.

Map Details

Original title: Hertfordia Comitatus Vernacule Hertfordshire Cartographer and publisher: Joan Blaeu Published: Amsterdam, circa 1645 Source: Blaeu’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive Atlas Novus Area shown: The historic county of Hertfordshire and its immediate borders Orientation: North at the top Original method: Copperplate engraving with hand-applied colour

The Historic Hundreds

The county is divided into its traditional administrative hundreds. These include Dacorum in the west, Hitchin and Broadwater in the north, Hertford near the centre and Braughing in the east. The separate colours make these divisions one of the map’s most easily recognised features.

This administrative arrangement belongs to a world before modern district and borough boundaries. Hundreds were used for local government, taxation and the administration of justice, although their practical importance had already begun to diminish by Blaeu’s time.

Hertford is marked near the centre of the county, with Ware a short distance to the east. St Albans appears farther west, while Hitchin, Hatfield, Watford, Royston, Bishop’s Stortford and many smaller places are distributed across the engraving. Neighbouring Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Middlesex and Buckinghamshire are named around Hertfordshire’s irregular outline.

Landscape and Decoration

Blaeu represents woodland with clusters of individually drawn trees and higher ground with repeated shaded hill symbols. The rivers provide another visible framework, winding between settlements and across the coloured divisions of the county.

The map’s decoration is concentrated around its margins. In the upper-left corner, the Latin title is enclosed within an ornate Baroque cartouche surrounded by figures and produce. The royal arms appear at the upper right, while further heraldic decoration occupies the lower-left corner.

At the lower right, three carefully dressed figures stand beside the scale. These elements give the sheet a very different character from Cary’s later road-centred map and from John Speed’s Hertfordshire map with its inset town views.

The Latin title translates simply as “The County of Hertford, commonly called Hertfordshire.” Its wording reflects the international market for Blaeu’s atlases, which were produced in several languages and sold throughout Europe. The map therefore records Hertfordshire through the work of one of Amsterdam’s most important seventeenth-century publishing houses.