Three maps of early medieval Britain to download

No matter how accurate and/or pretty book maps are, the image clarity is limited by the physical dimensions of the printed book or the resolution/file-size of the ebook. Luckily for you I love making maps, so I’m putting three here for you to look at or download and embiggen them to your heart’s content.

Some of the maps I make for myself are so detailed and such high resolution that I could print them out bigger than my office wall. I’m not going to post those here—the file sizes are unwieldy, and some of the info would be spoilers. But here are three that I’ve edited and converted to something you could print out to a reasonable size. Just click through to the downloadable file.

Here’s a merged version of the layered Photoshop file I sent to my publisher to use as a base for the main book map.

This is a simplified version—several roads taken out and places left unmarked—because its purpose is to offer a a general overview, a snapshot of the power players in their geographic region. Unlike the published book map, my version uses a number key rather than written-in-place settlement and river names: I wasn’t sure those would be readable at book-page size.

Instead, to accompany the mainmap I made two detail maps, one of Bernicia and one of Deira—these also served as the foundation for the eventual book maps.

You’ll see that they’re all slightly different in tone. I’m not used to working in black and white, so I wasn’t sure which variety of shading might work best. The frames are slightly different too—I’m learning as I go. Besides, these weren’t to be used for publication, just to base the Real Maps on.

Obviously I have many—many!—more, and in colour. And I’ll get to those biti by bit. But this should be enough for you to follow along with while you read.

Let me know what works for you, map-wise and what doesn’t. Is there something you were really hoping to see? Something that might make the maps clearer? Or more interesting? I really do love messing with this stuff, so give me an excuse to play!