Rosettes foldout: cardinal directions?

[davidjackson]

Two things:

First off, cartographic "maps" didn't exist at the time. It is more proper to speak of diagrams, or charts. Each "map" was designed for a particular purpose or audience in mind. Certainly not for general reference and location, as we are used to. Cartography was lost after the collapse of the Romans and wasn't rediscovered until the middle Renaissance.
Portolan charts were for navigators and very specialised. They were designed to be used with a compass. They pointed north, because the compass did. This was new. Before this, people either assumed a religious place or where they lived to be the centre of the world, and hence the maps were orientated towards that direction.

Most of the Roman and later Arabic maps that influenced 10-14th century European maps had south as "up". 

But your assumption of religious influences are correct, then we would expect East to be "up" (ie, towards Jerusulem).

Secondly, the thing in the corner is unlikely to be a clock. They didn't have second hands until the 16th century. It's far more likely to be a floating magnetic compass, as a compass would have the needle floating and moving towards the north of the circle. Instead of drawing a straight line, the scribe has drawn a triangle to help the triangulation - no point drawing a straight line in a compass rose, you don't know which way it is pointing.

The ||| symbols around the circle correspond exactly to the 8 main directions: N, NE, E, ES, E, EW, W, NW.

That makes the top left East, which fits with the religious assumption.