Flat Earth: Encyclopedia II - Flat Earth - The Middle Ages

Flat Earth - The Middle Ages

Flat Earth - Early Middle Ages

Europe's view of the world between 600 and 1000 is difficult to determine because of the general scarcity of records from that time and the primitive cartography: most medieval mappae mundi served as indices of geographical terms rather than navigational aids. Our best evidence comes from the writings of theologians:

• The 6th century Egyptian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes of Alexandria in his Topographia Christiana argued on theological grounds that the Earth was flat, a parallelogram enclosed by four oceans. It is likely that this description was intended to humorously illustrate what not to do when engaging in Biblical Exegesis, rather than a true model for the earth.
• Bede (d. 735) wrote that the Earth was round, and clearly indicated that it was round in the sense of a ball or sphere, rather than a flat disc.
• Vergilius (d. 784) thought "that beneath the Earth there was another world and other men, another Sun and Moon." Saint Boniface (d. 755) accused Vergilius of "teaching a doctrine in regard to the rotundity of the Earth, which was 'contrary to the Scriptures.'" (Catholic Encyclopedia). Pope Zacharias decided that "if it be proved that he held the said doctrine, a council be held, and Vergilius expelled from the Church and deprived of his priestly dignity."
• Isidore of Seville (Etymologiae, XIV) taught that the Earth was round, but shaped like a wheel, apparently thinking of a flat Earth. However, Isidore refused to take a clear position on the matter, preferring to report other philosophers' opinions, and he also admitted the possibility of the antipodes' existence. Isidore's wheel analogy continued to be used by authors clearly favouring a spherical earth, e.g. the 9th century bishop Hrabanus Maurus who compared the habitable part of the northern hemisphere (Aristotle's northern temperate clime) with a wheel, as it were imagined as slice of the whole sphere.

Of course, it was probably the priests in the pulpits, not the few noted intellectuals, who defined public opinion, and as they left no records it is difficult to tell what awareness the wider population may have had. However the symbolism of the orb (Globus cruciger), used in imperial regelia from the fifth century onwards, presupposes that at least the political establishment (which at that time was generally not literate and drew its world view precisely from such visual symbols) could relate to the concept of a spherical world.

Flat Earth - Later Middle Ages

By the 11th century, Europe had learned of Arab astronomy, and abundant records suggest that any doubts that Europeans had had in earlier times were generally eliminated. The most important and widely taught theologian of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), believed in a spherical earth. In addition, Dante's Divine Comedy portrays the earth as a sphere. Hermannus Contractus is among the earliest Christian scholars to estimate the circumference of the earth with Eratosthenes' method.

The fact that the Elucidarius (c. 1120), an important manual for the instruction of low order clergy in the middle ages, explicitly refers to a spherical earth supports the contention that the spherical shape of the earth was also common knowledge outside scholarly circles. Likewise, the fact that Bertold von Regensburg (mid-13th century) used the spherical earth as a sermon illustration shows that he could assume this knowledge among his congregation. The sermon was held in the vernacular (i.e. German as opposed to Latin), and thus was not intended for a learned audience.

However, as late as 1400s, the Spanish theologian Tostatus disputed the existence of any unreachable antipodes[1].

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Middle Ages", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki