Why in the Middle Ages people did not really believe that the earth was flat, and why many do today

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Today, despite the development of science and education, there are still people who believe that our planet Earth is a flat disk. It is enough to go to the Internet and type the phrase "flat Earth". There is even a society of the same name that advocates this idea. We will tell you how things actually were with this in Antiquity and in the European Middle Ages.

There is a widespread opinion among ordinary people and even among some scholars that, in accordance with the Bible in the Middle Ages, people were convinced that the Earth was flat. There is even a legend that the great navigator Christopher Columbus could not get support for his travel plan to India for a long time precisely because he argued that the Earth is spherical and not flat. In fact, everything was different.

Of course, we cannot say what the peasants, artisans, merchants and even feudal lords thought about the shape of the Earth, if they ever thought about such an abstract problem - we have no sources. However, there is data in historical science regarding people involved in the book tradition.

Almost all thinkers and writers during the millennial period of the Middle Ages believed that the Earth, like the Cosmos, was spherical. The eminent theologian Basil the Great generally considered all discussions about the shape of the Earth unnecessary and meaningless from the point of view of faith. The most authoritative thinker for the Catholic Church, Augustine defended the doctrinal value of the Bible, and by no means the scientific one. He wrote that, since the question of the shape of the Earth does not matter for the salvation of the soul, the priority in judgments should be given to the Greek philosophers. Augustine fully agreed with their point of view.

What did theologians and philosophers say about the shape of the Earth?

What was the opinion of the ancient philosophers? With the exception of the three early philosophers Leucippus, Democritus (flat-earth supporters) and Anaximander, who defended the cylinder version, all the greatest Greek thinkers recognize and sometimes provide direct evidence of the sphericity of the earth. Let's list some of them: Pythagoras, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes. Note that Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes are known to us as outstanding mathematicians and physicists.

Exactly the same situation arises if we consider the writings of the Eastern and Western Fathers of the Church. With the exception of Athanasius the Great, who proposed an intermediate version (a spherical earth hovering over the ocean, surrounded by a hemisphere of the sky), and several minor authors of the so-called Antiochian school, all major theologians did not doubt the spherical theory, including: Ambrose of the Mediolan, Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, John Christoz, John Chrysostom, John Damascene and others. The ecclesiastical writer Bede the Venerable, extremely popular in Western Europe, specifically draws attention to the fact that the Earth is precisely a sphere, a globe, and not a simple circle. He does this due to the fact that in Latin the word "orbis", which is usually used here, means both round and disc. The opinion of the early Church Fathers about the spherical nature of the Earth is also supported by later Western theologians: Thomas Aquinas, Hildegard of Bingen, Robert Grossetest.

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The cornerstone for the medieval astronomical worldview was the work of the ancient author Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria - the creator of the geocentric system of the world based on the spherical system of the Cosmos of Aristotle. In his theory, in the center of the universe was the spherical planet Earth, around which the Sun and other celestial bodies revolved.

In accordance with this teaching, the medieval mathematician and astronomer John Sacrobosco wrote On the Spheres. This book was the main textbook of astronomy in all Western universities from the 13th to the middle of the 16th centuries. The widespread understanding that the Earth is a ball is also illustrated by the structure of the medieval measuring instrument of the astrolabe. This device and its use are described in detail by Jeffrey Chaucer in his Treatise on the Astrolabe. Chaucer's son was the addressee of this text. The author of the treatise is better known to us as a medieval poet and writer, the creator of the famous "Canterbury Tales".

The idea of a spherical planet

Even less authoritative and well-known works support the idea of a spherical earth. So, in a collection of medical texts copied in the fifteenth century, which is now in the library of the University of Oxford, literally says: "The earth is just a small round ball in the middle of the circle of heaven, like a yolk in the middle of an egg." In the same place, when explaining the phenomenon of eclipses, it is advised to use an apple as a model of the Earth.

As for visual sources, images of God looking at the spherical Earth as the architect of the Cosmos, images of a king holding a ball as a symbol of earthly power, and numerous medieval maps have been preserved. These maps, like modern ones, represent a transfer to a two-dimensional plane of the three-dimensional Earth. Their creators fully understood the difference between flat and rounded surfaces.

How the flat earth version appeared

How did it happen that already in modern times there was an opinion that in the Middle Ages the Earth was considered flat? The historian Jeffrey Barton Russell offers his version related to the dissemination of the texts of two authors not yet mentioned by us - supporters of the hypothesis of a flat earth. The first of them is Lactantius, the second is Kosma Indikoplov (that is, Kosma, who sailed to India).

Lactantius (c. 250 - c. 325) was an early Christian Latin author. He defended the hypothesis of a flat earth, fighting the worldview of pagan philosophers. Lactantius' extensive literary heritage was little known in the Middle Ages, presumably because his theological writings were considered heretical. However, the humanists of the Renaissance once again turned to his texts, which they valued for their wonderful literary language and style.

READ ALSO: "Removing the Horns and Hooves": An Amazing Ritual of Initiation for Students in a Medieval University

Lactantius became even more famous when his opinion was criticized by the great astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus, the creator of the heliocentric system of the world. Copernicus never claimed that the views of Lactantius were dominant. He insisted on the opposite. The astronomer also refuted Ptolemy's geocentric system. As we now know, Copernicus was right. Already in the 19th century, scientists, seeking to demonize the role of religion in the history of science, presented the point of view of Lactantius, which was marginal for the Middle Ages, as fundamental for that era.

A similar story happened with the theological-cosmographic work of Kosma Indikoplov (died about 540 or 550) "Christian Topography". Kosma was a traveler and a very educated person at that time. Literally interpreting some biblical metaphors, Kosma built his version of the flat earth hypothesis. In his treatise, the Earth is not even a flat disk, but a rectangle. Cosma's opinion was apparently unpopular: only three copies of his treatise have come down to us.

The work of Kosma Indikoplov, from a theological point of view close to Nestorianism, was condemned in the 9th century by the Patriarch of Constantinople. In the Medieval West, it was not known at all, and it was translated into Latin only in 1706, after the scientific revolution.

The first English translation dates from 1897. The composition of Kosma came to Russia no later than the XIV century. If his opinion was supported somewhere, it was in Russia and, possibly, in the Christian East, but not in Europe. Having familiarized themselves with the translation of the work "Christian Topography", scientists became convinced of the medieval "denseness".

Thus, the works of two authors, not the most authoritative in the Middle Ages, became the source of the flat earth myth.

And what about Columbus?

And what about the story of Columbus? Everything is simple here. Resistance to his travel plan had nothing to do with the shape of the Earth. It was about funding. Opponents of his project simply considered the search for a western route to India too long and costly. They feared that the distance to India was greater than Columbus had anticipated, and other lands lay in the way. In the end, his critics were right. Christopher Columbus never sailed to India, but he opened for the Europeans what we now call America.

Throughout history, people have come up with many original theories about the structure of the Earth. We tell how science fiction writers, scientists and just dreamers have differently described the Earth.