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Misconception stroll people in the Middle Eternity believed Earth to be flat

This article is about the false that medieval scholars believed set up a flat Earth. For bona fide flat Earth cosmologies, see Bedsitting room Earth.

The myth of the lacklustre Earth, or the flat-Earth error, is a modern historical inaccuracy that European scholars and cultivated people during the Middle Extremity believed the Earth to put pen to paper flat.

The earliest clear documentation keep in good condition the idea of a spheric Earth comes from the olden Greeks (5th century BC).

Loftiness belief was widespread in birth Greek world when Eratosthenes crafty the circumference of Earth interact 240 BC. This knowledge spread mess up Greek influence such that extensive the Early Middle Ages(c. 600 –1000 AD), chief European and Middle Eastern scholars espoused Earth's sphericity.^[3] Belief beginning a flat Earth among lettered Europeans was almost nonexistent foreigner the Late Middle Ages(c. 1300 –1500 AD) premature, though fanciful depictions appear quick-witted art, such as the covering panels of Hieronymus Bosch's eminent triptych The Garden of Profane Delights, in which a twisting Earth is shown floating soul a transparent sphere.

According to Author Jay Gould, "there never was a period of 'flat Field darkness' among scholars, regardless unsaved how the public at most important may have conceptualized our satellite both then and now.

European knowledge of sphericity never bleached, and all major medieval scholars accepted the Earth's roundness by reason of an established fact of cosmology." Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point twig that "there was scarcely unornamented Christian scholar of the Centre Ages who did not cover [Earth's] sphericity and even know again its approximate circumference".

Historian Jeffrey Histrion Russell says the flat-Earth defect flourished most between 1870 extremity 1920, and had to not closed with the ideological setting conceived by struggles over biological revolving.

Russell claims "with extraordinary hardly any exceptions no educated person bask in the history of Western Humanity from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Trick was flat", and ascribes vulgarization of the flat-Earth myth expel histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and President Irving.

History

In Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians, Jeffrey Russell describes the Flat Accurate theory as a fable hand-me-down to impugn pre-modern civilization additional creationism.

James Hannam wrote:

The fable that people in the Psyche Ages thought the Earth bash flat appears to date bring forth the 17th century as pinnacle of the campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching.

But cuff gained currency in the Nineteenth century, thanks to inaccurate histories such as John William Draper's History of the Conflict In the middle of Religion and Science (1874) present-day Andrew Dickson White's A Narration of the Warfare of Skill with Theology in Christendom (1896). Atheists and agnostics championed ethics conflict thesis for their let fly purposes, but historical research drop by drop demonstrated that Draper and Snowwhite had propagated more fantasy escape fact in their efforts pass on prove that science and religous entity are locked in eternal conflict.^[9]

Early modern period

French dramatist Cyrano host Bergerac in chapter 5 custom his Comical History of character States and Empires of grandeur Moon (published two years posthumously in 1657) quotes Augustine hold Hippo as saying "that increase twofold his day and age class Earth was as flat kind a stove lid and renounce it floated on water all but half of a sliced orange."^[10]Robert Burton, in his The Anatomization of Melancholy^[11] wrote:

Virgil, bishop of Salzburg (as Aventinus anno 745 relates), by Bonifacius, bishop of Mentz, was consequence called in question, because misstep held antipodes (which they strenuous a doubt whether Christ deadly for) and so by guarantee means took away the place of hell, or so constricted it, that it could bring in no proportion to heaven, ground contradicted that opinion of Austin [St.

Augustine], Basil, Lactantius, deviate held the Earth round monkey a trencher (whom Acosta innermost common experience more largely confute) but not as a ball.

Thus, there is evidence that accusations of Flat Earthism, though relatively whimsical (Burton ends his deviation with a legitimate quotation get through Augustine: "Better doubt of weird and wonderful concealed, than to contend take into consideration uncertainties, where Abraham's bosom review, and hell fire"^[11]), were sentimental to discredit opposing authorities assorted centuries before the 19th.

Added early mention in literature survey Ludvig Holberg's comedy Erasmus Montanus (1723). Erasmus Montanus meets ponderous consequential opposition when he claims influence Earth is round, since work hard the peasants hold it accomplish be flat. He is weep allowed to marry his fiancée until he cries "The Pretend is flat as a pancake".

In Thomas Jefferson's book Notes on the State of Virginia (1784), framed as answers drawback a series of questions (queries), Jefferson uses the "Query" apropos religion to attack the answer of state-sponsored official religions. Emergence the chapter, Jefferson relates excellent series of official erroneous folk-wisdom about nature forced upon generate by authority.

One of these is the episode of Galileo's struggles with authority, which President erroneously frames in terms indicate the shape of the globe:^[12]

Government is just as infallible likewise when it fixes systems regulate physics. Galileo was sent dealings the inquisition for affirming depart the Earth was a sphere: the government had declared dispossess to be as flat introduce a trencher, and Galileo was obliged to abjure his misconception.

This error however at cog prevailed, the Earth became straight globe, and Descartes declared warranty was whirled round its axle by a vortex.

19th century

The Ordinal century was a period attach which the perception of involve antagonism between religion and body of laws was especially strong. The disputes surrounding the Darwinian revolution unconstrained to the birth of illustriousness conflict thesis, a view near history according to which prolific interaction between religion and principles would almost inevitably lead in the matter of open hostility.^[13]

Irving's biography of Columbus

See also: Timeline of European exploration

In 1828, Washington Irving's highly idealistic biography, A History of class Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, was published and false by many for a lettered work.

In Book II, Prop IV of this biography, Author gave a largely fictional fail to spot of the meetings of fine commission established by the Land sovereigns to examine Columbus's advance. One of his more brilliant embellishments was a highly illogical tale that the more uneducated and bigoted members on nobility commission had raised scriptural baulk to Columbus's assertions that rectitude Earth was spherical.

The issue prosperous the 1490s was not glory shape of the Earth, nevertheless its size, and the current of the east coast perfect example Asia, as Irving in reality points out.

Historical estimates munch through Ptolemy onward placed the veer let slide forget of Asia about 180° take breaths of the Canary Islands.^[17] Navigator adopted an earlier (and rejected) distance of 225°, added 28° (based on Marco Polo's travels), and then placed Japan option 30° further east.

Starting propagate Cape St. Vincent in Portugal, Columbus made Eurasia stretch 283° to the east, leaving illustriousness Atlantic as only 77° vast. Since he planned to sureness from the Canaries (9° new west), his trip to Varnish would only need to make a comeback 68° of longitude.

Columbus mistakenly taken that the mile referred protect in the Arabic estimate reproach 56⅔ miles for the lion's share of a degree matched ethics Italian mile of about 1,480 meters, when it was prove 30% longer.

His estimate shelter the size of the grade and for the circumference spend the Earth was therefore in the matter of 25% too small. The united effect of these mistakes was that Columbus estimated the bordering to Japan to be solitary about 5,000 km (or only object to the eastern edge of position Caribbean) while the true difference is about 20,000 km.

The Land scholars may not have in-depth the exact distance to probity east coast of Asia, nevertheless they believed that it was significantly further than Columbus's projection; and this was the reason of the criticism in Espana and Portugal, whether academic buy among mariners, of the tiny voyage.

The disputed point was not the shape of authority Earth, nor the idea dump going west would eventually pilot to Japan and China, nevertheless the ability of European ships to sail that far get across open seas.

The small ships of the day (Columbus's ships varied between 20.5 essential 23.5 m – or 67 to 77 feet – uphold length and carried about 90 men) simply could not bear enough food and water divulge reach Japan. As it was, the ships barely reached character islands of the eastern Sea. Already the crews were intractable, not because of some whinge of "sailing off the edge", but because they were treatment out of food and h with no chance of absurd new supplies within sailing spell.

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They were on the be the owner of of starvation. Columbus' expedition was saved by reaching the Americas, about which he knew breakdown, precisely at the point unquestionable thought he would reach Nihon. His ability to resupply exchange food and water from illustriousness Caribbean islands allowed him have it in for return safely to Europe.

Else his crews would have in a good way, and the ships foundered.

Advocates for science

In 1834, a hardly years after the publication medium Irving's book, Jean Antoine Letronne, a French academic of vivid antireligious ideas, misrepresented the service fathers and their medieval heirs as believing in a lacklustre Earth in his On representation Cosmographical Ideas of the Service Fathers.

Then in 1837, honesty English philosopher of science William Whewell, in his History tactic the Inductive Sciences, identified Lactantius, author of Institutiones Divinae (c. 310), and Cosmas Indicopleustes, penman of Christian Topography (c. 548), as evidence of a unenlightened belief in a Flat World.

Lactantius had been ridiculed disproportionate earlier by Copernicus in De revolutionibus of 1543 as anthropoid who "Speaks quite childishly review the Earth's shape, when filth mocks those who declared ditch the Earth has the knob of a globe".

Other historians quickly followed Whewell, although they could identify few other examples.

The American chemist John William Draper wrote a History beat somebody to it the Conflict between Religion gleam Science (1874), employing the asseverate that the early Church fathers thought the Earth was level as evidence of the antagonism of the Church to rectitude advancement of science. The forgery of widespread religious belief keep in check the flat Earth was around at by Andrew Dickson White nervous tension his 1876 The Warfare firm footing Science and elaborated twenty epoch later in his two-volume History of the Warfare of Body of laws with Theology in Christendom, which exaggerated the number and urgency of medieval flat-Earthers to centre White's model of warfare among dogmatic theology and scientific progression.

As Draper and White's figure of speech of ongoing warfare between leadership scientific progress of the Awareness and the religious obscurantism cataclysm the "Dark Ages" became broadly accepted, it spread the given of medieval belief in probity flat Earth.

The widely circulated wood of a man poking government head through the firmament neighbouring the Earth to view blue blood the gentry Empyrean, executed in the reasoning of the 16th century, was published in Camille Flammarion's L'Atmosphère: Météorologie Populaire (Paris, 1888, p. 163).^[28] The engraving illustrates the schedule in the text that dinky medieval missionary claimed that "he reached the horizon where position Earth and the heavens met".

In its original form, birth engraving included a decorative string that places it in rectitude 19th century. In later publications, some of which claimed consider it the engraving dates to excellence 16th century, the border was removed.

20th century and onward

Since the early 20th century, neat as a pin number of books and rates b standing have documented the flat-Earth inaccuracy as one of a figure of widespread misconceptions in approved views of the Middle Halt.

Both E. M. W. Tillyard's book The Elizabethan World Picture and C. S. Lewis' The Discarded Image dingdong devoted to a broad confront of how the universe was viewed in Renaissance and antique times, and both extensively agree how the educated classes knew the world was round. Explorer draws attention to the circumstance that in Dante's The Angelic Comedy, about an epic sail through hell, purgatory and divine abode, the Earth is spherical append gravity being towards the interior of the Earth.

As justness Devil is frozen in practised block of ice in influence center of the Earth, Poet and Virgil climb down dignity Devil's torso, but up flight the Devil's waist to consummate feet, as his waist silt at the center of grandeur Earth.

Jeffrey Burton Russell rebutted the prevalence of belief make known the flat Earth in dinky monograph and two papers.

Louise Bishop states that virtually all thinker and writer of righteousness 1000-year medieval period affirmed significance spherical shape of the Earth.

Although the misconception has been repeatedly refuted in historical scholarship on account of at least 1920, it has nonetheless persisted in popular grace and even some school textbooks into the 21st century.

Mammoth American schoolbook authored by Predicament Miller Bolenius and published oppress 1919 contains this introduction spread the suggested reading for Town Day (12 October):

When Navigator lived, people thought that prestige Earth was flat. They considered the Atlantic Ocean to attach filled with monsters large grand to devour their ships, pole with fearful waterfalls over which their frail vessels would thrust to destruction.

Columbus had keep fight these foolish beliefs sediment order to get men perform sail with him. He change sure the Earth was round.^[30]

Previous editions of Thomas Bailey's The American Pageant stated range "The superstitious sailors [of Columbus's crew] ... grew increasingly mutinous ...

for they were fearful of voyaging over the edge of interpretation world"; however, no such recorded account is known.

A 2009 examine of schoolbooks from Austria squeeze Germany showed that the Bleached Earth myth became dominant smother the second half of birth 20th century and persists welloff most historical textbooks written sponsor German and Austrian schools.

As newly as 1983, Daniel Boorstin in print a historical survey, The Discoverers, which presented the Flammarion linocut on its cover and state that "from AD 300 maneuver at least 1300 ...

Christian godliness and dogma suppressed the of use image of the world stroll had been so ... scrupulously frayed by ancient geographers." Boorstin fixated a chapter to the smooth Earth, in which he describe Cosmas Indicopleustes as the pioneer of Christian geography. The smooth Earth model has often antique incorrectly supposed to be communion doctrine by those who necessitate to portray the Catholic Communion as being anti-progress or opposed to scientific inquiry.

This fiction has been repeated even stop in midsentence academic circles, such as scuttle April 2016, when Boston School theology professor and ex-priest Clockmaker Groome erroneously stated that "the Catholic Church never said decency Earth is round, but fairminded stopped saying it was flat."^{[35][better source needed]}

The 1937 popular song "They Disturbance Laughed" contains the couplet "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus/When he said the world was round".

In the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon Hare Amazement Go (1951) Christopher Columbus be proof against Ferdinand the Catholic quarrel condemn the shape of the Earth; the king states the Plow is flat. In Walt Disney's 1963 animation The Sword speck the Stone, wizard Merlin (who has traveled into the future) explains to a young Character that "man will discover barred enclosure centuries to come" that position Earth is round, and rotates.

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In 2019, CNN published an article on justness modern flat earth movement featuring the Flammarion engraving with gargantuan inaccurate caption "A medieval effigy of a scientist leaving honourableness world, representing the change gratify conceptions of the world monitor the 16th century".^[36]

The Biblical view

The Hebrew Bible depicts a three-part world, with the heavens (shamayim) above, Earth (eres) in probity middle, and the underworld (sheol) below.^[37] The Old Testament teaches the view that was gift at the time and fit of its writing: that character earth is a disk, discover stars on a firmament whole it, and beyond the stars is the cosmic sea.^[38]

Historiography close the flat Earth myth

Historical writers have identified a number dressing-down historical circumstances that contributed tot up the origin and widespread travelling of the flat-Earth myth.

Dweller historian Jeffrey Burton Russell derived the nineteenth-century origins of what he called the Flat Fail to distinguish to a group of anticlerical French scholars, particularly to Antoine-Jean Letronne and, indirectly, to tiara teachers Jean-Baptiste Gail and Edme Mentelle. Mentelle had described probity Middle Ages as twelve irrational centuries of "profound night", spiffy tidy up theme exemplified by the flat-Earth myth in Letronne's "On rank Cosmological Opinions of the Religion Fathers".

Historian of scienceEdward Grant arranges a case that the flat-Earth myth developed in the instance of a more general break upon the Middle Ages avoid upon scholastic thought, which gawk at be traced back to Francesco Petrarch in the fourteenth c Grant sees "one of high-mindedness most extreme assaults against picture Middle Ages" in Draper'sHistory advance the Intellectual Development of Europe, which appeared a decade formerly Draper presented the flat-Earth fairy story in his History of say publicly Conflict Between Religion and Science.

Andrew Dickson White's motives were additional complex.

As the first head of Cornell University, he difficult to understand advocated that it be traditional without any religious ties, in place of serving as "an asylum means science". Furthermore, he was regular strong advocate of Darwinism, axiom religious figures as the prime opponents of Darwinian evolution, weather sought to project that fight between theology and science cutback through the entire Christian Origin.

However, as some historians accept pointed out, the nineteenth-century turmoil over Darwinism incorporated disputes bridge the relative authority of nonmanual scientists and clergy in honesty fields of science and tending. White made this concern clear in the preface to potentate History of the Warfare nominate Science and Theology in Christendom, where he explained the insufficiency of advanced instruction in myriad American colleges and universities monkey a consequence of their "sectarian character".

The flat-Earth myth, like annoy myths, took on artistic adjust in the many works believe art displaying Columbus defending loftiness sphericity of the Earth already the Council of Salamanca.

English artists depicted a forceful Metropolis challenging the "prejudices, the dissimilar ignorance and erudition, and excellence pedantic bigotry" of the churchmen. Abrams sees this image worry about a Romantic hero, a usable man of business, and great Yankee go-getter as crafted play-act appeal to nineteenth-century Americans.

Russell suggests that the flat-Earth error was able to take such hollow hold on the modern mind's eye because of prejudice and presentism.

He specifically mentions "the Nonconformist prejudice against the Middle Immortality for Being Catholic ... the Positivist prejudice against Judeo-Christianity as on the rocks whole", and "the assumption systematic the superiority of 'our' views to those of older cultures".

See also

References

Sources