Flattening the Earth

Mercury, September/October 2002 Table of Contents

Courtesy of Giraudon/Art Resource, New York.

by Jeffrey Burton Russell

Contrary to popular folklore, medieval Europeans knew Earth was a sphere, and with the notable exception of Christopher Columbus, most had a pretty good idea of its true size.

One of the few things that everybody "knows" about medieval Europe is that people thought Earth was flat. The cliché that "Columbus discovered that Earth is round" is taught so frequently in American grade schools that it has become ingrained in our consciousness.

But for nearly 80 years historians have demonstrated that medieval Europeans knew Earth to be spherical. In fact, virtually no educated person in the Middle Ages (roughly defined as 500-1500 A.D.) believed Earth was flat. The evidence is as overwhelming as historical evidence can be. German historian Reinhard Krueger and other modern scholars have identified about a hundred medieval writings dealing with Earth's shape. Five seem to assert flatness, and two are ambiguous. The rest take the globe for granted. The Columbus cliché is a Flat Error popularized by the American writer Washington Irving.

Some uneducated medieval Europeans may have assumed a flat Earth, if they thought about it at all. Since almost all uneducated Europeans in the Middle Ages lived restricted lives in small regions, they could have had little interest in geography. But a reasonable number of medieval Europeans were educated, literate, and numerate. Many had a passing knowledge of astronomy (not astrology) and logic, which were taught in the schools.

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