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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flat Earth | 5/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:19:56.188495+00:00 | kb-cron |
Some authorities have suggested that the sphericity of the Earth was among the aspects of Vergilius's teachings that Boniface and Zachary considered objectionable. Others have considered this unlikely, and take the wording of Zachary's response to indicate at most an objection to belief in the existence of humans living in the antipodes. In any case, there is no record of any further action having been taken against Vergilius. He was later appointed bishop of Salzburg and was canonised in the 13th century.
A possible non-literary but graphic indication that people in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth (or perhaps the world) was a sphere is the use of the orb (globus cruciger) in the regalia of many kingdoms and of the Holy Roman Empire. It is attested from the time of the Christian late-Roman emperor Theodosius II (423) throughout the Middle Ages and in western Europe, the use of a physical orb is attested since at least the time of Emperor Henry II (d. 1024). A contemporary chronicler describes the imperial orb given to Henry II by Pope Benedict VIII as shaped like a golden apple surmounted by a cross and representing the earth with its rotundity. Such a Reichsapfel was likewise used in 1191 at the coronation of emperor Henry VI. There is, however, no record of a cartographical globe in the Middle Ages before the Erdapfel of Martin Behaim from 1492. Additionally the imperial orb could also represent of the entire "world" or cosmos. A recent study of medieval concepts of the sphericity of the Earth noted that "after the eighth century the Globe became part of the world picture of medieval Christians without much more debate." From the ninth century, we likewise find discussion of Eratosthenes' method for calculating the sphericality of the earth in Carolingian commentaries on Martianus Capella. By the turn of the eleventh century, Hermann of Reichenau (1013–1054) includes a new method for replicating Eratosthenes' measurement using an astrolabe. For the wider population, however, it is difficult to say what they may have thought of the shape of the Earth if they considered the question at all.
==== Europe: High and Late Middle Ages ====
The approximate sphericality of the Earth was universally accepted among scholastic authors of the High and Late Middle Ages. Evidence of its sphericality was discussed in standard university textbooks like John of Sacrobosco's On the Sphere of the World and flat earth theories played no role in discussions of the Earth's shape at medieval universities. The commonplace nature of this knowledge is illustrated by the highly influential theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), who uses it as an example of a fact that can be proved by two different sciences.
Jill Tattersall shows that in many vernacular works in 12th- and 13th-century French texts the Earth was considered "round like a table" rather than "round like an apple". She writes, "[I]n virtually all the examples quoted ... from epics and from non-'historical' romances (that is, works of a less learned character) the actual form of words used suggests strongly a circle rather than a sphere", though she notes that even in these works the language is ambiguous. Portuguese navigation down and around the coast of Africa in the latter half of the 1400s gave wide-scale observational evidence for Earth's sphericity. In these explorations, the Sun's position moved more northward the further south the explorers travelled. Its position directly overhead at noon gave evidence for crossing the equator. These apparent solar motions in detail were more consistent with north–south curvature and a distant Sun, than with any flat-Earth explanation. The ultimate demonstration came when Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the first global circumnavigation in 1521. Antonio Pigafetta, one of the few survivors of the voyage, recorded the loss of a day in the course of the voyage, giving evidence for east–west curvature.
==== Middle East: Islamic scholars ====
Prior to the introduction of Greek cosmology into the Islamic world, Muslims tended to view the Earth as flat, and Muslim traditionalists who rejected Greek philosophy continued to hold to this view later on while various theologians held opposing opinions. Beginning in the 10th century onwards, some Muslim traditionalists began to adopt the notion of a spherical Earth with the influence of Greek and Ptolemaic cosmology. In Quranic cosmology, the Earth (al-arḍ) was "spread out." Whether or not this implies a flat Earth was debated by Muslims. Some modern historians believe the Quran saw the world as flat. On the other hand, the 12th-century commentary, the Tafsir al-Kabir (al-Razi) by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi argues that though this verse does describe a flat surface, it is limited in its application to local regions of the Earth which are roughly flat as opposed to the Earth as a whole. Others who would support a ball-shaped Earth included Ibn Hazm.
==== Ming Dynasty in China ==== A spherical terrestrial globe was introduced to Yuan-era Khanbaliq (i.e. Beijing) in 1267 by the Persian astronomer Jamal ad-Din, but it is not known to have made an impact on the traditional Chinese conception of the shape of the Earth. As late as 1595, an early Jesuit missionary to China, Matteo Ricci, recorded that the Ming-dynasty Chinese say: "The Earth is flat and square, and the sky is a round canopy; they did not succeed in conceiving the possibility of the antipodes." In the 17th century, the idea of a spherical Earth spread in China due to the influence of the Jesuits, who held high positions as astronomers at the imperial court. Matteo Ricci, in collaboration with Chinese cartographers and translator Li Zhizao, published the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu in 1602, the first Chinese world map based on European discoveries. The astronomical and geographical treatise Gezhicao (格致草) written in 1648 by Xiong Mingyu (熊明遇) explained that the Earth was spherical, not flat or square, and could be circumnavigated.
=== Myth of flat-Earth prevalence ===