Flat Earth Myth - More Bogus History

Creating  Bogus  History
 

Although the Flat Earth theory is a different subject it has certain parallels to Dan Brown’s book in how the truth can be totally misrepresented. A popular story teller, in this case Washington Irvin (1783-1859), created his own “truth” to make his story more interesting.  In this case, his fictionalized history later became accepted as a “Fact.”

Partly due to his influence as well as others, it is now often presupposed that the Medieval Times were the  “Dark Ages”  and that the Catholic Church suppressed intellectual thought and the sciences. For example, Washington Irving portrayed Christopher Columbus as a simple mariner who had to confront the oppressive hooded Spanish inquisitors of his time.

According to Irving, Columbus had to convince Queen Isabella to go against her religious advisors who, supposedly, thought he would fall of the edge as he sailed into the West because the earth is flat. 

This perception that most all of Europe believed that the Earth was flat is totally erroneous.  Almost everyone in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was spherical in shape. 

This “Flat Earth” theory was simultaneously established by Washington Irving and a Frenchman, Antoine-Jean Letronne (1787-1848), who had strong antireligious prejudices. 

In 1828 Washington Irving published his book, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus.

However, before the 1828 no one believed in this myth that the Europeans believed the earth was flat.    

This theory was enabled to grow in part by the ideas advanced by Auguste Compte (1798-1857).  He developed the idea of positivism and the concept of progress, step by step, from superstition to science. 

In 1896 Andrew Dickson White, the founder of Cornell University, wrote his “History of the warfare of science with theology in Christendom.” He further advanced this Flat Earth theory.  He depicted religion as something that needed to be swept away to make room for “real” science.   

Andrew Dickson White promotes this ludicrous falling-off-the-edge theory, which had no basis in fact whatsoever, with his following statement:

“Many a bold navigator who was quite ready to brave pirates and tempests, trembled at the thought of tumbling with his ship into one of the openings into hell which a widespread belief placed in the Atlantic at some unknown distance from Europe. This terror among sailors was one of the main obstacles in the great voyage of Columbus.”

By the end of the 1800’s  and onward to just recently, practically all secondary school text books erroneously promoted this myth that those in the Medieval Ages believed the earth was flat.

However, even before Columbus most everyone in the Church believed that the earth was globe shaped. Sailors knew that a person positioned in a “crow’s nest” would have a better perspective due to the earth’s curvature. Even Dante’s Divine Comedy portrays Earth as a sphere.  And it was written between 1306-1321 AD.  Clement, Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, Isodore, Venerable Bede, Albertus Magnus and Aquinas all acknowledged the earth as spherical.

Jeffrey Burton Russell exposed this myth in his book, Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians (New York: Praeger, 1991). He explains:

“If Christians had for centuries insisted that the earth was flat against clear and available evidence,” explains Russell, “they must be not only enemies of scientific truth, but contemptible and pitiful enemies.”

And thus, a person can perceive the possible motivations that a person might have for wanting to invent or promote this “Flat Earth Myth.”

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Spherical  Evidence

The graphic below is located in the
Basilica Patriarchale di S. Lorenzo Fuori le Mura 
(Patriarchal Basilica of St. Lawrence Outside the Walls of Rome).

More recent images of Christ and the spherical globes, orbs.

The Orb, Scepter and Crown, - 10th Century -
insignia of the Holy Roman Empire
These precious objects, dating from Otto I.

Although these globes probably represent the whole cosmos rather than the earth they were conducive to promoting the concept of a spherical earth as well.  It can be proven that by as early as the 13th century that even the common man knew the earth was spherical.

For example, Bertold von Regensburg used the concept of a spherical earth to make a point in one of his homilies in the mid-13th Century. The fact that his homily was in the vernacular, that is German and not in the scholarly language of Latin, demonstrates that it was intended for the common man. Therefore, Regensburg must have been able to assume the common man knew the earth was spherical.

The Catholic Church had a keen interest in studying all of the sciences because of the belief that God created the world good.  Cf. Genesis. The study of time was especially useful in determining when to celebrate religious feasts such as Easter.

Venerable Bede was born in about 673 AD.  He wrote his treatise On the Reckoning of Time …  in 725 AD.  Bede explains that the different lengths of the days and nights and the variation of the lengths of shadows are caused by the globular shape of the earth.  Thus, this manuscript – the image of which can be seen at the link below – proves the absurdity of this Flat Earth theory and how some histories totally mischaracterize what really happened.

Venerable Bede - No Flat Earth

Bede’s Work - Graphics
 

Bede's : On the Reckoning of Time ...
folio  35r: