Certain fanatics also thought the earth was flat from a biblical literalist position, largely derived from Christian scholars of Late Antiquity who considered a spherical earth to be a ‘pagan’ position. But it’s true that no credible scholar in the high medieval period, secular or religious, would’ve been able to get away with pronouncing a belief in a flat earth.
Even in Late Antiquity and early Middle Ages, spherical Earth was the consensus among Christian scholars, even if the flat Earth idea did made a come back at these times.
Every sailor that ever sailed knew there was a curvature to the earth and the only possible explanation was it was round
Also Columbus didn’t set out to prove the earth is a sphere but to prove it is much smaller than thought. He was wrong, the Americas saved his ass.
I thought it was just that he thought it was smaller than it is and he wanted to find another route to India by going west instead of east. Not that he wanted to prove that the earth is smaller.
Eh, that’s pretty much the same thing
Send a boat out to sea and the hull disappears from sight before the sails. At the very least they knew it was curved.
(A 16th century illustration in a 13th century book.)
Proof Australia is upside down?
Source?
Johannes de Sacrobosco, De Sphæra Mundi
Gorgeous
deleted by creator
Dome earth >:(
Is this a real argument by flat-earthers?
“They got it wrong hundreds of years ago, so I want to get it wrong in the 21st century, too!”
A lot of people currently believe that people of Columbus’ time believed he risked sailing off the edge of the earth.
I wouldnt doubt this was true. Peasant farmers and university educated elites often believe different things
No, the point of the meme is to contradict people who think that people in the middle ages were stupid.
These two panels are happening at the same time due to “meanwhile”
the elites at medieval institutions of learning are not the same as the peasants who can’t read.
I’m willing to bet that there’s going to be all sorts of shit thrown at the late 20th/early21st century about how we are anti-vaxxers and didn’t believe in global warming
Books of you to assume that there will be a future
i ain’t’nt ded yet
The earth is flat because it has no tits.
Earth is lopsided. Only has one big tiddy
Very small nipple at best. Using wolfram alpha it gave me: 0.85 cm / (8.849 km / 12742.018 km) ≈ 12 m for length of nipple / (height of tallest mountain / diameter of earth). Mount Everest is to the diameter of earth what the average nipple is to a chest with a depth of 12 meter (40+ feet).
According to https://www.engineersedge.com/calculators/human_body_dimensions_typical_16424.htm the average chest depth is about 24 cm. Mount Everest is a nipple 1/50th of average size.
the earth is flat because we hit a nail and can’t stay inflated
Then, just like now, the generally accepted view of anything isn’t based on the absolute state of human knowledge, but on the state of mass education.
It’s true, and we don’t have a lot of sources to infer what the commoner knew. But when a scientific fact is a consensus among scholars, even if literacy is low, it finishes in the mind of the whole population. In the 13th century, the roundness of Earth was a consensus for more than 1000 years… it’s safe to assume that it was known by almost everyone. Moreover priests, even low profile priests, received at least a basic education, and they would know that the Earth was round, and they would spread that knowledge.
Doesn’t Aristotle predate medieval times?
We are closer to the medieval age than the medieval age is to Aristotle.
No, they didn’t.
Earth shape has been known at least since the classic Greek times, and probably even before that in non-western civilizations.
The rough shape has been known for some 3000 years before the classic Greek times.
But I don’t know how the precision evolved. I know the Greek measured it to some 5% precision.
