By “medieval people” both of these may be true at the same time.
Most people were peasants in medieval Europe.
The educated people never forgot that the Earth was round, but the education did not extend to most of the population.
Parzival_2k7 on
Only the people who had no education thought it was flat, just like today except those people weren’t so smug back then
Efficient-Orchid-594 on
Even if they thought that you can’t blame them , like imagine you wake up in a strange place at, below is ground and above sky and now you don’t have any method or tool to know where you are , you will naturally think the place you are flat .
It’s like people thousands years later making fun of us for not believing in super multi verse or something
Fragrant-Pin3262 on
Most of the people most of the time since the beginning of the universe believed the earth was flat, including in medieval times when only a tiny fraction of the people could afford studying in a European university. Most of them studied theology.
Lord_Eln_8 on
Bruh we’ve been figuring out the earth was round since Ancient Egypt
Archaon0103 on
Do we count Chinese or anyone outside Europe? Like there were a lot of culture still believe that the Earth was flat during the medieval time like the Chinese.
Sylassian on
Educated people knew it was round. Europeans, Arabs, the Chinese, all had that shit figured out. Uneducated people mostly just didn’t care. The shape of the world didn’t mean much to most people back then.
Eric_Atreides on
“Flat earth” it’s exclusive to stupid people
Linscotticus on
Washington Irving wasn’t a historian, but hes held as such.
Inferno-Giratina on
Now if you said the earth wasn’t in the center of the universe on the other hand…
Z3t4 on
So the three people which had high education knew better. Go figure…
PanHiszpan on
No, they thought Earth was the centre of the universe and burned people who disagreed xD
GoonerBoomer69 on
It’s kind of foolish to just take ”medieval people” and make assumptions of what they as a collective know and don’t know, since that’s not how humans work. It’s like if future people said ”people in the 21st century knew how quantum physics work”, when in fact most people have no fucking clue about that.
Any relevant discussion should be about who knew what and when, and in this question the answer to those questions is ”educated people knew since education was a thing” and that is true to the modern day.
insertnamehere----- on
Flat earth was disproved a long time ago, but the theory that the earth was the center of the universe was a lot more heavily engrained. The guy that discovered heliocentricsm ( the sun in the center of the solar system) was forced into hiding by the church for proposing the theory.
FeijoaCowboy on
“Every one agrees that it has the most perfect figure. We always speak of the ball of the earth, and we admit it to be a globe bounded by the poles…
On this point there is a great contest between the learned and the vulgar. We maintain, that there are men dispersed over every part of the earth, that they stand with their feet turned towards each other, that the vault of the heavens appears alike to all of them, and that they, all of them, appear to tread equally on the middle of the earth. If any one should ask, why those situated opposite to us do not fall, we directly ask in return, whether those on the opposite side do not wonder that we do not fall.
…It is from the same cause that the land is not visible from the body of a ship when it may be seen from the mast; and that when a vessel is receding, if any bright object be fixed to the mast, it seems gradually to descend and finally to become invisible. And the ocean, which we admit to be without limits, if it had any other figure, could it cohere and exist without falling, there being no external margin to contain it? And the same wonder still recurs, how is it that the extreme parts of the sea, although it be in the form of a globe, do not fall down?”
16 Comments
By “medieval people” both of these may be true at the same time.
Most people were peasants in medieval Europe.
The educated people never forgot that the Earth was round, but the education did not extend to most of the population.
Only the people who had no education thought it was flat, just like today except those people weren’t so smug back then
Even if they thought that you can’t blame them , like imagine you wake up in a strange place at, below is ground and above sky and now you don’t have any method or tool to know where you are , you will naturally think the place you are flat .
It’s like people thousands years later making fun of us for not believing in super multi verse or something
Most of the people most of the time since the beginning of the universe believed the earth was flat, including in medieval times when only a tiny fraction of the people could afford studying in a European university. Most of them studied theology.
Bruh we’ve been figuring out the earth was round since Ancient Egypt
Do we count Chinese or anyone outside Europe? Like there were a lot of culture still believe that the Earth was flat during the medieval time like the Chinese.
Educated people knew it was round. Europeans, Arabs, the Chinese, all had that shit figured out. Uneducated people mostly just didn’t care. The shape of the world didn’t mean much to most people back then.
“Flat earth” it’s exclusive to stupid people
Washington Irving wasn’t a historian, but hes held as such.
Now if you said the earth wasn’t in the center of the universe on the other hand…
So the three people which had high education knew better. Go figure…
No, they thought Earth was the centre of the universe and burned people who disagreed xD
It’s kind of foolish to just take ”medieval people” and make assumptions of what they as a collective know and don’t know, since that’s not how humans work. It’s like if future people said ”people in the 21st century knew how quantum physics work”, when in fact most people have no fucking clue about that.
Any relevant discussion should be about who knew what and when, and in this question the answer to those questions is ”educated people knew since education was a thing” and that is true to the modern day.
Flat earth was disproved a long time ago, but the theory that the earth was the center of the universe was a lot more heavily engrained. The guy that discovered heliocentricsm ( the sun in the center of the solar system) was forced into hiding by the church for proposing the theory.
“Every one agrees that it has the most perfect figure. We always speak of the ball of the earth, and we admit it to be a globe bounded by the poles…
On this point there is a great contest between the learned and the vulgar. We maintain, that there are men dispersed over every part of the earth, that they stand with their feet turned towards each other, that the vault of the heavens appears alike to all of them, and that they, all of them, appear to tread equally on the middle of the earth. If any one should ask, why those situated opposite to us do not fall, we directly ask in return, whether those on the opposite side do not wonder that we do not fall.
…It is from the same cause that the land is not visible from the body of a ship when it may be seen from the mast; and that when a vessel is receding, if any bright object be fixed to the mast, it seems gradually to descend and finally to become invisible. And the ocean, which we admit to be without limits, if it had any other figure, could it cohere and exist without falling, there being no external margin to contain it? And the same wonder still recurs, how is it that the extreme parts of the sea, although it be in the form of a globe, do not fall down?”
— Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, 77 AD.
‘Meanwhile’ lol buddy