What if the Earth is the Sphere?

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What If the Earth is the Sphere?

“Thus when the God, whatever God was he,

Had form’d the whole and made the parts agree,

That no unequal portion might be found,

He moulded Earth into a spacious round."

-Ovid. “Metamorphoses” (1)

The term “geography” was not fluent on the lips of MedievalLatin scholars. The subject was neither treated as part oflegitimate “liberal arts” nor was included into a universitycurriculum. It was merely tolerated as a handmaid of the scientificmainstream i.e. a section of Astronomy, Mathematics, Physics, orother “noble” branches of learning.

The geographical ideas of the Middle Ages were sown in AncientGreece. By defending and also perfecting these old-fashioned andoften deeply erroneous concepts, many western scholars blindlyfollowed the path of “universal wisdom” pouring the old wine intonew wineskins.

However, some of classical conceptions were utterly safe andsound. Greek scholars made the world familiar with such “crazy”ideas as the spherical earth, the system of coordinates, the size ofthe ecumene, and the prospect of the voyage around the globe. Wewill see how these topics kept on stirring the western science overa thousand years after they had been initially articulated.

As their classical mentors, Latin disciples almost unanimouslyheld the image of the spherical earth. They perceived our planet asa tiny eyeball inside an enormous socket of the heaven; this“eyeball” was surrounded by a number of concentric circles whichwere the orbits of the revolving planets.

Astronomers of the Latin West viewed the earth as a pivot forthe rotating universe whose seven planets (2) were spinning roundthe immovable center, a fixed globe embraced by water and shroudedby air. Each of these celestial bodies followed its private circularorbit and was revolving at its own pace. In a renowned illustrationto a Latin poem, Vox Clamantis ("The voice of the one crying out"),

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its author, John Gower, is shown shooting arrows at the sinfulworld. The poet literally blasts humankind for their wickedness. TheEarth is fashioned as a sphere with compartments for air, earth, andwater. (3)

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This image of the spherical earth would not surprise anextraterrestrial onlooker, for whom the convexity of our planetshould be an established fact. However, all human observers wereinsiders and based their assumptions on circumstantial evidence suchas…

Table 1. The evidence for the spherical earth

1. The circle is the ideal geometric shape that any objecttends to take; it is true both for the universe as a wholeand for its terrestrial center in particular.

2. The earth as the heaviest element of the universe tends tofall towards the center by the gravity forces andaccumulates there as a circle.

3. Asynchronous observation of heavenly events such aselevations of certain stars and constellations in differentparts of the world. (4)

4. The earth casts a circular shadow on the moon during thelunar eclipse.

5. Asynchronous sighting of land from the sea depending on theheight of an onlooker’s position: an observer atop of themast sees it sooner than the one on deck; the same refers tothe viewing of a ship departing into the open sea: its sailsdisappear later than the hull on account of water bulging.

6. The disappearance of even the highest mountains at acertain distance as a result of the earth bulge.

7. The horizon recedes at the pace of our advancement.

Medieval scholars not only supported the ancient teaching ofthe spherical earth; they excluded any other reasonable explanationof the above mentioned “proofs”. Listen how John of Hollywood, anauthor of “The Sphere”, a popular treatise of the thirteenth centurythat was studied in all European universities, hammers final nailsinto the coffin of a passing doctrine of a flat earth: “If the earthwere flat from east to west, the stars would rise as soon forwesterners as for Orientals… If the world were flat from north tosouth… the stars that were always visible to anyone would continueto be so wherever he went”. (5)

In his great poetical vision included in the "Metamorphoses",Ovid disclosed the anonymous creator of the world as a diligentpotter who had fashioned his masterpiece into a huge orb. This

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attractive pagan outlook took fancy among outstanding Christianscholars who conceived the spherical earth as an apple, a ball, orthe yolk of an egg.

One of these authors, the Venerable Bede, who flourished inthe eighth century, explained that the days were unequal in lengthbecause of the roundness of the globe. “A sphere set in the middleof the whole universe”, he claimed, “is not merely circular like ashield … but resembled more a ball, being equally round in alldirections.” (6) The shape of the sphere should comply with itscentral position at the heart of the cosmos.

This controversy between two perceptions of the world-as acircle and as a sphere-is emphasized on the tiny Psalter world map,created in 1265, where Christ blesses the earth modeled as a wheelwhile in his left hand he is holding a red spherical object lookinglike a ball-the prototype of the terrestrial orb of lands and thesymbol of the royal power. (7)

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Another popular image was an apple. Gautier de Metz, in aFrench geographic poem L'Image du monde ("The Image of theWorld"),written in 1245, compared an explorer with a fly that couldstretch its wings in a constant motion around the globe: “a man cango around the world as a fly makes the tour of an apple.” (8) Herethe shape of our planet implies and even demands itscircumnavigation. This imaginary journey is often illustrated by animage of a pair of travelers who set off from the same spot movingin opposite directions along the sphere and inevitably meeting atthe antipodal point on the other side. If only a curious explorerknows how to navigate his route, he will never go astray. An authorand his readers hoped that one day this prophecy might come true.(9)

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Martin Behaim, who created the earliest known terrestrialglobe the same year as Christopher Columbus accidentally bridged thegap between the west and the east, called his masterpiece Erdaphel(German: “earth apple"). (10)

Jacob Perez de Valencia, a fifteenth century theologian,criticized these “old-fashioned” conceptions of the earth in favorof a more “progressive” view. He thought that the land occupied fargreater space than the water. However, according to the “perverted”outlook of his opponents, “the earth is like a light ball or like anapple in a basin full of water which only the top appears above the

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water.” (11) His opponents were die-hard “retrogrades” who imaginedthat most of the land was plunged into the Ocean leaving only thetop of the terrain to float like the tip of an iceberg.

Still another common image was an egg. An anonymous author,who wrote a scholar treatise "De elementis philosophiae" at the turnof the eleventh and the twelfth centuries, defined the earth as animmovable sphere placed in the center of the revolving universe. Hecompared the globe with an egg where the yolk signified the land,the white symbolized the ocean, and the shell indicated the air:“The earth is an element placed at the middle of the world…as theyolk is in the egg; about it there is water, as about the yolk thereis the white. About the water the air [is] like the skin containing…the white of the egg.” (12)

Medieval scholars never refused to build their arguments onthe old solid foundation. However, they didn’t cease to look for newevidence to confirm the universal truth of their beliefs. Theconcept of the immovable earth was based on the following “proof”:when an archer shoots his arrow directly upward, the projectile mayreturn very close to the place of projection (in case that an impactof wind is ignored). If the earth really rotated around its axis,they argued, it would deviate the arrow from its original positionin accordance with the rotation. The outcome was predetermined bythe conditions of the experiment.

(1) "Garth's Metamorphosis: A Modernized Online Edition ofthe 1717 Text", 1:40-43 at

http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/garth.html (2) Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Venus, the moon and sun.(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Clamantis#mediaviewer/

File:John_Gower_world_Vox_Clamantis.jpg(4) The nocturnal sky does not provide the identical

picture all over the world. Stars either change their angleof elevation or are replaced by completely differentconstellations.

(5) T. Lester, The Fourth Part of the World, p. 28. ProfileBooks, London, 2009.

(6) Bede, "The Reckoning of Time”, chapter II: 32, p. 91.Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 1999.

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(7) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Psalter_world_map#mediaviewer/File:Psalter_World_Map,_c.1265.jpg

(8) E.Weber, Traveling Through Text, p. 11. Routledge, NewYork, 2005.

(9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gossuin_de_Metz_-_L %27image_du_monde_-_BNF_Fr._574_fo42.jpg

(10) http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/LMwebpages/258.html (11) W. Haase and M. Reinhold, The Classical Tradition and

the Americas, p. 41. Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, 1993.(12) A. Newton, Travel and Travelers of the Middle Ages, p.

6. Routledge, London, 1996.