New blog post on Isidore of Seville and the earth's shape

[James Hannam]

After two and half years, I've done a new Blog post! This comes out of my upcoming book on the history of the concept of the Globe. In the blog, I suggest Isidore of Seville probably thought the earth was a flat disk along the lines of the pre-Aristotelian Greek worldview, but that he is also rather confused and confusing. The matter is controversial but I think those who say Isidore thought the earth was a sphere are projecting later views onto his work.

bedejournal.blogspot.com/2021/06/did-isidore-of-seville-think-earth-is.html

Best wishes

James

[alberto46]

Dear James,
I appreciate your text on Isidore because it is very well written and presents both sides of the issue but I disagree on the conclusion. You claim that Isidore was a flat-earther and still believed in climatic zones? It is never good to assume that our precursors were idiots. It is easier to assume that Isidore accurately avoided controversial statements exactly as other fathers of the church did before him. Moreover, the oikumene looks like as a flat disk when looked upon from the North Pole, as we often do in our geographic maps. Which is the problem of doing it from above Jerusalem?
All the best
Alberto

[James Hannam]

Hi Alberto,

Thanks for your response. I certainly don’t think Isidore was an idiot for believing the earth was flat. Back in his day, that was common sense. The globe is counter intuitive and not something that should be easy to accept. On the climatic zones, there is a diagram in Isidore’s De natura rerum showing these as five circles on a disk rather than bands on a globe.the diagrams are contemporary to Isidore which we know as Bede called it the Book of Wheels because of the circular pictures.

Best wishes

James

[okieinnormanok]

University Oklahoma Norman, professor Kerry Magruder made a planetarium show about the shape of the earth.
kerrysloft.com/history-of-science/shape-of-the-earth/
I retired in 2017 and was treated to a copy of "Inventing the flat earth Columbus and Modern Historians" by Jeffrey Burton Russell from Dr. Palmeri, ou historian science
I spent months tracing the references to the flat earth error from Boorstin's "The Discoverers".
Bizzell library had the flat error about middle ages in 1887 education book "Ten great Events in History" Appleton pub chapter V pp 117-144. on Columbus. Irving's Salamanca whopper in his biography about Columbus was corrected in Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus"
by Samuel Eliot Morison. I read a few references in Russell's Flat,
fathers to 1600 wider lists of persons believing sphericity, old fashioned, could be less critical in places.
MIDDLETON, THOMAS COOKE. “STATE OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE AT THE TIME OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, A. D. 1492.” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, vol. 17, no. 4, American Catholic Historical Society, 1906, pp. 399–433,
www.jstor.org/stable/44208925.

Greeks, Romans, Church Fathers, Isadore, Bede
Betten, Francis S. “The Knowledge of the Sphericity of the Earth during the Earlier Middle Ages.” The Catholic Historical Review, vol. 9, no. 1, Catholic University of America Press, 1923, pp. 74–90, www.jstor.org/stable/25011935.

uses a chatty, down to earth tone for common sense discussion of reasons high middle ages believed in Spherical earth; Dante's earth, Church Fathers, late antiquity, list of 500-1000 spherical
Jones, Charles W. (1934). The Flat Earth. Thought: Fordham University Quarterly 9 (2):296-307.

Church Fathers to 1600, more academic,
Taylor, E. G. R. “HISTORICAL REVISION: LXXXI.—Ideas of the Shape and Habitability of the Earth Prior to the Great Age of Discovery.” History, vol. 22, no. 85, Wiley, 1937, pp. 54–58, www.jstor.org/stable/24401036.

There are about 5 believers in flat earth 500-1800 AD +- a small number of church fathers, Lactantious had a bad reputation, not credible, Cosmas Indioplusious was poorly educated, not known in western latin west until renaissance or after.

How do you prove the middle ages didn't believe in flat earth? is it number of flat earthers or number of spherical earthers? if there are lots of spherical earthers at any given time how do you prove that the "dominant" culture were flat earthers?

Isadore flat error:
I can imagine the number of students learning latin in hispaniola could decline generation by generation to lower levels by 600 AD.
Bede was in a less violent historical bubble lasting 600-800 after which the Vikings destroyed most of UK. He was taught in monastery latin school and was a teacher in the same school. The Jarrow library size of a steamer trunk was around 200 manuscripts. The carolingian renaissance may have multiplied Jarrow monastery's achievement by ten fold, Allowed western europe's learning to get past maygars and vikings the next 2-3 centuries. Rise Cities, new universities, may have made sphericity close to invulnerable by 12nth, 13nth century.
Lots of sphericity believers in early sixth, Bede, and eight century, so if you allow Isadore believed flat earth, maybe the result later was still spherical. 2 and 3 dimensions are hard to parse in early middle age texts with no illustrations.

[James Hannam]

Thank you for your response.

I tend to agree that Bede put the matter beyond doubt as far as educated western Christians were concerned. He provided the evidence for the Globe and included it in a book about the dating of easter, that meant it was disseminated widely. As you say, the Carolingians spread his work even further as well as early Latin textbooks like Macrobius and Martianus Capella. I haven't found any sign of flat earth belief in the west after 800AD, but it lasted for much longer in the east, where Cosmas was influential.

I'm trying to finish off my book on the discovery and spread of the Globe, which covers many different civilisations.

Best wishes

James

PS: Have removed the spam.

[okieinnormanok]

James,

youtube channel "metatron" has addressed the flat earth error in www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocQ5p9m7KIU&t=793s
He is non-christian but I think the video shows he's interested in the middle ages as being bright. I annotated the video above but didn't email him directly. He has a video on extra-biblical references to Jesus but it seemed a little silly, so it might turn someone away from the lord.

At 69 yr old, I can't read latin, or anything but english, I looked at line in Faith Wallis's english translation of Bede book De temporum ratione) on time and it seemed obvious from one of the chapters with the globe in it that he believed in a spherical shaped earth. A lot of the classical medieval authors evidence that believed in sphere or not depends on the interpretation of key word in obscure passages in latin or anglo-saxon. I'm not disagreeing with anybodies translation of these passages but as non-latin literate person checking the claims of the flat earth error, I use this translation to allow me to know to greater, reasonable degree about the spherical scholars in the past. Feynman said about science, "how would you know?" for me, an english translation of a clear passage moves my knowledge closer. My level ignorance is I only know of one flat earther in early middle ages is Isadore at at end of 6th century. I haven't read about flat earther later than Isadore.