Did People in the Middle Ages Really Believe the Earth Was Flat?

Flat Earth model

The Middle Ages lasted for about 1,000 years, from the collapse of Roman civilization in the fifth century to the beginning of the Renaissance era. Despite it being such a long stretch of time, people of the era tend to get thrown together into one group when it comes to our common perception of them. And, in general, they tend to get a bad rap. Our medieval ancestors are often portrayed as unwashed, uneducated, and generally uncouth ruffians. These stereotypes, however, are either gross exaggerations or outright misconceptions.

One commonly held idea about the Middle Ages is that most people believed the Earth was flat, and thus you could easily fall off the edge of the world if you sailed too far. But this is yet another misconception foisted upon the people of the medieval period. As it turns out, folks in the Middle Ages were not nearly as ignorant of basic geographical and astronomical facts as we tend to believe.

The Ancient Understanding of the Earth

Not only did most educated people in the Middle Ages know the Earth was round, but this knowledge also had been common among scholars since antiquity. The spherical nature of the Earth was well established in ancient times, particularly through Greek astronomy.

Aristotle provided convincing proof of Earth’s roundness in the fourth century BCE, including the observations that ships disappear hull-first over the horizon and that Earth casts a round shadow on the moon during lunar eclipses. Later, around 240 BCE, the ancient Greek polymath Eratosthenes even calculated Earth’s circumference with remarkable accuracy. This knowledge was preserved and transmitted through the Roman Empire and into medieval times through texts and scholarly traditions.

Of course, many people in the Middle Ages were uneducated. Public education was scarce at best, and illiteracy was widespread — literacy rates in Western European countries during the Middle Ages were generally below 20% (and were often far below that). Still, it is likely that even uneducated people knew that the Earth was round, simply because this information would have filtered through society to become common knowledge.

Medieval Scientific Knowledge

Medieval scholars not only accepted the idea of a spherical Earth but also incorporated this knowledge into their own scientific and philosophical works. The medieval monk and scholar known as the Venerable Bede explicitly described the Earth as spherical and even explained how this affected the length of days in different regions. “The reason why the same days are of unequal length,” he wrote circa 723 CE, “is the roundness of the Earth, for not without reason is it called ‘the orb of the world’ … It is, in fact, a sphere set in the middle of the whole universe. It is not merely circular like a shield [or] spread out like a wheel, but resembles more a ball, being equally round in all directions.”

By the 13th century, the Earth’s spherical shape was regarded as established scientific fact, with influential scientists, thinkers, and clergymen such as Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Johannes de Sacrobosco all agreeing with this premise. So where did we get the idea that medieval scholars rejected classical knowledge and widely regarded the Earth to be flat?

Origins of the Misconception

The misconception gained a foothold in the 19th century, partly due to Washington Irving’s popular 1828 biography of Christopher Columbus. Today, Irving’s A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus is regarded as historical fiction based loosely on the life of Columbus. But when it was released, it popularized the now-debunked story that Columbus’ voyage faced opposition from Catholic scholars who believed the Earth was flat. (In reality, the debate centered on the Earth’s size, not its shape.)

The myth was further entrenched in the public consciousness by inaccurate histories such as John William Draper’s History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White’s History of the Warfare of Science With Theology in Christendom (1896). These works incorrectly (and self-servingly) promoted the myth as part of their broader argument about an alleged historical conflict between science and religion.

These narratives, though historically inaccurate, proved compelling and highly persistent — so much so that their incorrect portrayals of medieval scientific beliefs endure to the present day. But while it’s true to say that medieval Europeans held many beliefs that modern people would consider unscientific, their understanding of the Earth’s shape was not one of them.