Debunked Myths

The persistent myth that medieval people believed in a flat Earth is largely a 19th-century fabrication, popularized by fictionalized accounts of Columbus and writers promoting conflict between science and religion. In reality, Earth's spherical shape was established knowledge among scholars since ancient Greek times.

Figures like Pythagoras and Aristotle provided philosophical and observational evidence for a round Earth. By the Middle Ages, this was completely uncontroversial—every major medieval scholar from Augustine to Aquinas accepted a spherical world. Standard textbooks of the time explicitly described Earth as a globe.

The actual debate around Columbus concerned Earth's circumference, not its shape. Columbus famously miscalculated a much smaller size, which is why he believed he could reach Asia. The flat Earth myth was created to portray the past as ignorant, making modern times seem enlightened by comparison. It's a powerful example of how history gets rewritten to serve narratives of progress.