Panel 1: “Medieval people believed the Earth was flat” (smug Wojak, arms crossed)
Panel 2: “Medieval universities teaching Earth’s spherical shape” (shocked monk in front of a gothic cathedral)
One of the most persistent myths about the Middle Ages, debunked by a shocked monk. The ‘flat Earth medieval’ story was invented in the 19th century by Washington Irving (yes, the Sleepy Hollow guy) and later popularized by people who wanted to make the Church look stupid. The reality: every educated medieval person knew the Earth was round. They’d known since the Greeks — Eratosthenes measured the circumference within 2% accuracy in 240 BC, and the knowledge never went away.
Medieval universities (Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Salamanca) taught the sphere. Thomas Aquinas, Dante (who structured all three parts of the Divine Comedy on a spherical Earth), even the Venerable Bede in the 8th century — all knew. The 14th century ‘Mappa Mundi’ style maps were flat for practical drawing reasons, not cosmology. Sailors navigated by the assumption of a sphere. The Church’s own scholars confirmed it.
So the flat-Earth medieval trope is a modern invention — and the monk in panel 2 is as shocked as you’d expect a man whose entire civilization knew better to be. The Middle Ages had plenty of real problems. Believing the Earth was flat was never one of them.
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