Amedeo

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Before a belated reply to THIS, congratulations on your having my posted article in Spanish removed. Indeed, even the gods make mistakes: I forgot that the posts must be in English, because I wanted to convey the message that, since you distrust Italian sources and you are overtly anti-Italian, you may trust Spanish sources. But there, lo and behold, in that Wikipedia article there is reference to the council of Salamanca and the monks' advises to the sovereigns of Spain that the Columbus voyage was not feasible. (And, once again, there was no issue about the shape of the earth either at Salamanca or elsewhere.) I am sure you read a book on Columbus by a Spanish scholar, translated into English, which gives you all the primary sources you are looking for my remarks relating to Columbus that you questioned. As I stated before, nobody owes you anything and nobody is going to do research FOR YOU, since your reading comprehension is minimal. (You must be the follower of a compatriot of yours who deconstructed the myths about Columbus, the Renaissance, and science, even though his IQ must be at an unmentionable level.)
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If you look back at what prompted to make YOU think that I am for "Italia Uber Alles" -- neglecting the umlaut, too, since my scribe's tools are insufficient -- was my marked contrast between the italian monks and the monks of France, Spain, England, and Germany, or thereabouts. Now, once again, do your own research in these matters; I am not replying in order to defend what I write. (I know it to be correct, and my posts are not a thesis with footnotes in order to get a degree.) I am replying in order to state an implication that I see now from the contrast I made; your violent reaction made me realize that I was bringing forth something which is not already there in your pool of beliefs.

The contrast I made was between clans of people: all the monks belong to one class, but the monks in different countries or cultures are clans (different ethnic sub-groups). {I am no longer addressing you; I am writing for the general reader about the Dark Ages. Any response of yours is not going to be honored. Do your own sociological analyses, if you can.}

So, what is the point? The point is that in my main exposition of the Dark Ages, I was speaking of the causes of "darkness" -- civil, material, and cultural -- for the free and civilized countries of Western Europe; I was never referring to internal processes in western Europe that perpetuated or increased the "darkness" for the general population of any country.

The monk-clans of various countries are a case in point. When monasteries were given feuds as a gift, the land was not distributed to the fiefs (thereby liberating the fiefs); it was kept as the property [along with the fiefs] of the monasteries. I will mention two other examples, while historians may keep on exploring all the internal affairs in question.

In the 12th century, Mathilda of Canossa inherited the county of Lombardy, which at that time comprised almost all of northern Italy. (Even though Longobard rule had ceased long ago, by virtue of Charlesmagne, in her Latin writings I have read, she still refers to rights by "the Laws of the [feudal] Longobards.") She intermarried with French/Norman nobles, relatives of Godfrey of Boullion and -- I found out -- she was actually the middleman [middlewoman] between Pope Urban and the monks of the Order of Our Lady of Zion, who set out to recuperate the throne of Jerusalem for Godfrey of Boullion, a presumed descendant of the Merovingians (in the bloodline of Jesus the King, son of Joseph, descendant of King David). The pope*** inaugurated the first first crusade; the second crusade conquered Jerusalem and most of Palestine; and crusades followed after the loss of the conquests. Thus, Mathilda was instrumental in the unleashing of crusades, the greatest international exploits of the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were brought to Palestine and, at home, there resulted the institution of a nobility all over the participating countries that strengthened the oppression of the European working class.

The cultural benefits of the Islamic world for the Europeans came mainly from the Moors in Spain, as they were called. But before that happened, Spain had to suffer a major Islamic invasion, which certainly did not liberate the people of al-Andalus [the Land of the Vandals] from their feudal yoke. But, in the judgment of the following writer, the [foreign] clan of the Jews on that territory was liberated from oppression... thanks to the same clan that opened the gates of Toledo to the invaders. (They opened the gates of another city in the past, but that was before Cicero had his tongue lethally cut for revealing too much.)

http://www.sephardicstudies.org/islam.html


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***The official reason given by the Pope for the undertaking of the crusade was the liberation of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem... while in fact, pilgrims were free to come and go to Jerusalem, and even a "hospital" had been instituted there by Italians for the benefit of the pilgrims. Permission had been given by the Sultan. But then the official reason for the 9 Templars for going to Jerusalem after the conquest was to protect the pilgrims on the highways: 9 templars, who went to dig under the ancient temple in search of something they found later at Axum in Ethiopia, as I explained in my ~Elsewhere~ post, "Here Lies the Ark."

Amedeo

Throughout the Middle Ages (and somewhat beyond it [into the 16th century]), most people believed that the earth was flat. This is the prevalent and traditional POPULAR view that comes from the ancients (way back to Homer and beyond) and from the Bible. Both in antiquity and in the High Middle Ages, there were respectively some philosophers and astronomers AND the High M.A. theologians (who learned mostly from the ancients), who held that the earth is round (global).

As I myself stated, the Medieval world was divided between these two views, BUT a theological conflict never arose; a theological conflict arose during the Renaissance, which concerned geocentrism and heliocentrism.

Maps made before the 16th century were usually made according to the popular belief of the flat, disk-like or drum-like, earth. Maps of the global (spherical) earth began to be made AFTER the further explorations of what Amerigo Vespucci called "the New World," that is, after 1501/2. [A 20th century forged map of the Old World with the addition of Vinland, supposedly made around the year 1000, is an accurate reproduction of a modern projection map (showing the globe within an ellipse) with most of the American continent missing]. There are two articles in an archeology magazine -- one is mine -- proving the forgery of the $50,000,000 worth map. It isn't worth the paper it is on.]

Some of the flat-earth maps are depicted here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map

The sketches and maps of the earth made after 1492 are available in many books. The Vatican has a "Room of the Maps," whose walls are filled with early maps of the spherical earth. All of these modern maps are authentic maps, in the geographical style of the traditional Portolan Maps that the European seamen had developed over the previous hundreds of years for the "FLAT" territory of the Mediterranean sea. The Portolan maps are useful for navigation and are not PAINTINGS like the the ones I cited in Wikipedia or elsewhere. The men in the practical world of travel and navigation were flat-earthers before Columbus successful voyage.

Portolan maps made in Venice, mid-16th century:

http://www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gnrlagn.html

David B

Is it really true that for much of history most people believed the earth was flat.

It's really hard for me to believe that ancient mariners so believed, when as you approach anything but a flat shore more and more becomes visible.

I'm sure that one can infer, for instance, that Viking navigation aids demanded a round earth.

Or am I wrong there?

http://www.viking.no/e/travels/navigation/e-instru.htm

http://astrolabes.org/mariner.htm

I'm trying to figure out in my mind how the concept of latitude would work on a flat earth world view - and failing.

David B

Amedeo

Continue with

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass

driver8

My version of Wikipedia says this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_columbus

Amedeo

Not again! Please read the entire post you quote, and carefully...

Before Columbus, most of the people in Europe believed that the earth is flat (that is, like a disk or a drum).

Most of the learned people [relatively very few in number], between 585 B.C. and 1492 A.D., including Coumbus himself, believed or knew with reasons that the earth is round (global).

For all intents and purposes, the European navigators and map makers (before the explorations of Columbus and others) were flatearthers or, if you wish, flat-seaers.

Speaking of pre-Columbian times, the maps made by and for navigators were all according to the conception of a flat earth. I have referred to the Portolan (or authentic geographical) maps.

Antipope Innocent II

I didn't "have it moved". If you want to know why it was moved, ask Toto.

I'm not "overtly anti-Italian" at all. I'm "anti" weird caricatures of history that claim, for example, that only Italian monks followed the Benedictine ideal of "ora et labora" while French monks simply made liquers. How you expect anyone to take utter nonsense like that seriously is beyond me.

That there was a commission held at Salamanca to investigate Columbus' proposal and that it said the proposed voyage was infeasible is not and never has been under dispute. What IS under dispute, and what you have been asked to produce evidence for about four times now , is your claim that the Salamanca Commission believed Colombus' ships would somehow "fall off the edge of the world". That is cartoonish nonsense of the first order and your consistent failure to produce evidence to back your ludicrous claim up is one of the reasons your pompous and wheezing posts are rightly regarded as all windy bloviation and no substance.

Once again you've failed to back up this stupid assertion.

You're sure of this? Okay, then name one such book - in Spanish or English - that supports your bizarre claim. Then explain why you seem totally incapable of citing any of the relevant primary sources and are reduced to cutting and pasting irrelevant sections of Wiki in Spanish in the hope that if you kick up enough dust people won't notice that you are completely wrong.

AThat's what people who have been exposed as being wrong often try to say when challenged to produce relevant evidence. Pathetic. Cite some evidence and stop these feeble and childish little games.

And now we get the flaccid little ad hominems. Cut the crap Amedeo and cite some evidence.

And, as if we needed more evidence of your "scholarship", now you're spouting Holy Blood Holy Grail / The Da Vinci Code conspiracy crap. Next you'll be claiming to be a member of the Prieuré de Sion.

Please tell me this barking mad nonsense is not meant as anything other than a joke.

That is total garbage. If it were true, you'd have no trouble quoting someone from the Middle Ages who believed the Earth was flat. We had a whole thread here recently where I asked any of the people who clung to this Nineteenth Century myth about Medieval flat earth belief to cite or quote one Medieval author who held this belief about the shape of the Earth. They thrashed and squealed and wriggled for 12 pages, but they failed to cite or quote a single such Medieval writer or produce any such evidence at all.

Perhaps you can do so now. Though if your track record of actually producing evidence rather than making long wheezing pontifications is anything to go by, I won't hold my breath.

Really? So who were the philosophers and astronomers in the Middle Ages who didn't hold that it was a sphere? Name them. Name one. Anyone.

Yes, you did state that, didn't you. And state it is all you've done. You haven't (and can't) cite a single source to support that ridiculous assertion. You've now been reduced to citing yourself. How utterly pathetic.

OT maps don't present a "flat, disk-like" Earth any more than the equally flat map here on my wall does. They are largely symbolic, diagrammatical schemae that developed some cartographic elements as time went on. They simply represent an attempt at showing where the continents and, later, major cities were in relation to each other in a diagrammatical form - they were not a true cartographical projection, and were never intended as such.

Not that a "flat, disk-like" projection would imply a "flat earth" anyway. Astrolabes were based on a "flat, disk-like" projection of the heavens - a planispheric projection - but that doesn't mean Medieval astronomers thought the sky was a flat disk.

What people may or may not have believed for "much of history" is unclear. But people soon figured out that the Earth has to be a sphere from precisely the kinds of common sense observations you mention.

Precisely how the Vikings navigated is a vexed subject with lots of conjecture and very little evidence. Gwyn Jones gives a good survey of the evidence, analysis of the theories and makes a good case for his own theory about the Viking view of the world and their navigation techniques in his The Norse Atlantic Saga: The Norse Voyages of Discovery and Settlement to Iceland, Greenland, and North America

Yes, which is yet another reason this crap Amedeo is spouting about how some people in the Middle Ages believed the Earth was flat is utter garbage. Latitude was a basic concept in Medieval astronomy, chronology and navigation as well as being intrinsic to the operation of astrolabes and equatoria or the construction of even the simplest of sun dials.

Yep.

So, can you cite anyone in the Middle Ages who thought it was flat? Not just any learned person (though you need to do that too if you want to back up your hilarious garbage about how there was some kind of "split" on the issue) but anyone at all?

If "most of the people in Europe believed that the earth is flat", why was the symbol of a king's worldly power an orb? Why not a disk? Why do we have sermons for parish priests which refer, in passing and with no explanation, to the Earth being "round like an apple"? Why do we have a popular traveller's tale about a guy who journeyed eastward for so long he ended up coming back to where he started from out of the west?

In fact, why does every single last piece of Medieval information we have that mentions or even touches on the shape of the Earth make it perfectly clear that the idea it is a sphere was not only widely-known but was actually quite commonplace? Why is there NO evidence of ANYONE thinking it was flat?

More to the point, why is Amedeo persisting with these long-winded posts that don't actually support his weird assertions?

Amedeo

I don't recall who noticed this first, but mention was made that when a ship moves away from the shore, the hull disappears first, and the helm of the mast last. But there are also such phenomena as the horizon rising when you stand on a hill any distance above sea-level, so that you never see the whole ship which, from the shore viewpoint, sinks as it moves away. Most importantly, if you are on a ship, the sea always appears to be flat. If you are a cartographer, you write down the nautical miles between one travelled point and another, and the angle between a point an another (relatively to another line). Similarly, if you walk between railroad tracks and you keep on measuring the distance between the tracks, you are measuring distances of parallel tracks, rather than of (optical) converging tracks.
(Because of the actual curvature of the earth, when you make a portolan map using the empirical distances, the contour of lands will be off. If accurate triangulation measurements (inclusive of elevation) were made of the lands, there would be serious contradictions resulting from the triangulation measurements and the portolan ones: an accurate map of lands and sees could not be drawn.)

Antipope Innocent II

I don't recall who mentioned it first (the person who first noticed it was probably illiterate), but it was a commonplace observation in Medieval discussions of how the Earth was a sphere.

But here we have another post from Amedeo and still no evidence to back up his many weird assertions. Here are the two main ones that you keep trying to dodge:

1. Provide evidence to support your claims that the commission at Salamanca thought Columbus' ships would somehow "sail off the edge of the world".

2. Provide evidence that there was a "split" in Medieval thinking regarding whether the Earth was a sphere or some other shape.

Don't make assertions. Don't say you aren't going to do my homework for me, as though these things were self-evident facts. Don't indulge in insults about my supposed IQ. Don't cut and paste a page from a foreign language Wiki site.

No more smoke-screens, hand waving, distractions, waffle, irrelevancies or any other delay-and-distract tactics.

Just the evidence for those claims. Put up or shut up.

Chili

[QUOTE=Brother Daniel;4773859]
Of course he will.

The anathema side of the Church does not accept the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. This first began in Jn.6:66 and still exists today and they now claim to have Apostolic Tradition on the anathema side of the Catholic Church right back to Peter.

Their secret library is of course their salvation history story book with about 20.000 recipe's in it.