prize7-3, Exercise 2: Did medieval people think the Earth was flat?

Model answer (check the details):

Short answer: mostly no. Educated medieval writers described the Earth as a sphere, and this was taught in schools and universities.

What mappae mundi show:
1. Their round or oval outline depicts the habitable world, the lands known to Europeans, and not the whole planet.
2. East is at the top because of religious symbolism (Paradise in the east), not because anyone thought the Earth was a disc.
3. They show sacred history, stories and wonders, so they are teaching tools.

Where the myth comes from: it spread widely in the nineteenth century, partly from popular accounts of Columbus. Check the history of the story before repeating it.

A sentence you can use: "Medieval scholars knew the Earth was round; the shape of a mappa mundi is a diagram of the known world."