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Full Description
A discussion of European understanding of the physical world from the 9th century to the 15th, ranging from astronomy to zoology - and refuting the more recent notion that the world was thought flat.
What were the ideas held by medieval man concerning the size and shape of the earth? How many planets were there, and of what material was the universe constructed? What was the relationship between the sky and Heaven? How were snow, thunderstorms and comets explained?
In this fascinating book Dr Simek shows that though nature was thought to be permeated by the will of God, there were numerous explanations for unknown phenomena, from the simple theories of the early middle ages to the more sophisticated ideas of the centres of learned scholasticism in Paris and Oxford. He presents a cross-section of the medieval knowledge of the physical world as deliberated and discussed byauthors from the 9th to the 15th centuries. He touches on fields as diverse as astronomy, geography, physics, botany and chemistry, and shows how medieval knowledge combined `scientific' explanations with others from popular mythology and folklore. RUDOLF SIMEKis Professor of Medieval German and Scandinavian Literature at the University of Bonn in Germany.
Contents
Part 1 Christopher Columbus and his achievement. Part 2 The Earth as the protected centre of a finite universe and the Earth as the yolk in the cosmic egg: the spherical shape of the world; the cosmos as an egg; the structure of the universe from the four elements. Part 3 The shape of the Earth: Columbus and the spherical shape of the Earth; the learned clerical tradition; the astronomical handbooks of the High Middle Ages and the universities; circumnavigating the Earth; disc or sphere?; the background to the concept of the disc-shaped Earth. Part 4 The fascination of the world Down Under - the fourth continent and the Antipodes: the three continents and the medieval maps of the world; the fourth continent; Terra Australis Incognita and the Antipodes. Part 5 To the ends of the Earth: the far-off East; the hot South; the bleak North; excursus; hope in the East; the Indian kingdom of Prester John. Part 6 The journey to the centre of the Earth - Jerusalem as the hub of the world. Part 7 The fruits of original sin - monstrous races on the edges of the world known to man: the discoverers and the cannibals; Alexander and the wonders of the East; the Europeans and the monsters. Part 8 God's mysterious ways, or the hidden powers of nature - astro-meteorology in the Middle Ages: earth; water; air; fire. Part 9 A new continent, a new Earth, a new world - from Columbus to Galileo: geography; astronomy. Appendix: interpretation of a medieval world map based on the "Mappa Mundi" in Hereford Cathedral.
