You probably learned in school that everyone thought that the Earth was flat until a plucky Italian explorer named Christopher Columbus tried to prove that he could sail to Asia by travelling west across the Atlantic ocean. But did people really think that the Earth was flat before then? Or is this another case of medieval misconceptions? Let's find out!
Recommendations for further reading:
-McCready, William. "Isidore, the Antipodeans, and the Shape of the Earth." In Isis 87 (1996): 108-27.
-Stevens, Wesley. "The figure of the earth in Isidore's De natura rerum." In Isis 71 (1980): 269-77.
[Both of these articles are recommended to get a grip on Isidore's understanding of the earth. McCready's article also talks a little about Bede]
Otherwise, I would also recommend reading any of the primary sources I've mentioned in the video, especially Calvin Kendall and Faith Wallis' translation of Bede's On the Nature of Things and On Times (2010), which has some great info in its introduction for anyone interested in medieval views on nature.
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