The Round Earth - Glenn Conjurske
The Round Earth
by Glenn Conjurske
When I was a boy in school, I was taught that it was universally believed in olden times that the world was flat, and that if a man sailed too far, he would fall off the edge. The teachers of such history must have supposed our poor forefathers to have been stupid indeed, being unable to figure out that if the earth were such that a man could sail to the edge of it and fall off, then the waters of the sea must flow off the edge also, the sea cease to exist, and it be impossible to sail at all. Do our modern teachers actually suppose our forefathers to have been so universally stupid? Did no one observe that he might see farther by climbing higher? Did no one know that it was the light of the sun which illuminated the moon, or ever observe the round shadow of the earth pass over the moon during an eclipse? In short, did none of our ancestors think—-or do none of our modern teachers? At any rate—-so we were taught—-Christopher Columbus first discovered that the earth was round, by watching the ships gradually recede below the horizon, and this is assumed to be one step in the upward progress of man, from his original ignorance and stupidity, to his present exalted state of enlightenment.
I would not pretend to deny that certain peoples once believed the world to be flat. The American Indians apparently did so, for one of them relates the following incident: “John Cameron, whose Indian name was Wageezhegome, (Possessor of Day), was taken by Ramsay, who, wicked as he was, taught him to read a little in English, and to a certain extent trained him to habits of civilized life. After the death of Ramsay, J. C. again took to Indian habits, but did not altogether lose his relish for comforts, as he alone amongst the Credit tribe, built himself a comfortable log house on the flats of the Credit, and raised some Indian corn and potatoes. He used to relate his attempt on one occasion to enlighten the Rice Lake Indians by telling them that this world on which we lived was round, and that it went round and round once every day. One of his hearers, with the utmost contempt at such doctrine, said, ‘So do the trowsers you have on go round and round. You think you know a great deal because you wear trowsers like a white man.”’
Evidently Christopher Columbus himself once believed the world flat, and the people among whom he lived must have believed so also. But what do such facts prove? Only this: that certain segments of the human race were once sunk in ignorance, some in pagan darkness, and others in papal darkness. It proves nothing whatsoever of the doctrine of the liberals, that the whole race has gradually come up from a universal state of such ignorance. We absolutely deny that the whole race ever believed the world flat, or that its roundness was a new discovery, first made by Christopher Columbus. The fact is, there is plenty of evidence that the ancients knew that the world was round, and that long before Christopher Columbus.
John Wycliffe, a full century before “Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” certainly knew that the earth was round, for he says in one of his sermons, “Joon movede men to mekenesse, and to þenke on þe dai of dome, and seide þat ech valey shal be fild, and ech mounteyn, more or lesse, shal be maad low. Þis shal be at þe dai of dome, whanne þe erþe shal be pleyn and round, as ech meke man þat shal come to hevene shal be þanne fulfiled of blisse, and ech proud man þat shal be dampned shal be maad low by peyne.”
The same in modernized English: “John moved men to meekness, and to think on the day of doom”—-the day of judgement, that is—-”and said that every valley shall be filled, and every mountain, greater or lesser, shall be made low. This shall be at the day of doom, when the earth shall be plain and round, as every meek man that shall come to heaven shall be then fulfilled of bliss, and every proud man that shall be damned shall be made low by pain.” It is plain that by “plain” he means “Smooth, even; free from roughness or unevenness of surface” (Oxford English Dictionary). With every valley filled, and every mountain levelled, the earth will be smooth and round.
Wycliffe writes elsewhere, “…for o bodi, þat is holi Chirche, drawiþ to Crist, as erþe to þe centre,” —-that is, “for one body, that is holy Church, draweth to Christ, as earth to the center.” From this it plainly appears that Wycliffe not only knew that the earth was round, but perfectly understood the law of gravity also, which our fine teachers in the public schools taught us was discovered by Isaac Newton. Understand, if Wycliffe had thought the world flat, as a plate or saucer, to draw to the center could only mean the absurdity that the force of gravity must work horizontally, drawing to the east, west, north, or south, depending upon where we found ourselves upon the earth. To understand gravity to be a force which draws to the center of the earth necessitates the prior understanding that the earth is a round globe.
Perhaps the dark ages were a good deal darker in Spain or Italy than they were in England, but it seems that Englishmen at any rate knew well enough that the earth was round, both in Wycliffe’s day and long before. In Anglo-Saxon times, a thousand years ago, and five centuries before Columbus, the very word which was commonly used to designate the world means round. It is in fact a compound of two words, the first of which means around, and the second round or circle.
That word is “ymbe-hwyrft.” It is compounded of “ymbe” or “ymb” and “hwrift.”
“Ymb” means around, and figuratively about or concerning, like the Greek , the Latin circa, and the English about. So in our sister-tongue, the German um, with its old spelling umb, which is undoubtedly the root of the Anglo-Saxon ymbe. This “ymbe” is used in numerous compounds, such as “ymb-fleogan,” to fly around, “ymb-snidan,” to cut around, or circumcise, etc.
“Hwyrft” is defined in Bosworth’s Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language as “A circle, circuit, revolution, orbit.”
And “ymbe-hwyrft” is defined in the same work as “A circuit about, a circumference, circle, rotation, an orbit, orb, the world.”
So Ælfric, one of the first translators of Scripture into English, who died in 1052, says, “Hit is awriten on halgum bocum, `Eorðe and eall hire gefyllednys, and eal YMBHWYRFT and þa ðe on ðam wuniaþ, ealle hit syndon Godes æhta,’ and no deofles.” This is thus rendered into modern English by the learned editor, Benjamin Thorpe: “It is written in holy books, ‘Earth and all its fullness, and all the GLOBE and those who dwell on it, all are God’s possessions,’ and not the devil’s.”
And “globe” is certainly the proper translation of the Anglo-Saxon “ymbe-hwyrft.” Now it is hard to tell how a language could employ a compound word, both parts of which mean “round,” to designate the world, if the folks who spoke that language had no idea that the world was round. I am no authority on the subject, but I begin to suspect that our forefathers were not so stupid as they have been represented to us, and that the teachers of the present day are not so enlightened as they think.
We are aware, however, that the example I give from Ælfric is a translation from the Latin Vulgate. So far, however, is this from discounting my contention, that it actually adds weight to it, for it is a plain fact that the Latin tongue also uses a word which means round to designate the world. That is the word orbis, which means “a circle, ring, disk, anything round.” Passing strange, it would be, for a people to use such a word to designate the world, if they did not believe the world to be round. This word was commonly used by the Latins to designate the world a thousand years before Christopher Columbus.
The notion that the ancients universally held the world to be flat, and that Columbus was the first to discover otherwise, well suits the doctrine of the liberals, which affirms the gradual ascent of man from his primitive state of ignorance. That doctrine is false, and so is this notion which is used to prop it up. That some, indeed many, of the ancients supposed the world flat we do not doubt, but someone at some time must have understood it to be round, or why would they call it orbis? I am no authority on ancient times. Perhaps some who know more of ancient writers than I will ever have time or inclination to know may find some explicit statements on the subject. Meanwhile I contribute my mite. John Wycliffe certainly knew the world to be round and spherical, as the quotations given above undoubtedly prove.
From the Oxford English Dictionary (vol. X, pg. 585, col. 1, no. 10a) I cull another example, from John Trevisa, dated 1387, or three years after the death of Wycliffe. He says, “The ri3t hond holdynge þe spere, þat is, þe roundenesse and þe liknesse of þe world.” Modernized, “The right hand holding the sphere, that is, the roundness and the likeness of the world.” I can give no context for this, but the sentence itself is explicit enough. The same Trevisa (see the same column in the Oxford English Dictionary) defines a sphere thus: “The Spere is a fygure shape all rounde and is pere to Solid in all partys.” “Pere” (”peer”) he uses in the sense of “equal.”
Glenn Conjurske