Medieval geographical theories and perceptions of medieval European

Résumé du document

Greeks and Romans amassed a remarkable amount of information about the world, which was known to them, and developed a dense literature about their explorations, and their scholarships drew up sophisticated geographical theories such as, about the earth's shape and size. But, with the collapse of the Roman Empire due to the Germanic invasions during the fifth and sixth centuries, their knowledge was scattered, lost or became unattainable because the Greek language became less used, and ideas and information spread slowly, and against resistance from one region to another, since then the culture became regional and stagnant. However, it suggests, with the quantity and the diffusion of geographical works, medieval Europeans had a strong interest for this subject. Also, we are led to wonder how far removed from antiquity were the medieval geographical theories and conceptions of the world, that is to say were their geographical notions an outcome or even advanced to those of the classical period, or did they develop themselves from different sources and were a critic of classical works? Thus we will examine on which points and for what reasons did geography of the Middle Age differ from that of the classical period.

Extraits

[...] As a result, it seems that nothing really encouraged medieval Europeans to verify the information they already had about the world, neither the Christian authorities nor powerful men. As a result, geographical theories and conceptions of the world of the Middle Ages remained during centuries stagnant and only restarted developing from the very end of the fifteenth century. To conclude, we can say that since the collapse of the Roman Empire until Christopher Columbus's journey, European understanding of geography did not markedly develop or supplant ideas that had been advanced by the Greeks, or data that had been accumulated by the Roman. [...]

[...] Cartography was maybe the field in medieval Europe in which an attempt was made to incorporate new information reported by travellers and sailors. Thus, we can notice an evolution in the realisation of the portolan charts such as the late thirteenth century chart Lo Compasso da Navigare which contains a detailed account of the coastlines and harbours of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. As J.R.S. Phillips suggest in The Medieval Expansion of Europe The portolan charts reveal by their very existence that medieval Europeans could be much more open-minded in their view of the world than literary or scholarly sources would imply.”[7] Likewise, map- makers of world maps tried to incorporate information from new sources, like the Catalan world atlas of 1375 which included the names of many of the important cities of central Asia and China as Peking and Canton thanks to the report of Marco Polo in this area. [...]

[...] John Block Friedman & Kristen Mossler, ed., Trade, Travel and Exploration in the Middle Ages: an Encyclopaedia (New York, 2000). G.H.T. Kimble, Geography in the Middle Ages. G. Kish, ed., A Source Book in Geography. J.R.S. [...]

[...] Because of the difficulty of communication, these notions could not be shared, scholarships could not work together and exchange their information and ideas so as to elaborate new theories and as a result the culture became stagnant. Finally, since the schism of A.D the contacts of the Latin world with Greek civilization became more and more tenuous depriving thus the West from the contribution of the works of Greek scholars to geography. As a result, we understand that in such a new context, where a large Empire had been succeeded by small numerous kingdoms which were almost closed on themselves, people saw their political horizons and their knowledge of the world reduced. [...]

[...] However, as can suggest the quantity and the diffusion of geographical works, medieval Europeans had a strong interest for this subject. Also, we are led to wonder how far removed from Antiquity were the medieval geographical theories and conceptions of the world, that is to say were their geographical notions an outcome or even advanced to those of the classical period or did they developed themselves from different sources and were a critic of classical works. Thus we will examine on which points and for which reasons did geography of the Middle Age differed from that of the classical past and we will then see to which degree the classical theories and conceptions were absorbed to the medieval society and how did they influenced them. [...]