"There was nothing original in what medieval scientists wrote about the size and shape of the earth [that it was a sphere, not flat] and its continents; they were merely following where the Greeks had led. Originality came in the nineteenth century when historians decided that in the Middle Ages people had been "flat-earthers," probably because they considered that the centuries between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance had been a time of barbarism, superstition and ignorance: the Dark Ages. Even today many people still believe that in the Middle Ages everyone thought the earth was flat; we live in our own age of faith, the faith that "we" are superior, more rational than the superstitious people of the past."
from 1215: The Year of Magna Carta, pg 227
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