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Geography in the Christian world was confined to the process of translation of the earlier geographical ideas of the classical age. Two medieval scholars—Martianus Capelle and Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius— provided translation of Plato as early as the fifth century.
In the early medieval period, the European scholars could work only with Latin documents and only in the latter part of this period did a few of them master the Arabic language. The Greek materials remained entirely unknown, except in tradition.
Through their accounts, the medieval Christian scholars had come to know about the concept of a spherical Earth. In 1138, Plato of Tivoli translated that work of Ptolemy from Arabic into Latin which dealt with the effect of the positions of the celestial bodies on human affairs.
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In 1175, Gerard of Cremona translated Ptolemy’s Almagest’ into Latin. In fact, Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the celestial universe remained the accepted model for many centuries, and most of the ideas still used by astrologers can be traced back to him. Ptolemy’s works were more popular in the medieval Christian world.
It was Albert Magnus who for the first time translated the geographic ideas of Aristotle from Arabic in the twelfth century, in which he gave emphasis on the Greek concept of equating habitability with latitude.
Albert added few more explanations concerning the concept of ekumene that those who lived close to the limits of the habitable Earth turned black, but if dark-skinned people moved into the temperate latitudes they would gradually turn white. Isidore of Seville compiled a sort of geographic encyclopedia in the seventh century.
The medieval Christian world witnessed the gradual deterioration of mapping as the period lost the viability of showing alignments and boundaries with precision and accuracy. This had been the case also in the classical period when greater attention was given to accurate delineations of the coastlines. In fact, the medieval period witnessed the so-called T-0 maps. The inhabited world was shown by a circular figure bounded by the ocean. The figure was ‘oriented’ towards the east.
In the midst of the area, was a T-shaped arrangement of water-bodies. The stem of T represented the Mediterranean. The top of the T represented the Aegean and Black Sea on the one hand, and the Nile River and Red Sea on the other. Three divisions—Europe, Asia, Africa were accepted as standard. The centre of the inhabited world, just above the centre of the T, was Jerusalem. At the Far East, beyond the limit of the inhabited world was paradise.
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It was during the crusades that occurred between 1096 and 1270 when Christian Europe attempted to recapture the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem from the Arabs that European men drawn from various parts of the continent brought with them exciting stories about strange people and strange landscapes beyond the geographic horizons.
However, the Polo brothers and the son of one of them, Marco Polo, did make valuable contributions to the Christian world about the Asian landmass. The Polo brothers visited China and stayed there from 1260 to 1269.
They went across the great deserts and inhospitable surface of central Asia to reach China. In course of their sea voyages, they touched the shores of Java and Sumatra, and then continued to Ceylon and southern India. They moved along the west coast to the ancient port of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf.
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The Polos finally returned safely to Venice in 1295. They brought with them varieties of information, including the land and people of central Asia vis-a -vis China, the eastern limit of the habitable part, the nature of the coastline and the people living thereon. Their accounts discredited the Ptolemian view that beyond Sera and Sine (China), there lay the unknown land (Terra Incognita).
Marco Polo who also went with the expedition with his father and uncle to the eastern most limit of the then assumed ekumene also provided descriptions of life in China and of the perils encountered on the route to and from China. He also reported on Japan, and on the island of Madagascar. In Madagascar, he found ample evidence that the Torrid Zone was not torrid but was in fact inhabited.
This empirically observed fact also discredited Aristotle who doubted the habitability of the Torrid Zone near the equator. It is a matter of dispute whether Marco Polo had known the concept of Aristotle, though in the twelfth century, Alberto Magnus had made the geographical ideas of Aristotle available to the Christian world. Marco Polo’s book was thought to be a great record of geographic exploration, filled with much information and interesting stories.
Towards the latter part of the medieval period, a few scholars actually thought of the need to confront authority with reason and explanation. William of Corches, who died about 1150, portrayed a universe governed by law rather than by the unpredictable acts of the divine authority.
He presented some remarkably modern ideas concerning the heating of the atmosphere from below and the formation of clouds by the cooling of air. Robert Grosseteste, the Bishop of Lincoln, contradicted the concept of a torrid zone that was uninhabitable with the availability of Arabic reports of an inhabited east coast of Africa extending at least as far as 20° S.
In the early fifteenth century, Cardinal Pierred Ailly published a book Tractatus de imago mundi, which represented a kind of summary and review of the period. In 1414, he made use of the Latin translation of Ptolemy’s Geography, and accepted the smaller estimate of the Earth’s circumference. He was among the first to insist that India could be approached by sailing west, which influenced Columbus to do just this.
However, he contradicted Ptolemy’s contention of an enclosed Indian Ocean and offered different opinions concerning the habitability of the equatorial Torrid Zone. Pope Pius II (Aeneas Silvius) wrote a book sometimes between 1458—64 on Europe and Asia in which he tried to show that ekumene was also extended across the torrid zone, and the Indian Ocean was not enclosed on the south.
The late fourteenth century witnessed a gradual recovery from the state of deterioration in the field of mapping as was the situation in the early period of the medieval Christian world. There had been a notable improvement in the art of map making. The Portolano charts became standard equipment for the sea captain. These charts were covered by a network of overlapping lines radiating from several centres in different parts of the chart.
The radiating lines conform to the eight or sixteen principal directions of the compass, each corresponding to a wind direction. Sailors laid out compass courses along these lines. With the lines to indicate direction from key points, the coastlines, especially around the Mediterranean, could be drawn with considerable accuracy.
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The famous Catalan map of the world, made in 1375, incorporated the material for numerous Portolano charts. It also included the west coast of Africa, south of cape Bojador, which had not then been reached by European sailors. It also showed east and south-east Asia based on reports of Marco Polo. This was the first map ever to give a proper outline of Ceylon and the Indian peninsula.
The late fourteenth century also witnessed a notable improvement in the art of navigation. The instrument astrolabe, which was invented by Hipparchus, had been improved and came into common use as an aid to navigation by making it possible to fix the altitude of the polestar more accurately.
The map-makers were a vital necessity in the field of navigation, and thus most of the map-makers were working for the merchants and sailors though there were differences of opinion with regard to the land beyond the equator.
Geography in the Christian world of the medieval period appears to have very much relied upon Ptolemy’s works and ideas, but very little attempts were made to revive the Greek tradition in geography. Christian scholars of the period had different interpretations of Ptolemy’s works, and their opinions differed on various aspects of Ptolemy’s geographic ideas. The Christian world cannot boast of having developed any concepts, models or paradigms for the succeeding generations.