12 THE KING'S MIRROR 



tides and currents of the ocean.*J[n discussing these 

 matters he is naturally led to a statement as to the shape 

 of the earth. All through the middle ages there were 

 thinkers who accepted the teachings of the classical 

 astronomers who had taught that the earth is round 

 like a sphere; but this belief was by no means general. 

 Bede for one appears to have been convinced that the 

 earth is of a spherical shape, though he explains that, 

 because of mountains which rise high above the surface, 

 it cannot be perfectly round.f Alexander Neckam, an 

 English scientist who wrote two generations before the 

 King's Mirror was composed, states in his Praise of 

 Divine Wisdom that " the ancients have ventured to 

 believe that the earth is round, though mountains rise 

 high above its surface." { Neckam J s own ideas on this 

 point are quite confused and he remains discreetly non- 

 committal. 



But if the earth is a globe, there is every reason to be- 

 lieve in the existence of antipodes; and _if ^ere_are an- 

 tipodes, all cannot behold Christ coming in the clouds 

 on the final day. To the medieval theologians, at least 

 to the larger number of them, this argument disposed 

 effectually of the Ptolemaic theory. Job does indeed say 

 that God " hangeth the earth upon nothing," and 

 this passage might point to a spherical form; but then 

 the Psalmist affirms that He " stretched out the earth 

 above the waters," || and this statement would indicate 



* C. iv. See also Larson, " Scientific Knowledge in the North in the Thir- 

 teenth Century ": Publications of the Society for the Advancement of Scandi- 

 navian Study, 1, 139-146. 



t De Natura Rerum, c. xlvi: Migne, Patrologia Latina, XC, 264-265. 

 j De Naturis Rerum, 441. Job, xxvi, 7. 1 1 Psalms, cxxxvi, 6. 



