74-476: The Masque of Mandragora is the first serial of the 14th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who , which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 4 to 25 September 1976. The serial is set in the fictional European duchy of San Martino in the late 15th century. In the serial, the astrologer Hieronymous ( Norman Jones ) seeks to summon the power of an intelligence called
148-614: A chapter to the flat Earth, in which he portrayed Cosmas Indicopleustes as the founder of Christian geography. The flat Earth model has often been incorrectly supposed to be church doctrine by those who wish to portray the Catholic Church as being anti-progress or hostile to scientific inquiry. This narrative has been repeated even in academic circles, such as in April 2016, when Boston College theology professor and ex-priest Thomas Groome erroneously stated that "the Catholic Church never said
222-549: A field near San Martino, and when the Doctor and Sarah exit, the energy fragment flies out of the TARDIS, unseen. Sarah wanders off and is kidnapped by a group of men in hooded robes. The Doctor tries to rescue her but is knocked out, and when he awakes he witnesses the energy fragment fly towards and kill a peasant. Searching for Sarah, the Doctor is confronted by the Count's men and arrested. At
296-535: A forceful Columbus challenging the "prejudices, the mingled ignorance and erudition, and the pedantic bigotry" of the churchmen. Abrams sees this image of a Romantic hero, a practical man of business, and a Yankee go-getter as crafted to appeal to nineteenth-century Americans. Russell suggests that the flat-Earth error was able to take such deep hold on the modern imagination because of prejudice and presentism . He specifically mentions "the Protestant prejudice against
370-468: A mixed reaction to the serial, according to the BBC's Audience Research Report, but there had been a majority of "moderate approval". Howe and Walker themselves commended the "very well written and highly intelligent" scripts, the "polished production", and strong cast. In 2010, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times described the serial as "polished" with "an air of confidence in the writing and performances". He praised
444-455: A new religion. The Doctor tells Giuliano the temple must be destroyed. They go to the temple, and the Doctor enters the catacombs alone. Giuliano tells Sarah that he and a few others believe that the earth is a sphere ( although that was common knowledge of the day ). As the Doctor enters the main chamber the Helix attacks him psychically. Rossini informs Federico of Giuliano's trip to the temple, and
518-467: A number of historical circumstances that contributed to the origin and widespread acceptance of the flat-Earth myth. American historian Jeffrey Burton Russell traced the nineteenth-century origins of what he called the Flat Error to a group of anticlerical French scholars, particularly to Antoine-Jean Letronne and, indirectly, to his teachers Jean-Baptiste Gail and Edme Mentelle . Mentelle had described
592-470: A period in which the perception of an antagonism between religion and science was especially strong. The disputes surrounding the Darwinian revolution contributed to the birth of the conflict thesis , a view of history according to which any interaction between religion and science would almost inevitably lead to open hostility. In 1828, Washington Irving's highly romanticized biography, A History of
666-406: A poisoned needle to kill the Doctor. At the palace, the invited nobles arrive and Federico realizes he does not have much time to eliminate Giuliano, but Rossini is unable to find Giuliano. Hieronymous warns Federico that his life is in danger. Federico scoffs, believing Hieronymous a fraud, but is suspicious enough to tell Rossini to banish Hieronymous from the city. In the catacombs, Giuliano and
740-499: A secret way into the palace, and he intends to infiltrate his men under cover of the masque. The Doctor enters the temple and grounds the altar with wire. Hieronymous addresses the Doctor as " Time Lord ", and says that Earth has to be possessed; if mankind's ambition is not checked, it will eventually spread into the Galaxy and the powers of Mandragora will not allow a rival within their domain. Hieronymous fires repeated bolts of energy into
814-409: A series of questions (queries), Jefferson uses the "Query" regarding religion to attack the idea of state-sponsored official religions. In the chapter, Jefferson relates a series of official erroneous beliefs about nature forced upon people by authority. One of these is the episode of Galileo 's struggles with authority, which Jefferson erroneously frames in terms of the shape of the globe: Government
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#1732845610199888-596: Is a modern historical misconception that European scholars and educated people during the Middle Ages believed the Earth to be flat . The earliest clear documentation of the idea of a spherical Earth comes from the ancient Greeks ( 5th century BC ). The belief was widespread in the Greek world when Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of Earth around 240 BC. This knowledge spread with Greek influence such that during
962-449: Is just as infallible too when it fixes systems in physics. Galileo was sent to the inquisition for affirming that the Earth was a sphere: the government had declared it to be as flat as a trencher , and Galileo was obliged to abjure his error. This error however at length prevailed, the Earth became a globe, and Descartes declared it was whirled round its axis by a vortex . The 19th century was
1036-476: Is laid out on an altar. A purple-robed figure is about to stab her when the Doctor snatches Sarah away, just as the fragment appears in the chamber, suffusing it with a red glow and providing a distraction for the two to escape. Giuliano examines the body of a guard who was killed earlier by the fragment, and while he does not know the cause of the guard's death, he dismisses ideas that it was some kind of fire demon. The Doctor and Sarah are found by palace guards. In
1110-471: Is shown floating inside a transparent sphere. According to Stephen Jay Gould , "there never was a period of 'flat Earth darkness' among scholars, regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now. Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the Earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology ." Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that "there
1184-524: The Early Middle Ages ( c. 600–1000 AD), most European and Middle Eastern scholars espoused Earth's sphericity. Belief in a flat Earth among educated Europeans was almost nonexistent from the Late Middle Ages onward, though fanciful depictions appear in art, such as the exterior panels of Hieronymus Bosch 's famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights , in which a disc-shaped Earth
1258-556: The conflict thesis for their own purposes, but historical research gradually demonstrated that Draper and White had propagated more fantasy than fact in their efforts to prove that science and religion are locked in eternal conflict. French dramatist Cyrano de Bergerac in chapter 5 of his Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (published two years posthumously in 1657) quotes Augustine of Hippo as saying "that in his day and age
1332-457: The 19th. Another early mention in literature is Ludvig Holberg 's comedy Erasmus Montanus (1723). Erasmus Montanus meets considerable opposition when he claims the Earth is round, since all the peasants hold it to be flat. He is not allowed to marry his fiancée until he cries "The Earth is flat as a pancake". In Thomas Jefferson 's book Notes on the State of Virginia (1784), framed as answers to
1406-581: The 21st century. An American schoolbook authored by Emma Miller Bolenius and published in 1919 contains this introduction to the suggested reading for Columbus Day (12 October): When Columbus lived, people thought that the Earth was flat. They believed the Atlantic Ocean to be filled with monsters large enough to devour their ships, and with fearful waterfalls over which their frail vessels would plunge to destruction. Columbus had to fight these foolish beliefs in order to get men to sail with him. He felt sure
1480-485: The Brethren are still a danger. He tells Giuliano to fortify the palace in preparation for their attack. In the meantime, the Brethren are driving people out of the city, isolating the palace. Giuliano wants to cancel the masque that will celebrate his accession, but Marco is confident they can defend the palace against the Brethren. The Doctor calculates there will be a lunar eclipse that evening – Mandragora swallowing
1554-536: The Brethren, expanding and then fading away. "Hieronymous" removes his mask – it was the Doctor, imitating the cult leader's voice. The Doctor explains it as a case of "energy squared", putting the Mandragora Helix back where it came from. The Doctor and Sarah make their goodbyes to Giuliano. Just before they leave the Doctor tells Sarah that while Giuliano will not have any more trouble with Mandragora, humanity will. The constellation will be in position at about
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#17328456101991628-603: The Caribbean islands allowed him to return safely to Europe. Otherwise his crews would have died, and the ships foundered. In 1834, a few years after the publication of Irving's book, Jean Antoine Letronne , a French academic of strong antireligious ideas, misrepresented the church fathers and their medieval successors as believing in a flat Earth in his On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers . Then in 1837,
1702-668: The Church to the advancement of science. The story of widespread religious belief in the flat Earth was repeated by Andrew Dickson White in his 1876 The Warfare of Science and elaborated twenty years later in his two-volume History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom , which exaggerated the number and significance of medieval flat-Earthers to support White's model of warfare between dogmatic theology and scientific progress. As Draper and White's metaphor of ongoing warfare between
1776-447: The Count decides to kill his "pagan" nephew. The guards corner Giuliano and attack. Sarah runs into the catacombs calling for the Doctor, but is caught by the Brethren. The Helix attack stops, but the Doctor is prevented from venturing further into the temple. He leaves to find Giuliano fighting the guards and joins in. Giuliano is wounded and the Brethren emerge from the forest and force the guards to retreat. The Doctor and Giuliano enter
1850-444: The Doctor find Sarah, who cannot remember anything after her capture by the cult. They reach the palace dungeons through a secret passage. The Doctor confronts Hieronymous, whom he has deduced is the leader of the Brethren. Sarah secretly follows. When the Doctor speaks to Hieronymous, Sarah sneaks up behind him with the needle, but the Doctor snaps her out of the trance, just as the guards come for Hieronymous. The astrologer escapes, but
1924-436: The Doctor's chest, knocking him back painfully, but the Doctor survives. At the masque, the Brethren make their appearance, and the masqueraders run about in panic as they fire into the crowd. Hieronymous then appears and tells the Brethren to take the others into the temple for the final sacrifice. The Moon goes into eclipse, and the Brethren place their hands on the altar as a ball of Helix energy descends. However, it consumes
1998-562: The Dukedom. Angered, Federico demands Hieronymous make up a new horoscope and poison Giuliano before the next evening. The Doctor deduces that the Helix chose San Martino because the Brethren provided a ready-made power base. The Doctor asserts that the 15th century was the transition between the Dark Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance – the Helix could gain control of the Earth now through
2072-542: The Earth is round, but just stopped saying it was flat." The 1937 popular song " They All Laughed " contains the couplet "They all laughed at Christopher Columbus/When he said the world was round". In the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon Hare We Go (1951) Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand the Catholic quarrel about the shape of the Earth; the king states the Earth is flat. In Walt Disney's 1963 animation The Sword in
2146-411: The Earth was as flat as a stove lid and that it floated on water like half of a sliced orange." Robert Burton , in his The Anatomy of Melancholy wrote: Virgil , sometime bishop of Salzburg (as Aventinus anno 745 relates), by Bonifacius , bishop of Mentz , was therefore called in question, because he held antipodes (which they made a doubt whether Christ died for) and so by that means took away
2220-466: The Earth was round. Previous editions of Thomas Bailey 's The American Pageant stated that "The superstitious sailors [of Columbus's crew] ... grew increasingly mutinous ... because they were fearful of sailing over the edge of the world"; however, no such historical account is known. A 2009 survey of schoolbooks from Austria and Germany showed that the Flat Earth myth became dominant in
2294-461: The Earth's shape, when he mocks those who declared that the Earth has the form of a globe". Other historians quickly followed Whewell, although they could identify few other examples. The American chemist John William Draper wrote a History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874), employing the claim that the early Church fathers thought the Earth was flat as evidence of the hostility of
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2368-582: The English philosopher of science William Whewell , in his History of the Inductive Sciences , identified Lactantius , author of Institutiones Divinae (c. 310), and Cosmas Indicopleustes , author of Christian Topography (c. 548), as evidence of a medieval belief in a Flat Earth. Lactantius had been ridiculed much earlier by Copernicus in De revolutionibus of 1543 as someone who "Speaks quite childishly about
2442-650: The Helix, and the Doctor and Sarah duck behind the TARDIS as a fragment of glowing Helix energy flies by. They escape in the TARDIS, not knowing that the fragment has entered with them. In 15th century San Martino in Italy, a peasant revolt is violently put down by Count Federico and his men, led by Captain Rossini. In a palace, Federico's brother, the Duke of San Martino, lies dying, attended to by his son Giuliano and Giuliano's companion Marco. The Duke's death had been foretold by Hieronymous,
2516-423: The Helix, which begins infusing him and his followers with power. Disguised in hoods, the Doctor, Federico and the guards enter and witness the ceremony. Federico steps forward, calls Hieronymous a traitor, and rips off the golden mask, only to reveal glowing energy in place of a face. Hieronymous raises a finger, and electrical energy stabs out at the Count, reducing him to ashes. Hieronymous then fires at and kills
2590-503: The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus , was published and mistaken by many for a scholarly work. In Book II, Chapter IV of this biography, Irving gave a largely fictional account of the meetings of a commission established by the Spanish sovereigns to examine Columbus 's proposals. One of his more fanciful embellishments was a highly unlikely tale that the more ignorant and bigoted members on
2664-477: The Mandragora Helix to rule the Earth. The Doctor shows Sarah some of the TARDIS interior, and they come across the secondary console room. Activating the viewscreen, the Doctor sees a swirl of living energy in the time vortex – the Mandragora Helix, which starts to draw them in. The intelligence within the Helix psychically attacks them as the Doctor tries to pilot the TARDIS through it. The ship ends up inside
2738-577: The Middle Ages as twelve ignorant centuries of "profound night", a theme exemplified by the flat-Earth myth in Letronne's "On the Cosmological Opinions of the Church Fathers". Historian of science Edward Grant makes a case that the flat-Earth myth developed in the context of a more general assault upon the Middle Ages and upon scholastic thought, which can be traced back to Francesco Petrarch in
2812-520: The Middle Ages thought the Earth is flat appears to date from the 17th century as part of the campaign by Protestants against Catholic teaching. But it gained currency in the 19th century, thanks to inaccurate histories such as John William Draper's History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). Atheists and agnostics championed
2886-453: The Moon ;– and when the Helix takes over, it will remove all sense of purpose from mankind. Right now, however, the Helix energy is spread thinly over all the Brethren, and it could be exhausted. He asks Giuliano for a breastplate and a length of wire. Wearing the breastplate under his coat, if he has guessed right about the nature of Helix energy, he could drain it off. Hieronymous knows of
2960-456: The Roman god of moonlight and solstice. In the palace courtyard, the Doctor is led to the executioner. Before the executioner's sword lands, the Doctor unfurls his scarf and hooks it around the executioner's ankle, throwing him off balance. The Doctor escapes and finds his way into catacombs beneath the city. The guards, fearing the Brethren of Demnos who reside there, stop their pursuit. Inside, Sarah
3034-524: The Season 14 Collection on Blu-ray on 4 May 2020. This serial was also released as part of the Doctor Who DVD Files in issue 64 on 15 June 2011. Doctor Who (season 14) The fourteenth season of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 4 September 1976 with The Masque of Mandragora , and ended with The Talons of Weng-Chiang . The third Fourth Doctor series, it
The Masque of Mandragora - Misplaced Pages Continue
3108-677: The Silurians (1970). Robert James had previously played Lesterson in The Power of the Daleks (1966). Martin Wiggins, senior lecturer and fellow at the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon, has compared this story's plot with Hamlet : "It has an inexperienced, intellectual prince, a usurping duke, and a debate about the conflict between science and religion that recalls Hamlet's musings on
3182-509: The Stone , wizard Merlin (who has traveled into the future) explains to a young Arthur that "man will discover in centuries to come" that the Earth is round, and rotates . In 2019, CNN published an article on the modern flat earth movement featuring the Flammarion engraving with an inaccurate caption "A medieval engraving of a scientist leaving the world, representing the change in conceptions of
3256-417: The broadcasts of The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil in order to extend the season further into 1977, allowing Robert Holmes time to work on the final serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang . The entire season was broadcast from 4 September 1976 to 2 April 1977. All releases are for DVD unless otherwise indicated: Myth of the flat Earth The myth of the flat Earth , or the flat-Earth error ,
3330-456: The catacombs. Sarah is brought back to the astrologer's chambers where she is left gagged as the Priest and Hieronymous talk. The priest is eager to sacrifice Sarah, but Hieronymous decides to use her as bait for the Doctor. Hieronymous allowed the Brethren to save Giuliano because the young prince may still have value. Sarah is hypnotised to believe the Doctor is an evil sorcerer. Hieronymous gives her
3404-708: The commission had raised scriptural objections to Columbus's assertions that the Earth was spherical. The issue in the 1490s was not the shape of the Earth, but its size, and the position of the east coast of Asia, as Irving in fact points out. Historical estimates from Ptolemy onward placed the coast of Asia about 180° east of the Canary Islands . Columbus adopted an earlier (and rejected) distance of 225°, added 28° (based on Marco Polo's travels), and then placed Japan another 30° further east. Starting from Cape St. Vincent in Portugal , Columbus made Eurasia stretch 283° to
3478-429: The court astrologer , but Giuliano, a man of science, does not believe in such superstition. In fact, Hieronymous is working for Federico, and the horoscope's prediction of the Duke's death was helped along by poison. Hieronymous tells the Count that he feels his powers are growing, but all Federico wants is for the astrologer to foretell Giuliano's death next, and he will take care of the rest. The TARDIS materialises in
3552-422: The court, the Doctor tells Federico that the energy fragment could spell the end of the world. The Count at first thinks the Doctor is a seer, like Hieronymous, but when the astrologer quizzes the Doctor, it becomes clear that the Doctor has some differences of opinion. Federico orders the Doctor to be executed as a spy. Meanwhile, Sarah is brought before a priest and told that she is the foretold sacrifice to Demnos,
3626-463: The degree and for the circumference of the Earth was therefore about 25% too small. The combined effect of these mistakes was that Columbus estimated the distance to Japan to be only about 5,000 km (or only to the eastern edge of the Caribbean ) while the true figure is about 20,000 km. The Spanish scholars may not have known the exact distance to the east coast of Asia, but they believed that it
3700-603: The east, leaving the Atlantic as only 77° wide. Since he planned to leave from the Canaries (9° further west), his trip to Japan would only need to cover 68° of longitude. Columbus mistakenly assumed that the mile referred to in the Arabic estimate of 56⅔ miles for the size of a degree matched the Italian mile of about 1,480 meters, when it was about 30% longer . His estimate for the size of
3774-860: The end of the 20th century. Working titles for this story included The Catacombs of Death and The Curse of Mandragora . The ultimate name references the masque, entertainment performed by masked players, that later plays a key role in the plot. Location shooting for the serial was done at the resort of Portmeirion in Wales, better known as the setting for the cult series The Prisoner . Tim Pigott-Smith previously played Captain Harker in The Claws of Axos (1971). Norman Jones previously played Khrisong in The Abominable Snowmen (1967) and Major Baker in Doctor Who and
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#17328456101993848-514: The fact that in Dante's The Divine Comedy , about an epic voyage through hell, purgatory and heaven, the Earth is spherical with gravity being towards the center of the Earth. As the Devil is frozen in a block of ice in the center of the Earth, Dante and Virgil climb down the Devil's torso, but up from the Devil's waist to his feet, as his waist is at the center of the Earth. Jeffrey Burton Russell rebutted
3922-478: The flat-Earth error as one of a number of widespread misconceptions in popular views of the Middle Ages . Both E. M. W. Tillyard's book The Elizabethan World Picture and C. S. Lewis' The Discarded Image are devoted to a broad survey of how the universe was viewed in Renaissance and medieval times, and both extensively discuss how the educated classes knew the world was round. Lewis draws attention to
3996-638: The fourteenth century. Grant sees "one of the most extreme assaults against the Middle Ages" in Draper's History of the Intellectual Development of Europe , which appeared a decade before Draper presented the flat-Earth myth in his History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science . Andrew Dickson White's motives were more complex. As the first president of Cornell University , he had advocated that it be established without any religious ties, instead serving as "an asylum for science". Furthermore, he
4070-473: The guards but does not seem to have seen the Doctor. The Doctor joins the circle around the Helix as Hieronymous announces that Mandragora will swallow the moon the next evening and then the Brethren will strike. The Doctor slips away unnoticed. In the palace dungeons, Rossini is about to kill the prisoners when the Doctor arrives and reveals that Federico is dead. The guards change their allegiance to Giuliano and take Rossini into custody. The Doctor observes that
4144-424: The guards capture the Doctor, Sarah, and Giuliano. In the dungeons, Federico accuses the prisoners of being followers of Demnos. Rossini rushes in, informing the Count that members of the Brethren are moving towards the temple. The Doctor tries to convince Federico that Hieronymous is the real threat. Federico takes the Doctor with him and some guards, leaving the others as hostages. In the temple, Hieronymous summons
4218-548: The history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat", and ascribes popularization of the flat-Earth myth to histories by John William Draper , Andrew Dickson White , and Washington Irving . In Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians , Jeffrey Russell describes the Flat Earth theory as a fable used to impugn pre-modern civilization and creationism . James Hannam wrote: The myth that people in
4292-471: The main antagonist, his first appearance since Frontier in Space (1973), this time played by Peter Pratt . The character would not make a further appearance until five years later in 1981. The Masque of Mandragora saw the debut of the new wood-panelled "Secondary Console Room" set, which was to be used as the main TARDIS console room throughout the season. The season took a five-week transmission break between
4366-412: The masked ball ending and the costumes and music, and remarked that "perhaps the only feeble note is the representation of the Helix". DVD Talk 's Ian Jane gave The Masque of Mandragora three and a half out of five stars, calling it "pretty entertaining stuff". While he felt that "it's a bit predictable and most of the supporting cast is surprisingly poorly defined", he praised Baker and the atmosphere of
4440-646: The nature of the supernatural world." Paul Cornell , Martin Day , and Keith Topping wrote of the serial in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), "One of the few metaphors in Doctor Who history (nasty alien energy mass = superstition and scientific ignorance) is blurred by the lack of actual scientific understanding that the story exhibits. Looks and sounds great, though." In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker reported that viewers had
4514-485: The preface to his History of the Warfare of Science and Theology in Christendom , where he explained the lack of advanced instruction in many American colleges and universities as a consequence of their "sectarian character". The flat-Earth myth, like other myths, took on artistic form in the many works of art displaying Columbus defending the sphericity of the Earth before the Council of Salamanca . American artists depicted
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#17328456101994588-402: The prevalence of belief in the flat Earth in a monograph and two papers. Louise Bishop states that virtually every thinker and writer of the 1000-year medieval period affirmed the spherical shape of the Earth. Although the misconception has been frequently refuted in historical scholarship since at least 1920, it has nonetheless persisted in popular culture and even some school textbooks into
4662-653: The scientific progress of the Enlightenment and the religious obscurantism of the " Dark Ages " became widely accepted, it spread the idea of medieval belief in the flat Earth. The widely circulated engraving of a man poking his head through the firmament surrounding the Earth to view the Empyrean , executed in the style of the 16th century, was published in Camille Flammarion 's L'Atmosphère: Météorologie Populaire (Paris, 1888, p. 163). The engraving illustrates
4736-619: The seat of hell, or so contracted it, that it could bear no proportion to heaven, and contradicted that opinion of Austin [St. Augustine], Basil, Lactantius, that held the Earth round as a trencher (whom Acosta and common experience more largely confute) but not as a ball. Thus, there is evidence that accusations of Flat Earthism, though somewhat whimsical (Burton ends his digression with a legitimate quotation of Augustine: "Better doubt of things concealed, than to contend about uncertainties, where Abraham's bosom is, and hell fire" ), were used to discredit opposing authorities several centuries before
4810-536: The second half of the 20th century and persists in most historical textbooks written for German and Austrian schools. As recently as 1983, Daniel Boorstin published a historical survey, The Discoverers , which presented the Flammarion engraving on its cover and proclaimed that "from AD 300 to at least 1300 ... Christian faith and dogma suppressed the useful image of the world that had been so ... scrupulously drawn by ancient geographers." Boorstin dedicated
4884-536: The serial and wrote that ultimately the good outweighs the bad. A novelisation of this serial, written by Philip Hinchcliffe , was published by Target Books in December 1977. A French translation of it was published in 1987. An unabridged reading of the novelisation read by Tim Pigott-Smith was released by BBC Audiobooks in April 2009. This story was released on VHS in August 1991, on DVD on 8 February 2010, and as part of
4958-539: The ships barely reached the islands of the eastern Caribbean. Already the crews were mutinous, not because of some fear of "sailing off the edge", but because they were running out of food and water with no chance of any new supplies within sailing distance. They were on the edge of starvation. Columbus' expedition was saved by reaching the Americas, about which he knew nothing, precisely at the point he thought he would reach Japan. His ability to resupply with food and water from
5032-422: The statement in the text that a medieval missionary claimed that "he reached the horizon where the Earth and the heavens met". In its original form, the engraving included a decorative border that places it in the 19th century. In later publications, some of which claimed that the engraving dates to the 16th century, the border was removed. Since the early 20th century, a number of books and articles have documented
5106-617: The temple, the Helix manifests itself as a pillar of red light and tells the purple-robed figure that he will be given undreamed-of powers to carry out its will on Earth and become the planet's supreme ruler. After the Helix vanishes, the figure removes his mask, revealing the face of Hieronymous. The guards take the Doctor and Sarah to Giuliano, who shows him the dead guard's body and tells the Doctor of fears that if Federico rules San Martino, all knowledge and learning will be suppressed. Elsewhere, Federico discovers that Giuliano has invited several nobles to San Martino to celebrate his succession to
5180-412: The world in the 16th century". The Hebrew Bible depicts a three-part world, with the heavens ( shamayim ) above, Earth (eres) in the middle, and the underworld (sheol) below. The Old Testament teaches the view that was current at the time and place of its writing: that the earth is a disk, with stars on a firmament above it, and beyond the stars is the cosmic sea. Historical writers have identified
5254-468: Was a strong advocate of Darwinism , saw religious figures as the main opponents of Darwinian evolution, and sought to project that conflict between theology and science back through the entire Christian Era. However, as some historians have pointed out, the nineteenth-century conflict over Darwinism incorporated disputes over the relative authority of professional scientists and clergy in the fields of science and education. White made this concern manifest in
5328-410: Was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference". Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat-Earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over biological evolution . Russell claims "with extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in
5402-628: Was significantly further than Columbus's projection; and this was the basis of the criticism in Spain and Portugal, whether academic or among mariners, of the proposed voyage. The disputed point was not the shape of the Earth, nor the idea that going west would eventually lead to Japan and China, but the ability of European ships to sail that far across open seas. The small ships of the day (Columbus's three ships varied between 20.5 and 23.5 m – or 67 to 77 feet – in length and carried about 90 men) simply could not carry enough food and water to reach Japan. As it was,
5476-766: Was the final series of Philip Hinchcliffe 's production, whilst Robert Holmes stayed till The Sun Makers in the next series. Tom Baker continues his role as the Fourth Doctor . Sarah Jane Smith ( Elisabeth Sladen ) departs in The Hand of Fear , before the Doctor is joined by Leela ( Louise Jameson ) in The Face of Evil . Uniquely in the 'classic' era of Doctor Who , no companion appears in The Deadly Assassin . The Master reappears in The Deadly Assassin as
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