How did Christopher Columbus help influence a break from the medieval worldview?

Answer 1

The real answer is -- he DIDN'T! Columbus's voyages were one important step in a process that had been going on for sometime as Europeans made improvements in navigation technology and the nation-states sought new ways to get to markets (esp. the Far East, after the land

But the whole story about Columbus proving the world was round to those benighted by the Church into thinking it was flat is utter nonsense. In fact, scholars had known the world was round for millennia! And a read of numerous scholars from the Venerable Bede to Thomas Aquinas demonstrates this.

Ironically, the religious opponents to Columbus's proposed voyage did so on the basis of their estimate that the world was much larger and the Far East much further away than he thought it was, making such a voyage beyond the capabilities of that day. In fact, THEIR estimate was much more accurate than his!! The only thing that saved him from death at sea was his unexpectedly discovering lands in between that none had expected. (Till his death Columbus thought he had reached the edge of the Indies.)

The sad thing is that the reason people THINK Columbus was fighting backward "medieval" thinking is that a number of strong ANTI-religious propagandists over the past three centuries have spread this view... and Washington Iriving unwittingly echoed it in his popular biography of Columbus.

For more on the mistaken ideas that the "medieval" period was somehow anti-scientific and anti-intellectual, begin with the article below. In fact, the ROOTS of science as well as the beginnings of the modern university system were in the church, and in strongly committed Christians. Doesn't fit the bias, but it does fit the facts!

"False Conflict" by Rodney Stark
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17713/article_detail.asp
________________

Compare the remarks of Paul H. Freedman (Director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities) -
"Medievalists have been at (largely unsuccessful) pains to convince their students that the "Dark Ages" is a misnomer, that the centuries between 500 and 1500 saw not only the birth of Europe but the beginnings of parliamentary democracy, romantic affection, universities, and even the discovery of the individual as a complex, internally contradictory agent in uneasy relation to society. "
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/rpw_center/chart.htm

and this, by John Moore:

"In fact, although scientists at times have been persecuted, the scholastic tradition and modern science were a direct result of the Roman Catholic Church. In the "dark" ages, the church (and especially its belief system about progress and learning the details of God's works) created the first Universities, the concept of academic freedom (even to the extent that scholars could travel through hostile lands safely) and science itself. This is well documented (it started around 1100 AD) but very few people know it - including academics.

"It is popular history that science was either Greek in origin, or from the Enlightenment (or perhaps from the Arabs). That, however, ignores the facts, just as "the dark ages" is a misnomer. The rise of science (not just observations) in Europe but nowhere else is not an accident - the causative factors were the Catholic belief system, the church's ability to set up institutions, and the monastic system which gave many scholars the time and place to do their work, not to mention providing other folks to write and duplicate work before the age of the printing press."
http://gmroper.mu.nu/archives/169558.php

and the following clip from G. K. Chesterton's, "Orthodoxy" (1961,
reprint, p.146)
http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/200005/0133.html

Answer 2

First, in 1492, only total hicks still believed the world was round.

Up to that point, "scientific knowledge" was generally understood as what the Bible said about given phenomena, supplemented by the writings of Greek masters like Ptolemy. Discovering a whole new continent never mentioned by either set of sources shed doubts on the authority of these sources more generally, fueling (perhaps even sparking) humanism, the Scientific Revolution, and even the Reformation.

Answer 3

LOL Rae, the Indians (native Americans) discovered that those sticks that Columbus's men were carrying hur like the dickens when they made fire. they discovered that the blankets made them sick and die. that the Europeans had a sickness that made them crave Gold and Silver. that the Europeans had NO respect for the Earth, and seemed to feel that the Earth was theirs for the taking rather than something to be loved and tenderly cared for. BB, Raji the Green Witch

Answer 4

Well he proved most people at the time wrong by showing that the world is round and that there was more land on Earth then previously thought

Answer 5

by totally changing the fact,that the earth was not square as they
used to perceive and have for granted ,in that period,and proving
that the earth was round or elliptic,resulting in a new mapping
configuration of the world

Answer 6

By showing that the world may be round.

Answer 7

he influenced a change in the common intellectualism. but u should do ur own homework, if that's what this is. : )