Ferdinand Magellan Essay Example

Ferdinand Magellan was a simple portuguese man who had big dreams and a enormous amount of determination. The changes that he brought about were unknown to him at the time but would eventually shape the modern world. When his crew circumnavigated the globe a lot of things began to be questioned such as the church's authority and eventually the entire medieval mindset. The success of the voyage allowed other discoveries that further discredited the common misconceptions of the time; such as Kepler's discoveries. Ferdinand Magellan was a hero of the middle ages not only because he circumnavigated the globe but because he ushered in the modern era.

People began to discredit the church’s power because the new discoveries proved what the church had been saying was wrong. "The discoveries also undermined the pontifical dogma on the character of the globe, introducing yet another threat to papal prestige" (Manchester 229). More and things began to strip away the vatican’s power and allowed people to formulate their own idea based off of facts. Magellan and his crew discovered natives that had never heard of the Bible or God and believed in pagan gods and were thriving. Through exploration and the recent reformation people were starting to question the church and it’s ideas about the world.

When Magellan proved the world was round other people began to make even more astonishing discoveries about the Earth and the universe. These discoveries ultimately changed how people thought, two of these specifically uprooted many of the thought to be unchangeable facts of the time. Kepler proved that the Earth orbits the sun and Galileo proved that the Earth was not at the center of the universe. "The dethronement of the Earth from the centre of the universe caused profound shock... the entire system of ancient authority required a complete change in man’s philosophical conception of the universe" (Manchester 294).